Days 78 - 80: "I want it to end with death."

It's Sunday night again and I've made it through the latter half of the week without writing my blog. The reasons are twofold.

One: I couldn't be bothered.
Two: I couldn't be bothered.

The week was punctuated midway by year 8 parents' evening. I for one was so incredibly nervous about it that I spent the hour before hand walking around in circles audibly moaning whilst trying to mark the kids' books in case any parents actually turned up to see me.

I was so wired that my colleague told me to chill out as it was obvious how nervous I was. I asked my mentor if he would sit with me, and he did. The reason for my nerves? That girl. The one with the phone call and the angry grandparent. I was so dreading coming face to face with that woman that it was sending me to distraction. I knuckled down in the end, and sat in the classroom next to my mentor, marking year 7 books to pass the time. Luckily, as soon as the first kid turned up so did my colleague with whom I share the class, and so I didn't need to see anyone alone. In the end I only spoke with 2 1/2 parents (the half being a child who turned up on her own.) Apparently the girl about whom I'd been so concerned did come to my door, but walked off without me noticing her. What an anticlimax.

Wednesday bled into Thursday, and I only had one lesson: period 5. I spent the day marking and doing various other administrative tasks, not least of all meeting with my tutor who talked me through the assignment I'd written before Christmas. I can't really remember what I wrote, although I knew it wasn't great, and so was relieved to see I'd passed, but disappointed to see how badly it had done. I shouldn't be surprised, as the attitude I've taken towards all the written assignments is that they're a waste of my time. Perhaps for the next one I'll do the required reading and send a first draft off to my tutor, so that I might stand a fighting chance of doing well.

Year 9 last period were pretty tricky. I was trying to explain stereotypes to them, but they just didn't get it ("...but it's true Miss!") Infuriating. I did show them a great video of a racist German pensioner which got them nicely riled up, especially when she started bad mouthing Turks, but they still didn't get the idea of representation. Oh well. Looks like a follow up will be required.

On Friday I only had one lesson - year 7. I decided to show them a bit of Shakespeare in Love, so that they could see what it looked like at the time, and then gave them the task of decorating my wall with posters. A few of them were confused and a few took full advantage of my vague instructions: one thing to remember is that nothing is ever as straightforward as you think it is. My classroom does now look nicely decorated, although when my colleague inspected the posters at close hand he pointed out that I perhaps should have read some of them before sticking them up ("One day Shakespeare lost his gift for writing.") Ooops.

As relieved as I was to finish such an easy week, my mind was already on the week ahead, when I'll be back to full timetable and the school will be full again when the year 10s and 11s return. I'm trying not to be negative, although I haven't been as successful as I'd hoped in marking year 11 mocks, and I have no idea what to do with them for the first lesson back.

All in all, I've had a pretty easy ride for the past two weeks, and I know it's going to suck. On the other hand, only three weeks' left of teaching then I'm going to visit the Outstanding school up the road for a week - and then it'll be half term, and I will be literally half way through the year. What a thought.