The Haunting

Last time, on A Student Teacher's Inner Thoughts and Ramblings; I was a day and a half away from finishing my 2nd placement at Haberdasher Aske's, and embarking on a final month of university-based learning. Once again, my incredible skills at regular blogging have meant that both these events have now been and gone... both were rather uneventful I suppose.

We at the Maths Department at HAHC carted ourselves off to Cafe Rouge on my last day (which I actually missed, on account of my uveitis flaring up... AGAIN. I wasn't teaching anyway, praise the Lord for KS3 exams), and I received presents! An awesome Maths book (if that's possible), chocolate (always good) ... and a stack of exam papers to mark, that my top-set Year 7 Boys had taken that day >.< wrapped in pretty paper and everything. Cunningly disguised.

So that was the end of May. A few days later I left Crewdson Road, and moved myself to my grandmothers attic in Peckham Rye. An intermittent before I find a new place nearer Ashford, ready for my start date at St. James on the 30th August. And yeah I'm still there, 2 months on. Turns out finding a flat is harder than you'd think...

Peckham Rye. You know, that place that's dangerously close to New Cross? Within the catchment area for HAHC? 

This has resulted in some really awkward chance-meetings with ex-pupils. 

The first: cycling through Peckham Rye Park. I heard a folorn voice which spake thus; "Hullo Miss Mitchell", from an old Year 7 pupil. I was going too fast to stop so I just carried on. 

The second: me exiting Peckham McDonalds, McFlurry in hand, on one of those beautiful July days we've had this year. I encountered one of my Problem Children from my Year 9 class, fortunately with his mum. He didn't say anything. Just glared. Who wouldn't, when I have a McFlurry and they don't?

The third: me exiting one of those suspicious clothes shops, the ones where it looks like everything fell off the back of a lorry? (Ironically it was called 'Loot') Another folorn voice. "Hiiii Miss Mitchell" - another Year 7. Shouldn't they be hanging around somewhere other than Peckham?

Putting that unpleasant business behind us. I've been for my induction day at St. James! I've also been given my classes and timetable and everything:

Year 7, Set 2 of 4

Year 8, Set 2 of 4

Year 9, Set 1 of 4 

Year 10, Set 4 of 4

Year 11, Set 4 of 5

Year 12, A-level Core 1 and 2.

I was also lucky enough to be given my own classroom... 

So, 4 weeks exactly and counting. Time to plan some lessons I think... haha. Any ideas for a good 'first lesson of the year'? I've not had the chance to do something like this yet!

Celebration in T-1.5 days...

Once again I have demonstrated my extreme lack of ability to keep a regular blog of my teaching experience, but not to worry. Here is a shiny new post for your reading pleasure.

So my time at HAHC (that's Haberdasher Aske's Hatcham College for those of you who don't know) is fast approaching its conclusion. Today is my penultimate day; and I'm over the moon with joy. I'd be more overjoyed if I didn't have problems with my eyes again, but that's another story. Which involves my IoE tutor informing me 20 minutes before my final formal observation last week that she'd got on the wrong train, and was hurtling at 50mph towards Clapham Junction instead of New Cross Gate. And then spending about 10 unneccessary minutes telling me off for saying 'length of circumference' instead of 'circumference'. Apparently circumference is already a measure so I don't need to decribe the length of it. Little does she know that if I'd said just 'find the circumference' the pupils would have no clue what the circumference was depsite talking about it for 10 minutes previously.


So; most of the paperwork is complete (including a rather pleasing end-of-placement report) and weekly mentor meeting logs are being fabricated as we speak. The IoE are eagerly awaiting my return on Thursday, and I've taken the liberty of writing a list of "Things that Teachers at Hatcham College don't say" -

• There is a great school Behaviour Policy.
• I find the school's Behaviour Policy very comprehensive and easy to implement.
• I just love waiting 20 minutes for the mini-bus that runs between the upper and lower school. And the drivers are so respectful towards life.
• It's highly amusing and heart-warming when Year 7's call each other racist, rapist and paedo.
• That dinner-lady is so meek and quiet you'd hardly know she was outside the office window at all times every day.
• I love the smell of fried chicken and brill cream on the bus to/from school.
• Aren't the children lovely.

Also doubles up as a list of things I'm not going to miss once I've left.

It's quite odd to think that as of tomorrow, I will supposedly have done enough teaching practice to qualify as a Maths Teacher. Not an ST (student teacher) or a BT (beginner teacher). An NQT (newly-qualified teacher), yes, but still a qualified teacher. I've finally got over feeling like I'm too young; that I don't have enough life experience or authority to lead a class, because I've proven myself wrong time and time again over this placement. And I've even stood up to the bullies.

Not bully teachers. Bully pupils. I've had a few flashbacks to my own school life, especially when that girl blocked my way in the door and said;

"Errr, YOU can't come through here!"

Here's the look I gave.

Exactly. Move aside small being. Another example of a thing I'm not going to miss when I leave.

But I think I am going to miss it, generally and in all honesty. Despite its quaint ways and ever so welcoming atmosphere. I'm particularly going to miss my top-set Year 7 Boys class - it was so good to do stuff which was well above their curriculum level with them, which some of them understood (such as Algebra - equations with unknowns on both sides. I have seen many, many examples of Year 11's who could not do this) and it was so nice to hear all of them cry out with dismay when I told them I was leaving. As opposed to my Year 9 Boys class;



"So tomorrow's my last lesson with you"

"...Yay."

- was the honest-to-God solitary response. Ungrateful beings.

Onto bigger and better things, methinks.

New placement. New rules...

Oh dear. I'm not very good at this blogging malarkey am I? 17th January was the last one... Using my marvelous Mathematical skills I can tell you that was over a month ago.

So since then, much has happened. After finishing at Norbury Manor I was delighted, nay, thrilled, at the prospect of having sessions at IoE again. We welcomed each other back like comrades after war, we swapped harrowing tales of misdemeanour and rudeness, fights and confrontations, and bitchy rumours about other student teachers. But we had survived Placement 1 without failure or 'Cause for Concern', every student teacher's nightmare. We also had celebratory hummus after sessions.

Two weeks flew past and before we knew it we were back in school once again, for School Placement 2. I'm sure I mentioned it previously but my new school is Haberdasher Aske's Hatcham College in New Cross... formerly a Girls Grammar, then a mixed yet still selective state school, now a fully fledged mixed comprehensive academy in the heart of New Cross. Did I mention it's in New Cross. Wedged between Peckham and Lewisham? That's the one.

I'm actually 5 weeks into the placement now. During my time here I've discovered lots of new things about teaching and teachers and pupils and things. Mostly about what it's like to work in a school where hardly any of the other teachers want to be there. The pupils aren't actually that bad at all - obviously there are some pains in the backside and some with filthy attitudes to learning and teachers in general...

"Miss she never teaches us! All she does is go through an example on the board and then get us to do questions! Sometimes we do other stuff too, like games and activities and that, but she doesn't know how to teach us properly!"

Some kids these days. Don't know they're born.

I think what's mainly so difficult at this placement is the attitudes of the other teachers and members of staff here. Early on in my placement, one lunchtime, I found myself sitting among a throng of teaching assistants while we were all eating some lunch. The conversation quickly turned to the morning's lessons;

"Oh my god, today I was in this student teacher's lesson. She was so shit, she couldn't keep them under control."
"Yeah I know. These student teachers are rubbish, and they always look down on us. They don't know anything about teaching."

No shit Sherlock. Obviously they didn't know I was a student teacher, but I just couldn't help getting annoyed. Doesn't the phrase 'student teacher' tell you something? We're not even qualified - of course we know fuck all!

In addition to this, there is something that feels so... lax, about the attitudes of the other teachers. At Norbury, all the Maths teachers cared about their lessons; even if they had 7 lessons in one day, they would still make the effort to make some of their lessons different, and interesting. Caroline and I were always remarking about how much pressure we felt there was to match up to their standards, and as a result our lesson plans are now top-notch. But here, most lessons aren't even thought about until they arrive. It's a case of 'open the textbook, here's a topic we haven't done yet, do example, sit back while pupils get on with it'.

And the nightmare of the student teacher: I'd planned a double lesson (that's 1h40) for a Year 8 on Probability. Only to discover they had already done it earlier in the year, and the class teacher couldn't be bothered to remember, or check my lesson plan and tell me that they had already covered it. Did he help me out at that point? Did he fuck. I then exemplified the typical Hatcham Maths teacher, chose another topic out of the textbook, did an example altogether, and let them get on with it. But what did they expect me to do? Pull out another lesson from the bag that I'd done last year? I've been doing this for under 20 weeks.

Oh well. I'm learning a lot about Behaviour Management. Like the fact that no-one knows how to help me deal with it. I don't think this is anyone's fault, really. So I'm partly still trying to find my own way, but I'm just so glad I'm only here for another 5 weeks after Easter.

Hopefully I won't need it. For my NQT year at St James' Senior School for Boys!

Quite simply can't wait.

It's Christmas already?!

I can't believe it.

Doesn't time fly? The last thing I remember was arriving for my first day at IoE in September... although that might be something to do with the wine.

Tomorrow is the last day of term you see. Today we had 'fun afternoon' in which I supervised the Year 7 and 8 disco and was forced to do the 'Gangnam Style' dance by some girls in my classes. It was interesting how quickly the other girls backed away from the really old, embarrassing, dancing teacher... little do they know of my not-too-long-ago Cardiff clubbing escapades. If you want an idea of what our dancing was like, here's a glimpse of the awesome power of disco.

http://tmblr.co/ZK-Ovx3DLLtl

 

Anyway. So since my horribly downbeat blog from last time, school has been getting a lot better. I've been in a much better mood (which had probably helped with interaction between pupils/other teachers/mentor) and my uveitis hasn't been affecting me for nearly two weeks now... score. Slightly worried that this new-found good mood is partly to do with end-of-term, but let's enjoy it for now.

I've been given my second placement school! Haberdasher Aske's. Unfortunately not the horrendously posh independent boy's Haberdasher Aske's school to the North of London somewhere, the mixed-but-with-randomly-single-sex-lessons comprehensive in New Cross.

Looks nice doesn't it? That's just the front.

We've been to visit, one recent rainy Wednesday afternoon. I have to say I was slightly disappointed with my new school allocation, because the atmosphere of the school is quite weird. Main things which concern me are;

• They have an on-site primary school. With little-'uns running around with the big-ugly-'uns. I just have images of tiny squashed 5-year-olds all along the corridor walls.
• The school is based on multiple campuses. Which are linked by a bus. Which I've been told is not always reliable. And pupils frequently turn up to lessons 30 minutes late as a result.
• Some of the buildings look like old primary schools, with horrible cramped rooms, and dark, narrow corridors. And still with the old furniture. I saw a Year 10 sitting on this tiny fucking chair scrunched over a miniature desk doing a detention. Perhaps that's what those rooms are reserved for.
• The school is mixed, but they split their lessons into all-boys and all-girls. Which doesn't concern me too much, will just have to see how that goes. Please don't give me a Y10/11 class of bottom-set all boys. The girls are bad enough.

I'm sure I'll fail to keep a regular update of my second placement, but I'll make sure I write something at least. Must try and keep track of my teaching life and it's goings-on!

In other news, I booked my Numeracy Skills Test for Christmas Eve. I knew there was something occurring on the 24th but I couldn't remember what it was.

Merry Christmas all!