Days 84-90: Ennui

So I've been getting a lot of people (well, 4) commenting on the fact that I haven't done my blog in a while. Looking back, I realise that I haven't updated in over a week. That's possibly the longest yet.

I'm not going to bother even trying to go over in as much detail as normal the week and a half I've missed off, save for a few "highlights". What I will say is this: after a long, arduous term in autumn, working from 7am until 10 or later at night, I decided that I didn't want to be pumping as many hours into this career anymore. For a start, I fucking hated working that much. So I decided to relax a bit, come in early, leave earlier, and not worry too much if every resource for every lesson is perfect or not.

So on the one hand I have felt a lot less stressed at home. On the other, I've felt way more stressed at work. I've gotten into the habit of leaving all my prep to the morning before school, which meant that the lessons which weren't finished felt rushed and unprepared. In turn, I've felt a lot less happy about them. So although I know I was pushing myself way too hard before Christmas, I've now gone the other way. I need to redress the balance, so after half term I'm going to try to find a happy medium.

Before then, I've got little less than two weeks left. The best part is, I'm not even in school next week; I'm going to be on my second school placement at the local OUTSTANDING grammar (I think) school. So now I have four days left with my kids.

So here's what you've missed:

So the last couple of weeks felt primarily concerned with Year 9. A has been in and out of several lessons, and on one occasion, when I was teaching on my own, I sent him out and had to send for SLT to remove him. One senior teacher turned up, and not only removed him but sat in the end of my lesson. Awkward.

I also did speaking and listening with Year 10. We played a few (alcohol free) drinking games to get them warmed up, which was pretty fun. They were all quite good, but I was silly enough to allow certain students to come and perform for me later in break and lunch time. Mainly to fit them all in.

I also had to have my professional tutor (and Teachy Firsty LDO) come in to help me fill in my journal (still not up to date.) Shame.

This was what I had written for that Friday:

There may be 52 of them a year, but it doesn't stop Friday being the most wonderful day ever. At least, I thought so.

I skipped into work pretty early, being the first to arrive in the department (bar the cleaner) and did a happy little dance at the thought of having such a good day. As with every Friday, I only had two lessons - the best two, as well. I was looking forward to the end of the day and the fact that payday is now only a week away.

I finished off the Year 10 Speaking & Listening and then looked forward to the library session with year 7. In break I had a weirdly full classroom - with kids coming in to perform their speaking and listening (more on that later) and a year 7 doing her detention. Plus another year 7 just turned up because she was bored. One of my year 11s even turned up to get me to fill in his college application form, which was nice to see.

Year 7's library session turned into an extremely stressful lesson. The kids were hyper, and I was pissed off that my usual hour for quiet reading was ruined by kids that just did not want to. I spent the hour walking around telling the buggers to be quiet and separating them. Very frustrating.

I spent period 5 babysitting some of the more hyperactive year 8s that were kicked out of their lessons, then shot off to FINALLY speak to A. I'd been trying to track him down all week for a chat. Luckily for me he'd been kicked out of his art class so I could sit and chat to him about his behaviour. We decided (or rather, I got him to agree) that he would try hard on Monday and, depending on that behaviour, I would or would not call his mother. I needn't have bothered with that conversation, as it turned out, but I was becoming concerned that our 'relationship' which had been quite effective, if I could call it that, before Christmas, had deteriorated somewhat. I was determined to sort things out. So that was one week over, thank goodness, and I probably went to the pub after. How funny that I've forgotten already.

I wasn't looking forward to the next week - my heavier week, as it were. Do I ever?

The highlight of Monday was my observation with my professional tutor in my first period. When I say highlight, I am of course being deeply sarcastic. The lesson was never going to work, what with my attempting to put them into groups. I had to make some quick adaptations to keep them on task, eventually lumping the disruptive kids together. The lesson culminated with one of my naughtier girls, S, pushing my most obnoxious boy, W, over a table. Hilarity ensued. Not. "Yes... they're not really a very nice group, are they?" were my tutor's first words after.

On Wednesday the highlight by far was my year 7 group performing their Romeo and Juliet Jeremy Kyle Show things. They were fairly amusing, especially one group that ended up adding some rather more dramatic elements (shootings and so forth) qhich certainly livened up my morning.

Another highlight of the day, or rather week, was year 11. I had prepared a lesson myself on a short story which I didn't know very well, but I was looking forward to teaching it. ("Never look forward to a lesson - you'll only be disappointed.") As it turned out, the kids were pretty good. I was a little irritated that K came in and put his head straight down on the desk as I was reading. He did take his jacket and hat off first, thankfully. I decided to let him lie there rather than interrupt my story telling, because he'd been really responsive in the previous couple of lessons, even provoking me to applaud him with one of his answers. So I was sat on my desk discussing the story with my group when another member of SLT turned up at the door.
"I'm just looking for someone, but he's not here." he said.
"Ok, no worries." I garbled.
As he went to turn away he caught a glimpse of the sleeping K, and gently rebuked him. How embarrassing. As it turned out, K was probably the one person he was looking for, as by the end of the day I'd received an email stating that five students, including K and another in that group, had been excluded for "robbery and bringing the school into disrepute."

Last lesson Wednesday I had year 10, and on the advice of my colleague I gave them a creative writing task, at which some of them were excellent. They had to write on a topic of their choice for about half an hour, although getting them to silence was near impossible, which it shouldn't be really. I read out a couple at the end, and there were some crackers.

After school on Wednesday we had a departmental meeting, which was primarily focussed on year 11 and the new exam board specifications which will be starting this September. I also managed to do the most embarrassing thing yet: burst into tears in the middle of the damned thing. Why? Well, I felt sad for my year 11s. They have once again been excluded from any sort of booster initiative (obviously the school wants to focus on the kids that might get a C.) I've really started to like the boys in that group, and I respect so much the guys in there that try really hard. There are kids in there that could do a lot better if they had language or basic literacy help, and there are kids in there that try so hard but will probably never do any better. It makes me feel so sad and helpless - I don't know, I genuinely don't know what I can do to help them. Of course, I got a lot of ribbing for the tears (it was ridiculous after all) but I'm still concerned that I need to think of a way to help them more. Perhaps an after school revision club...

On Thursday all I can remember is having to deal with year 9. First off, A was back in the classroom and I had to practically sit on him all lesson to make him behave, and he still couldn't. I also had to deal with the nightmare boys who just wouldn't shut up. We kept about five of them behind because they were infuriating - throwing things, answering back and being generally stupid. I threatened them all with bringing their mothers in, although I should really step up my SIMS logging if I'm going to do that. I need to implement a better seating plan, and stat!

I finished the evening with TF training at a local(ish) school. The only good thing was that my colleague went with me, and made the whole thing (it was on data) hilarious rather than just tedious. Plus there were some nice flapjacks.

On Friday I had Teach Firsty training, so didn't have to go to school, obviously. Instead I spent the day in a classroom in Birkbeck discussing all sorts of school-related jazz whilst nursing a hangover. It wasn't great, but it certainly wasn't terrible either. Friday was also pay day. Hurrah! I ended up having a fabulous weekend to round off what was a rather difficult week.

So that's been it. I can't believe I'm nearly half way through the year. Just one more week to get through.