Days 93-95: Welcome to Civilisation

The rest of the week flew by remarkably quickly.

On Wednesday my year 9s had their assessment, and I was gobsmacked by how they settled down to do it. My colleague gave me some pretty nice feedback, saying I got them settled well and managed to fit in the whole assessment. A couple of the kids were acting up, particularly A. I was impressed by how hard U worked, although to be honest he just wants to do well on the assessment so that he can apply to do some course next year (fair enough, to be honest.)

After the pleasant-as-usual year 11, I had year 10 last lesson, and was observed by my professional tutor and LDO. I tried doing a starter on semi-colons, which wasn't brilliant, although a lot of the kids did manage to fit them in to their work, and I had a real laugh reading out the work of one of the girls who wrote a surprisingly accurate sequel to the Twilight saga.

After the lesson and a quick chat with my observers, I went down to meet A for our after school meeting. I wasn't looking forward to it, as I didn't really know what to do, and I had to go to The Outstanding School afterwards to organise my second school placement for next week. Big surprise: A stood me up.

I went off to visit The Outstanding School and was warmly received by the Head of English, who gave me a tour and asked what I wanted to see. He seemed very nice indeed, and entertained me for an hour. The only criticism I had, which was to be expected, was the reaction I got when I was introduced to someone and they were told my school's name. With each one, I had a sympathetic smile and a nod of "welcome to civilisation." I'm not sure what to say about that.

After my meeting, I went back to school, where year 9 options evening was in full swing. I ran off to the pub with my colleague, and ran into A and his mum on the way. Apparently A didn't think he needed to go to out meeting, because his mother had called to say she couldn't make it. I decided to give him another chance, so arranged to meet him the same time on Thursday.

Thursday came and went pretty smoothly, and I was once again looking forward to my meeting with A. I went down to reception, a couple of minutes later than expected, to meet him. I waited for a while, with no sign. One of the SLT who was on duty at the reception door informed me that he had "gotten into trouble" so I decided to give him five minutes just in case. I turned to look through the glass reception doors in time to see him leaving with his mother. Confused, I walked in and was intercepted by another member of SLT.
"Forget about him," she said. "Pretend he was never here."
A, as it turned out, was called a "fat shit" by some girl in his class, and responded by throwing a chair at her. He was excluded as a result. I felt a mix of guilt and relief when I was told that his mother had protested his being asked to leave as he had "a special lesson with his English teacher" but had been shot down by the SLT. I have no idea what the future holds for him now. I guess I tried, just not hard enough.

Friday was significantly less exciting, and my year 10 lesson went by pretty quickly. Year 7 were much better behaved in the library, and I even managed to read about three pages of a Margaret Atwood novel. I finished at lunch time, as always, but didn't manage to get as much work down as I wanted, as always. I had intended to sort out my cover for the next week, but I left it too late, so got into a bit of a panic when my colleagues started leaving for the pub and I didn't know what to do with the kids. I decided to leave the cover for Monday morning, because I didn't have to be at The Outstanding School until 8.30am, so would have plenty of time. I'm sure I'll regret that decision later...