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.

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!

Truthfully...

So.

So much for keeping up my reflective journal of school-time, it's been more than a month since my last post... reason being it's been a pretty shit month. The post is called truthfully because truthfully...

I've been seriously considering giving up this PGCE. So seriously that I've applied for about 5 jobs which have nothing to do with teaching in any way shape or form. The reasons are plentiful, and I know they're valid because everyone else on the Maths PGCE has agreed with me;

1) The children are horrible. They have no qualms about saying "Miss this lesson is really boring" or "You're a shit teacher", and I'm sensing a 'blame culture' which has resulted in everything being the teacher's fault. If a pupil does badly in a test, even if the rest of the class did well, it's the teacher's fault. "I wasn't taught properly...". Pupils (particularly my Year 10's) refuse to work if the lesson isn't 'fun'. Which brings me nicely on to  my next reason.

2) There has to be a big song and dance in every lesson. Thinking about Maths in particular, if pupils have to work through questions from a textbook for a lesson, it's not a 'fun' lesson and they therefore aren't being taught properly.

Well I'm sorry. Sorry that there's no colourful puzzle to fill in, no exciting little activity for you to faff around with for 50 minutes while I desperately try and get you to do some mathematical thinking. But if you're going to sit a 2-hour Maths GCSE exam in June and get at least a C, you're going to have to develop some sort of discipline to sit and actually do some Mathematics. Because really, that's a vital skill you need for Maths; to be able to patiently work through problems, going along carefully and usually for long periods of time. How do you think Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem? Sitting around on his arse waiting for someone to show him how to do it? With a colourful presentation, and pretty little pictures and boxes to tick?

Cor. Haven't had a good rant like that in ages. Next point;

3) I, personally, am trying to run like the wind before I can even pull myself up on two feet. I've always been like this; I hated being shown how to do something, I always wanted to just get on and do the fucking thing. But I'm now realising with this that I've just made things much harder for myself, and I'm actually slowing down and asking for help. Which is always good.

4) I think I'll make this the last point, since I've talked about it already in my last blog. The total and utter hopelessness and futile attempts at lesson planning. I've been spending (as I've said before) about 2-3 hours on each lesson I teach. And that's 9 lessons a week (when it's not disrupted by some shit like Target Setting Day or International Dress Day) so mathematically that's 18-27 hours a week of planning. On top of the 36 hours spent at school/IoE. And it always turns out that what you've done is shit. You think it's great! Look, here's a great graph I spent ages creating from scratch. But no. It is shit.

Also I've only got one working eye, and a shitty laptop which corrupted all my hard work. Although one of those problems has been sorted now, through some kindly and most timely financial assistance. Unfortunately my eye's still squonk, and has been for about a month now. I've been commenting that it's hard enough to keep control of a class with two functional eyes, let alone one. Ideally I'd have three, but that won't be happening any time soon.

Anyway. Today's been the first day I've not felt like staying in bed crying, in over a month. So I feel I must record this day, and refer back to it when the real hard work starts after Christmas... I think it was mainly down to a Year 10 lesson I took today. You know, the class with Shania* in.

The class didn't start well. With my Title, Date and Lesson Objective ready to note down, Shania* and Melanie* entered the lesson having just had a fight, and about 3 seconds after entering the classroom Melanie stormed out, commenting "I'm not staying in a classroom with that fucking prick." I couldn't run after her and leave the class, but luckily another class teacher had spotted what had happened and rushed after Melanie to calm her down. That just left me with Shania and the rest of the class, at which point I thought 'Oh fuck' because I thought it would all kick off from that point.

But from observation, I know that Shania is actually extremely bright. She shouldn't be in set 7 Maths, but she's there only for her behavioural issues. When she actually managed to get stuff written down on paper, she finished her work before everybody else, got onto extension tasks, helped others (if somewhat brusquely; "WHY CAN'T YOU DO THIS SHIT MAN IT'S WELL EAAASSYYY") and contributed to class discussions. So I'm thinking I'm dealing with her in the right way - lots of other teachers seem to comment about her madness in their lessons most of the time, and she is always being put on report. As for the rest of the class, under my new-found stern manner, they were much better behaved and actually managed to pay attention when I asked. After about 3 minutes of stern instructions.

But crucially, this lesson has helped me actually see progress in my teaching skills, and some proof that actually not everything I'm doing is complete and utter bollocks. The pupils did inform me today that they hated Maths, but when the buzzer for lunch went off they said "Oh, is that the end already?!" which was something I really wanted to hear.

I think the only thing that's stopped me from going insane and emigrating to Wales (again) is the fact that, once I'm up in front of a class teaching, I absolutely love it. It's so good to see pupils go "OOOOH that's so obvious now!" and to watch them all follow my instructions and get on with some work under my direction. I am quite bossy after all... and when they're engaged in the lesson, you get a real buzz from it. I think it's just all the other stuff that's happened, around the teaching, that's got me down recently. I'm hoping from today it'll all be uphill from here!

I didn't realise lesson planning was so hard.

I think this will just be a short one - the point I'm making is self-evident in the title really.

So at Norbury Manor, there are 16 student teachers. Yes, 16. We've pretty much invaded the staff room, with our enormous cafetiére and shared coffee mornings (I now know why teachers smell of coffee - without it teachers die), and also our stories about our first teaching experiences. But, we two in the Maths department (Caroline and I) have been feeling slightly left out, in that most of the ST's in other subjects have taken over their given classes already. I was thinking it might be to do with the nature of Maths, that you can't really chop and change too much with the topics you're teaching - you can't teach 'Equations' before you've taught 'Algebra' for example. But I've been there for three weeks now and I'm getting a little bit bored of just observing.

So I mentioned it in my mentor meeting, that I'd quite like to get stuck in and start teaching. Personally I quite like being chucked in at the deep end and told to get on with it, something about the pressure of it. Might also explain why I preferred exams to coursework. So we've been given a nice little folder with the pupils' scheme of work in, and told to start preparing some lessons to give before half term, with the aim of taking full responsibility for classes after half term (one week to go!)

So I read the advice from the IoE regarding lesson planning. It says that, initially, planning for an hour lesson will take us 2-3 hours. This was my expression at first;

But it actually does.

You have to think about, and plan for, many different scenarios apart from the actual teaching of the subject itself. What pupils might struggle with. If any pupils in the class will need extra support. How long certain tasks will take. Extra provision for those really nerdy kids that finish really quickly. Also continuous assessment is a big thing at the moment.

Next to every task or activity you set, you have to explain how you are going to assess the pupils' learning, and whether they have learnt anything from you in the measly 50 minutes you have with them. Mini whiteboards are bloody great.

So this is a Year 7 class 2 times a week, a Year 8 class 3 times a week, and my wonderful Year 10 bottom set 4 times a week. That's 9 classes a week, and I just know that proper teachers are thinking 'That's nothing...' But they've got bare skills (yes, I'm down with the kids) in lesson planning, some saying they plan lessons in their heads. Except when Ofsted pay a visit. 

So in conclusion, I started my lesson plans for Year 8 'Pie Charts' and Year 7 'Angles' at 7.45pm tonight. I started writing this blog post at 11.23pm. And they're not finished yet.