Day 11: Novelty has left the building

I suppose the best thing about teaching is that every weeks offers you the chance of a fresh start. It's what you do with it that counts. I chose to do little with this advantage, which has more to do with lethargy than choice.

Same shit, different day. Got in, prepared my classroom, cigarette (starting to sound familiar?) and had morning briefing with the rest of the staff. Nothing new to add apart from the news that all students are having biometric data stored (sort of) to avoid cash being used in the canteens. (Hello school - this is 1984, we want our concept back.) I also received emails about three of my students who are all struggling in various ways and need extra support - differentiation, anyone?

Year 7 were my first class, and it went OK. I was very aware of the one boy about whom I'd received an email stating that his mother is concerned about his self-esteem as he has trouble with his writing. His writing is pretty terrible, but he understood the lesson and was able to answer the questions I'd asked - quite adorably, in fact. They had to write sentences starting with a preposition, and one of his was "Under the bridge is a troll." Cute. I set them some group work which most of them completed, although a couple of the questions were tricky and a few had difficulty. Another group were pretty annoying and didn't behave so I'll be watching them very closely next lesson.

The lesson finished and I had three frees until my last lesson in period 5. I tried to get some marking done, but it's incredibly time consuming, and after break headed downstairs to observe the SLT who'd offered to help me. She was teaching science (not her subject) to a group of year 8s and it was quite useful to see her with them. They were pretty silent when she was talking, which was for a lot of the time, and she didn't accept hands up for answering questions, which I need to try. It's far too easy to ask a question and then choose whoever puts their hand up for the answer.

After her lesson and some lunch, I had a meeting with my HoD who ran through marking and other such protocol with me. I talked to him about the observations I'm planning on making and he gave me some more advice. He also wants me to help out with booster sessions for year 11 coursework, which was good because I was going to try to set something up. I also saw one of the PE teachers in the corridor whom I'd never met before and who asked me about my coaching qualifications. I'd forgotten about a tipsy conversation in the Bull on Friday with the PE department that involved me asking if they had a rugby team and, if not, could I help set it up. I'd eagerly volunteered, proffering my RFU Level 1 coaching qualification (not really worth a dime) and they seemed relatively impressed. That's something to look forward to.

So period five finally rolled around, and I couldn't wait for it to finish. Year 11 were restless and chatty. K threw a strop when I asked him to remove his hoodie before he came in and was utterly disruptive when he did eventually get to his seat. The lessons I admit are getting problematically formulaic, but it was nice to hear the guys actually asking to read for a change. I'm going to move their seats around tomorrow to stop some of the chatter, because they wouldn't shut up. I know it was the end of the day, but still. I feel like I have no command over them sometimes. I let them end the lesson ten minutes early to tell them that there are 4 tickets up for grabs for An Inspector Calls on Thursday, and that anyone who was interested could wait for me at the end. I felt like a complete moron when no one stayed behind. Oh well.

The day was over at last - they practically ran out of the room - and I went for a cigarette before my Teachy Firsty weekly meeting. We were talking about using praise and reward in lessons, and I think we discussed a few things that I might try to implement. My reward system is a little, er, nonexistent, and I have to work on my warnings as well. I'm going to go for a football-style card system - two yellows than a red and they're out of the lesson. We'll see how that works.

Anyway, now I'm finally at home (stayed till 7 to plan for tomorrow) and after being fed and watered I'm relaxing in front of Battlestar Galactica. Classy.