You need another two years...

I made a mad decision last Monday, and submitted an application which resulted in two nights awful sleep, many ciders (you'll find that cider is a common theme in this blog), two interviews, and all to apply for an internal promotion to Head of Maths.

I know, it's rather ridiculous, right? At the end of this academic year I'll have been in teaching for four years (technically - teacher training counts) and at St James for three years. That alone is a scary thought, and if you couple it with the fact that I'm only 24 years old it all gets a bit much (in fact, I'm only just closer to 25 than I am to 23. Now it's getting stupid).

Anyway. After much support and encouragement from my colleagues, I sent a cover letter to the Headmaster and was invited to interview two days later. Thus the bad sleep and the late night practice of A-level/Further Maths Calculus and Trigonometry (a trademark of my current Head of Department's interview technique... start by smashing the morale with a really hard maths question and then ask 'Why do you think you're suitable for this job?' 'I JUST DON'T KNOW ANY MORE')

It was very odd interviewing for an internal post. I mean, I couldn't embellish the truth even just a little bit. 'Oh yes, why I believe it's important to teach Sixth Form Mathematics outside the classroom regularly' (translation: I accompanied them to a day of Maths lectures that one time. Where I got a signed book from Simon Singh about the maths that appears in the Simpsons and in Futurama)

Ahahahahaaa.... Dog in a box. Hehehe.... that's excellent.

This joke was in tonight's episode actually. The book is really worth a read!

Anyway. It was a very emotional and soul-searching experience, to write the cover letter for this job. There were moments of realisation that actually, I'd achieved quite a lot in my time at St James. I'd registered my interest in the school quite early by pushing to be the Head of a House, and also by offering to teach one class of Year 9 Physics three times a week last year (some of the experiments I made up were quite hilarious). I have a Year 7 Form this year, and have been rather heavily involved in the Music side of things. But there were, however, times of great self-doubt and wishing I'd pushed to do more to make myself a more credible candidate for a Head of Department job.

 My mindset for most of the build-up to decision time was that I didn't really have a shot at this position, Until I heard that the other two candidates didn't have any Head of Maths experience either, and following my disaster-free interviews I started to think that, maybe, I was in with a chance.

It wasn't to be unfortunately. I think this is right, it is quite early to be considering Head of Department (although I vehemently argued in my interview when asked the question 'I think you need another two years of teaching, don't you?' with 'Two years of teaching would make me a better teacher... but if I'm right for Head of Maths in two years, surely I'm ready now? I'm not going to gain management experience if I go the next two years without it, surely?') Which might just illustrate my naivety.

It was such a worthwhile thing to do, nevertheless. I look forward to receiving feedback on my probably slightly stupid interview answers - 'How would you deal with this particular member of staff, for example, if he were to disagree with your decisions about the Scheme of Work?' 'TELL THEM WHERE TO STICK IT.'

It's all a matter of timing

One of the main things I struggled with as a new teacher was managing my time.

There are a lot of contentious news articles which have been floating around the inter-webs for a long time now, with regards to teacher working hours. Most teaching contracts specify a given time-frame in which you are expected to be in the building (office?) but also usually include something like the following:

"such reasonable hours as may be necessary to enable the effective discharge of a teacher's professional duties"

When I first came across this in my job contract I remember thinking it might be a bit dodge. Basically "you'll just have to work until the work is done" which I now know rarely ever is. At the start I would spend hours and hours trying to perfect one lesson plan, which carried on into my NQT year (see previous blog post: I never knew lesson planning was so hard)

The thing that makes the issue of teacher working hours so difficult to argue is that you can essentially choose the amount of time you spend working on this job, outside of 'office hours'. Obviously there is a minimum which ensures you are doing the job sufficiently, but if you're working up to a promotion (or if you're young and child-free like myself) it's very easy to be in school from 7am-6pm every day, and then take extra stuff home to do for an hour or two each evening. And of course everybody is different; the amount of time you spend on your work doesn't necessarily mean you do it better. Although I think it's safe to say there's a weak positive correlation (scatter graph lesson ideas, anyone? You're welcome)

If you're extremely foolish (as my colleague likes to remind me every day) you could find yourself in the orchestra of the school musical, adding an extra 16 hours onto your working week. That was an interesting 80-hour week.

That's my beautiful arm there. Bottom right, in case you didn't know what my arm looked like.

The main thing I've needed to develop in this career is flexibility. No not that kind, you naughty thing. But the ability to prioritise, and know when perhaps a certain task (like Y10 reports this morning...) might need to wait because there's an issue in your Year 7 Form group, pertaining to certain individuals repeating the rubbish they've heard the Y10's spouting. I'm certainly not looking forward to explaining what a 'blowjob' is to boys who haven't even gone through puberty yet.

Some days are quiet, and you can get through everything you planned to. Other days you're stuck with double cover, 6 e-mails from concerned parents, a further emergency cover because another teacher has an emergency meeting with a concerned parent, late homework trickling in from last week to mark (dammit Y11) and a broken coffee machine (never forget - September 2014)

And I think the desire to gain some sort of relaxed time at home each evening means I complete these tasks with ever-increasing speed and efficiency. She said, while spilling and then sipping cider from her laptop keyboard.

Crikey O'Reilly Inspector!

'Crikey O'Reilly' because, my sources inform me that it has been almost 3 years since I last made a record of an inner rambling, or voiced any thoughts, with regards to my teaching career. These same sources also inform me that many people believe that O'Reilly must have been 'an Irishman with extravagantly large trousers'. Hmm.

Anyway. Let us peek into where I last left off my blogging diary; a fresh-faced, 22-year old completes her PGCE successfully, and starts a new job as an NQT (that's a Nooly Qualified Teacher for all you teaching noobs out there) at St James Senior Boys School in September 2013. Here it is again for your viewing pleasure...

It's quite nice isn't it.

And I am in fact, still there. More recent shenanigans will have to wait until later; I think the best place to start might be the actual NQT year itself.

So talk about baptism of fire! 6 weeks into the new term at the new job at the new school, with a new Headmaster, and we were faced with an Inspection. I mean, I'd only just learned the kid's names by that point, and where the toilets were. I'd known Y11 Ralph's* (name change again) name since Day 1... that kid who seemed to have lost his pencilcase to the Ashford-based criminally-inclined raccoon who was in the area yesterday. The same kid who lent his sister his calculator for her Maths exam... every day for four weeks straight. " Exactly how many Maths exams does your sister have Ralph?"

So, Inspection looms. A distinct memory I have of that period of time is getting into trouble with the quality of my marking. When you go from 12 lessons a week in your PGCE, to 24 lessons a week in your NQT year, certain areas of 'perfect' teaching seem to suffer (and I think it's different with everyone). Anyway, mine turned out to be my written assessment, and my poor Head of Department had to catch me after the Inspection announcement to, basically, bollock me about the quality of it. That was a lesson well learned - never scrimp on the marking, because you'll have to stay up all night before a 4-day inspection doing it properly.

Inspection week arrives, books are bitchin', lessons are planned (that's a whole other blog post I think) and everyone's on eggshells. Exhausted, while running on adrenaline, highly anxious, and close to tears much of the time, I didn't think I'd manage to make it through. But then this wonderful anecdote passes around the staffroom which made me forget my troubles for about 3 seconds.

A colleagues observation, and a certain rather cocky, sometimes disrespectful pupil is late to the lesson. While walking down the corridor to his classroom he sees at a distance one of the inspectors, seemingly bound for his lesson. By way of warning to his teacher, he dances his way into the classroom singing 'doo doo doo doo doo.... Inspector Gadget...' before realising that another inspector is already in the room, and the lesson has already begun. This set my mind at ease about my own lesson observation, obviously. Surely this could only be topped by a pupil coming in singing 'Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead'.

But survive, I did. Complete successful observation of Y11 on Thursday P6+7 (the graveyard slot), I did. And learn an awful lot, I bloody did. Because what I came to learn about teaching through most of that NQT year, was that unfortunately to be an excellent teacher takes experience. And obviously if you're a new teacher, you don't have that experience. The key is how quickly you're able to learn from an awful lesson you've delivered, how insightful you are into what actually went wrong, and what can be done to improve the next lesson you deliver on fractions where last time you forgot to recap how to multiply two single-digit numbers together because you thought that EVERY CHILD IN THE LAND knew their times tables.

I think meta-cognition and self-awareness should be taught in all schools, don't you? And times tables.

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!

How intelligent do teachers need to be?

Well hello. We meet again...

This will be me next Wednesday. I have been given the name of the school I'll be working in for four months, Oct-Jan: Norbury Manor Business and Enterprise College for Girls. I'm rather excited about it... mainly because LOOK AT ONE OF THE BUILDINGS

I'm thinking of getting the girls to work out the volume of the building. They could take one cuboid each.

But in all seriousness. If you have read this blog title, you'll know I've been thinking about teachers and their intellect, and whether people necessarily have to be brain-boxes with PhD's and insane mental arithmetic skills in order to become good educators in Mathematics.

In short, my answer would be no. Of course you can't teach something if you have no knowledge of the subject (well, I don't believe you can teach effectively if you haven't got that good subject knowledge) but, it requires a hell of a lot more in terms of fully understanding your subject, being able to make connections, and of course social and communication skills, in order to impart knowledge to your learners. 

To take an analogy from my own degree experience. Those who had extremely in-depth, extensive knowledge of their subject (not mentioning any Cardiff University Mathematics lecturers *ahem* Marletta) I felt, were in fact the hardest to learn from. They certainly were impressive to watch, with their 6 chalkboards full of calculations and 5-A4-page long proofs, but rarely would they stop to explain what they were doing, why "for any ε > 0, δ >0, and complex number w, there exists a complex number z in U with |z − z₀| < δ and |f(z) − w| < ε " (Casorati-Weierstrass Theorem, Complex Function Theory, 3rd Year, aka Worst Year Of Maths Of My Life)

I'll be honest - I didn't do terribly well in my degree. Well, in the Maths part of it anyway - luckily I had my Music to back me up and scrape me a tidy 2.1... but on its own, the Maths was dreadful. But I don't think that puts me at any disadvantage in becoming a good Secondary Maths teacher. As long as I have the sufficient knowledge to talk about GCSE/A-level Maths confidently, freely (and clearly!), I think I'm set. 

There are obviously so many other things which are important to becoming a good teacher. That is my ultimate goal of course, and I don't think I'm anywhere near it yet. But the idea of teachers' intellect was playing on my mind today after a particular incident in a session at the IoE today.

One of my course-mates - and I mean 'mate' in the loosest terms possible - I understand holds a PhD in Mathematics and Philosophy from Cambridge, and is currently teaching postgrad students there, part-time between sessions here at the IoE. In a presentation a friend of mine (Ben) was giving, about vocabulary in probability, the following conversation (accusation?) took place;

Lee-of-superior-educational-ranking (L.O.S.E.R) : "That thing you said about an equal, 50/50 probability being 'fair' is completely WRONG. You shouldn't be using language like 'fair' when you're talking about probability, it describes the situation like 'fair dice' or 'a fair coin'... *more philosophical nattering* ... but yeah, what you've said is just WRONG." 

Ben (B) : "..."

So is that how Lee is going to react when a pupil makes a tiny misnomer like that? Luckily Ben realised Lee was being his usual academic self and brushed it off, but a young 14-year-old really trying to understand this new topic of 'probability' would probably have been completely crushed, and disillusioned to further learning, for fear of being completely ripped apart like poor Ben was.

So I believe it's really not enough to have infinite wisdom on the subject matter, but to be open to learning how to effectively impart your knowledge, and how to help young Mathematics students reach their full potential.

... I mean, I still can't do mental arithmetic. There's an interesting doodle at the side of this page if you look closely; 1 + 1 = pencil. 

An introductory rambling.

Welcome, welcome! 

I've decided to start keeping a blog during my ITT (initial teacher training) year, not just to keep all you lovely folks partially amused but mostly to keep track of my experiences, thoughts and progress through the year. So really it's more of a diary. Which anyone in the world can read. You nosy people.

Anyway, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere if you want some juicy gossip - today is the first day, of my third week, of my Secondary Mathematics PGCE. I have been attending numerous tutor-led sessions, regarding educational hot topics such as The Nature of Mathematics, Pedagogy (a strange word which refers to the way in which you teach your chosen subject), Microteaching, SEN, and of course, Behaviour Management.

Managing Behaviour. It seems to be the primary concern of all trainee teachers, especially after receiving this interesting snippet of knowledge: 

The working atmosphere in the classroom: a ten-level scale

Level 10 sounds like a dream. "You feel completely relaxed and comfortable; able to undertake any activity without concern. Class control not an issue - teachers and pupils work together, enjoying the experiences involved." Stevie Wonder's Ebony and Ivory is playing in my head.

Now have a look just a couple of levels down, at Level 6. "You don't really look forward to teaching the class." is the first line. It goes on to say "... At times you feel harassed... it is difficult to get pupils to stop talking... it is a major effort to establish and maintain a calm working atmosphere."

... You know you want to hear about a Level 1 classroom atmosphere. Well here you go; "Your entry into the classroom is greeted by cheers and abuse." 

Good start. 

It continues. Yes it does. "...you turn a blind eye to some atrocities(!) because you feel your intervention may lead to confrontation, or escalation of the problem." The punchline? "You wish you had never gone into teaching."

We have been assured that our lessons, on the scale, rarely drop below a level 6. I should bloomin' well hope so. 

But herein lies the crux of the matter - how do we achieve higher levels of this scale in our own lessons? It looks like an immense balancing act; there are so many things to remember. Such as, asserting your physical presence, acting confidently, use of contingent praise, whilst making your lessons interesting and engaging, not being too munificent with praise or punishment, establishing your reputation AND... breathing.

But we have been assured it takes time. We won't be experts straight away, but we have to simply try our best and the technique will come. 

Hopefully soon-ish. Since our first placement starts in a week and I'm worried I might resort to the ol' Karate Sensei Disciplinary Technique of giving push-ups. Mightn't go down too well.