Day 32: What would Plato have to say about this?

What a day. I'm pretty exhausted right now; I've been home for an hour or so and I'm considering going straight to bed. Even Gok Wan can't keep me up right now.

Anyway, one of the reasons I came back to the house late was because we had a special meeting after school. All the staff were invited to go, including admin and other non-teaching staff, and the head had not given away any reason. Mysterious. I will explain the reason later, but suffice to say there was speculation floating around the department as to the exact nature of the secret meeting.

Last night I couldn't sleep. In fact, it was the worst night's sleep I'd had since the start of term. I was thinking through all the lessons I'd be having today (4) and what to do about them. I also couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I was being observed by someone from London Challenge with my year 11s.

Anyway, I overslept but managed to get on a bus and get in by 8.15 which wasn't too bad, and had first lesson off to sort myself out. The nerves were beginning to get to me, which I hate! Year 11 came, and I'd set up the lesson, which plenty of AFL (or so I thought) and a bit of Lilac-inspired active learning. Of course, that didn't really work out, but the guys got into their groups and I explained what was going to happen. As the inspector/observer guy turned up I started watching the groups perform one at a time. The first boys were actually great. They really got into it, and I'll be sure to give them some good marks tomorrow when I get around to sorting out the scores. The observer gave me feedback, which was constructive and mostly positive, so I was quite pleased.

After break I had year 9, and I was a little worried, although I'd planned to just do a quick starter and then watch the film. Behaviour was... interesting. The boys (and it is always the boys) took ages to settle down, although I eventually got the film on which I didn't finish, and I had to pause it at one point to yell at a couple of boys whom I kept behind to tell off. I also confiscated a bag, a can of Charlie Pink spray and a mobile phone. Meh.

Then after lunch was year 10. I basically set them the coursework to do, and let them get on with it, while I marked and checked various pieces of work. I was in a bit of a state when a boy handed me a 5-page piece which was almost entirely plagiarised. I read it several times, then took him outside to ask him about it. I ended up telling him to rewrite the whole thing from the start. What a shame. There had been some sort of fight (not in my classroom) and one of the girls turned up late with an icepack on her head. I didn't ask.

I was a little fed up with that class, but was more worried about year 8, who were next. My colleague waited in the corridor as they came in, presumably because I took so long to bring them in as I was sorting out the room from year 10, and they took aaages to settle. I read them three chapters, doing some ridiculous maid-from-Tom-and-Jerry voices to spice it up a bit, and then we watched the film. Their behaviour was still pretty rubbish. meh.

I went for a quick cigarette with colleagues and we speculated about the meeting we'd be having at half 3. We'd received a mysterious email from the head, which didn't detail the reason for the all-staff meeting. Several theories were passed around, and it was interesting to look back and think someone was right.

As it turned out, we had to wait 20 minutes for the "guest" to arrive, who was a bloke from the council. Their was another governor too, and with the head they proceeded to tell us that the school is, to cut a VERY long story short, going to become an academy.

Not a shock, really, as the school is quite a way away from government's 30% target for A-C grades, and it had been mentioned before. It would seem that the school is trying to keep ahead of the game, which is pretty clever, but I've got to say, I don't like the whole idea of academies: I've yet to see one, other than the original, that has genuinely succeeded, but the government still insists on throwing them around everywhere. Anyway, maybe I just don't know enough about it. Maybe I'm just tired. Probably that one.