Thank you ... and goodnight, Sir Cliff ...

Well, I've just seen Sir Cliff's latest offering, with which he hopes to get a number one in every decade for the last - six? - decades. Quite catchy, but also a bit sad ... If the curtain should fall, maybe even tonight, I may have given you a lifetime, but you've given me the time of my life ... (Or something like that.) And Sir Cliff still boogies and swings his stuff like he's seventeen, rather than seventy (or however old he is now). I just felt I had to write something. It would be nice ... sweet ... if all his fans bought his record to try to give him a chance of that number one, I'm just not sure that would be enough! And it is a bit self indulgent, really. Well, very personal. A message to his fans. Kind of him. However .... Anyway, the second, more pertinent, question is ... Sir Cliff, is hosting the lottery and wishing all those with tickets luck, compatible with your Christian beliefs?

Talking of which, Pupil B as mentioned yesterday has continued with excellent questions and comments. Today she has been asking about what happens to those who belong to other religions when they die. How do you know you're following the right religion? I have high hopes for her.

Other than that, a certain member of staff is continually winding me up. I will see how this goes. Could be a tough year!

Back to School

No blogs recently, since it's been a busy week, and an even busier weekend! I have met almost all of my classes now - two to go! So far, so good. A couple of interesting classes, to be sure.

Today's interesting exchange:

Pupil A: "Why do Muslims bomb planes?" (Perhaps he'd been listening to the court case on the news, although I didn't think that came through until later.)

Pupil B: "Not all Muslims bomb planes. The ones that did didn't understand the Qur'an properly."

She'll be after my job next!

There is one pupil in my class that can be a bit of a handful. However, he did very well in some exams, so it was nice to be able to phone home about that last week. Then he came in and we had an altercation on the first day about his mobile, so I made a short call about that. However, today he came in looking the smartest he's looked in a long time, with new shoes and a new black jacket. Very smart! In fact there was a long queue at the office this morning of pupils signing out to go home and get changed into the proper uniform. Black shoes, black jacket, blazers, ties etc. This may last ... we will see, and hope that it does.

Yet another sunny day!

It just keeps getting warmer and warmer! Which is great, apart from the fact that the pupils get wetter and wetter, then thirstier and thirstier, then need to go to the toilet more! But at least doing my break duty was wonderful for a change!

Strange occurrences today ... First of all, I have received a penalty notice for failing to comply with a give way to oncoming vehicles sign. Which is strange, because the photo they have sent to highlight this infraction of the law clearly shows me stopped (I think with my brake lights on) behind another car, as we wait for a bus to proceed. The woman I phoned says that there is no problem, so I should not have been sent this. Interestingly, I've never noticed the camera before, but I will tomorrow! ....... Actually, as I typed that, I have just remembered a little CCTV car that was parked near there one day ... perhaps that was the day! Well, in that case, I shall certainly take more care of those little cars from now on. Little periscopic smart cars. Or not so smart cars.

Secondly ... I have just received a letter from my bank, inviting me to take part in some sort of "spread trading", with the enticement of a Nicklaus Dual Point Driver* if I take up this offer! Now, I'm not planning on getting involved in the stock market just yet, but I was curious about what I could receive ... I know, the clue should have been in the Jack related title, but it took looking on the back of the letter to find out that this great gift is, in fact, an expensive golf club. Hmmm. I wonder what sort of info they have on me that means they think that might interest me in the slightest? Have they confused me for a middle aged, balding, gently spreading and almost portly bank manager? (apologies to anyone who resembles this description, and I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular since the only person who might begin to isn't balding and hasn't played golf for many years, although he did win a bottle of whisky (miniature) and perhaps a wooden spoon?? once a long, long time ago!) Unless they know my uni and have decided that I must have partaken of the local services at one point a long time ago! Anyway, that's another one for the bin.

And the tax disk is due ... which presumably means it's almost also time for the MOT as well. So that's something else for the to-do list! (Which hasn't shrunk recently, but instead has got longer!)

Lessons? Well, the Year 10s could listen more, but at least they were there, with one lesson to go now before their exam; the Year 9s had a rowdy student who eventually had to be removed but at least are friendly and funny; the Year 8s are far too noisy but at least the three loudest ones did turn up for their detentions; and the Year 7s are still quite lovely, with a couple of exceptions, but then it's just about talking to their neighbours too much instead of listening rather than bullying each other or deliberately making silly noises.

Now I am a bit dehydrated so must go and get a drink!

Another sunny day!

What a deliciously lovely day! I wore my first dress of the year (I ate my first ice cream of the year last night on the way home), and hardly needed to wear my cardigan. The sky was blue, the air warm and balmy; at lunch I headed outside to be greeted by that warm musky smell of plants, grass and heated earth, mixed in with that familiar smell of melting astroturf as I headed towards the canteen. Then at the end of lunch the heat of the midday sun was refreshed as I was splashed a number of times by teenagers throwing water at each other to kindly cool each other down. One of those lovely school days, where everything seems bright and happy, when things look positive and the thought of staying on seems like a really good idea ...

Notes from this week

A busy sort of week with some late nights, and a few observations.

On the tube today, I heard one word in English, then a whole stream of conversation whose language I could not make out. What was it? Then, I tuned in ... the two boys sounded like my cousin, and were speaking in a broad Scottish accent! It was bad enough when I had overheard two Geordies that I thought were Dutch, but two Scots ...!

A couple of days ago ... I did not see the face of the woman, whose head was covered in a grey scarf, as she was walking away from me, and I was stuck in traffic going nowhere ... but the man stood for quite some time, looking her way, his fingers kissed by his lips, his Italianesque face gazing after her, stopped in his tracks.

One of my students did a great impersonation of his Dad dancing in class today. Very funny - and very good dancing!

I've been on the tube a couple of times this week. I enjoyed the walk through the park to school this morning. The grey squirrels skip up the trees as if attached by velcro.

I've rearranged my classroom, and, apart from the students who have been rebelling against the seating plan, I've noticed a bit of an improvement in behaviour. In some of the classes, students have produced more work.

After my accident, we are still waiting to get a date for the work to be done on the car. Next week some time. We need to get a new tyre first.

It's annoying ... there were a few funny things that happened that I wanted to share, but now I can't remember what they were! I had a few late nights, and also a couple of busy nights, so I couldn't write at the time.

Right. That will have to do then!

Truancy

I was late leaving school today, having made about seven phone calls to parents to inform them that their son has missed a lesson. Good to talk to the parents. Some were shocked, some resigned. Two are coming in tomorrow ...

However, I may have shot myself in the foot there ... without those pupils, the class was (almost!) as good as gold and we managed to complete twice as much work as normal!

Right. Stew for dinner!

Putting on the pounds

Today a pupil worked out that I was about the same age (well, a few months younger, but who's counting?) than her Mum. That was a sobering thought.

And another pupil said "Miss, you're putting on the pounds." When he saw that I wasn't exactly overjoyed at that comment, he added, "I'm just letting you know so you can do something about it."

Joy.

Saw myself on a video ... far too much lipstick, all over the place. Embarrassing! Oh dear.

What was that Robert Burns said?

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An foolish notion:
What airs in dress an gait wad lea'es us,
An ev'n devotion!

Happy Leap Year!

We had two students with birthdays today, apparently - one was three, the other four. Other than that, it was a bit of a depressing day as far as behaviour and pupil attitude went. Some of them are so disrespectful in their language and behaviour towards others and themselves. Apparently we're going to have yet another supply teacher next week ...

Nice to come home to H, although he has a bad cold. Get to see my sister tomorrow! Yeah!

What's going on?!

I sometimes ask this question, especially at times when pupils come and disturb my lessons and destroy any possibility of learning. The last couple of days have been noisy but fairly good-humoured, other than a few moments, for example when a group of Year 7s, a few Year 8s and a couple of Year 10s, came to disturb my lesson with a small group of Year 7s. It had been a good opening fifteen minutes, and we were trying out different physical positions - standing, kneeling, bowing etc - to see how they made us feel before beginning our study of Muslim prayer. The pupils were quite enjoying the physical activity, and some of the pupils who occasionally don't find it easy to join in were getting involved. Then two difficult pupils arrived late, followed by this disparate group of truants, who proceeded to sell sweets, or packaged plastic enumbers, to my Year 7s, and this was obviously more interesting and colourful than anything they could learn in my lesson. Another teacher came and moved them on, but they came back later and danced and rapped to the tinny mobile music that they "illegally" carry around with them, completely wrecking any chance I had to regain the lesson. So, yesterday's lesson was spoiled by an unnecessary and pointless assembly telling them to behave themselves and today's lesson was spoiled by a bunch of truants who hadn't listened to a word that was put to them yesterday. Which leaves me one lesson to explain the intricacy of Muslim prayer before we move on and begin to prepare for the assessment.

And that's just one incident ...

Back again ...

Well, I'm hoping that normal service can sort of be resumed now we're in December! I managed just over 20,000 words during NaNoWriMo. Not quite 50,000 words, but an interesting experiment nonetheless! Also managed to hand in my dissertation, attend a marking feedback course, give a successful presentation at a conference, entertain Mum and Dad while they were down in London for the weekend, prepare a video for our Sixth Form conference, and prepare and teach a few lessons.

Unfortunately the past week has been one of hardest I've faced for a long time. Not so much in terms of what has happened during the lessons, just in terms of general morale; it's partly because of poor pupil behaviour, but more a sense of feeling that there's not much I can do about it. I've been generally uninspired. In turn, that has made me put less effort into my preparation, which has probably then caused the lessons to be less successful. However, even when I've put in lots of preparation that has been sort of thrown back in my face, which is depressing.

So a tough week ... I hope next week is better! Hope you all have a good week too!

Blog Action Day

I think you can tell it's getting near the end of term ... the pupils have been hyper all day. A few year 10s ended up having a 20 minute detention at the end of the day, but even when they left, the room was still in a state. Which leads me to the topic of Blog Action Day ... we are supposed to write about the environment. Well, my classroom environment was not good today. Even the displays are now tattier than ususal. Pupils seemed to be throwing themselves around the room today . Interestingly, the Year 8 assessment was about the environment and how it should be treated. I got some really good responses - the toilets sound really disgusting, and I hope the description of the canteen food and hygiene standards is purely artistic license! The pupils were also quite vocal about the state of the classrooms. It is depressing working in a room with peeling paint, graffiti, gum in the carpets, and a never ending supply of broken chairs and tables. It's a microcosm of how our outside environment should be - somewhere nice, pleasant, not spoiled in any way by thoughtless people.

Talking of thoughtless people, I was tidying the aforementioned classroom at the end of the day, when I saw a man (a parent?) get in his car, right in front of mine. Noticed there was very little room ... And then his reversing lights went on! I knew there would be no room for him to go back, so I frantically started banging on the window, but to no avail. He went back, right into my front bumper, and our car moved! He then drove off, and I went running round to inspect the damage. Fortunately there wasn't any I could see, but I wasn't impressed with his driving technique at all.

The other interesting thing that happened was the visit from Trident. They were excellent, and there were pictures of guns that you had to guess if they were real or fake. The difficulties we had telling one from the other showed how hard it is for armed police officers to make up their minds whether or not someone has a real or fake gun. There were also images of victims of gun and knife crime, which weren't very nice.

There have been about 21 young people killed in London this year so far. It is worrying when it sometimes seems to be getting closer to home.

The end of the week ... the start of a new one

Well, it's been quite an eventful week. Some of the problems that we read and hear about in the news occasionally find their way into school, and today was one of those weeks. A bit close for comfort, but other nice things make up for the bad ones.

A couple of colleagues were off on Monday, so I was trying to hold the fort as well as stop fighting from beaking out in my own class too. Fortunately the supply teacher is excellent and settling in well, building up a good reputation for taking no nonsense and teaching good lessons, so that's one less thing to worry about.

Had Open Evening this weekend. Always fun - the room looks nice filled with candles and with sacred music playing in the background. We leave the lights off and it's very calming. Had some sixth formers there this year to help out - they were great!

There's a friendly little girl in one of my Year 7 classes that stays behind at the end of the lesson and tidies up the class for me. On Thursday, as I wrote her a thank you card to take home for her helpfulness, she said she was going to sing one song. So that was my surreal moment of the week, me sitting on the desk, her standing at the end of it, singing "You've got a friend" - a song she learnt at primary school. Very sweet! There's another little boy in my other year 7 class who is always so friendly and polite. He says thank you, Miss, at the end of each lesson and gives me a beaming smile when I tell him he has done well. These sort of moments are the moments that make teaching very worthwhile and enjoyable.

I have almost finished my third set of books that I brought home to mark this weekend. Spent the whole of yesterday marking and planning for the upcoming week. Didn't manage to do any of my literature review though. Oh dear. I have to give a presentation in just over a week ...

Came home on Friday feeling very ill and went to bed just after 8pm. Was woken up by H with a big plate of delicious Lebanese food. He'd gone out to get some, and the lamb and okra stew was just what I needed (I hadn't eaten - or cooked - any dinner because I felt so horrible). Woke up around 8am on Saturday, did the washing and shopping, then worked all day - in between blowing my nose, drinking lemsips and vit V juice and generally feeling yucky - and went to bed at around 10pm. Didn't go to church this morning - used that time to rest in bed and to try and get better. Don't want to spread my germs too much. Trying to get better for tomorrow. Have eaten grapefruit, and bought kiwi fruits.

Disappointment of the weekend? Biught some of those strawberry iced buns from childhood as a treat. Very dry. Won't make that mistake again.

It's Sunday again

It's really busy at school, so I'm not managing to make as many entries as I'd like! So the highlights of the past week?

Well, we will be having the TV cameras in next month, so I've a bit of planning for that.

Yesterday on the tube, someone touched my hand to get my attention - I turned and looked at the teenager, who said "Hello Miss" - then I recognised him, a former pupil who is now at college. But I'm still kicking myself, because I still can't remember his name. Which is really annoying me. It's about the first time I've been in that position - I'm normally quite good. Actually, that's an interesting reflection in itself - I'm not normally that great at remembering people's names if I meet them socially, but considering I've had to teach hundreds, if not thousands, of pupils over my teaching career, it's quite surprising that I'm not too bad at learning the names fairly quickly when I have new classes. Although they sometimes slip my mind when I meet them the following year ...

I gave a presentation on some research I did a couple of years ago last Wednesday. Seemed to go down okay.

Had my other course yesterday - learnt that I can write a lesson plan instead of writing an essay, so that's good - I'm going to try and start that later this afternoon.

Of course, some of the biggest news of the week was the leaving of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea. We are in mourning ...

Catch up time!

A few thoughts from last week ...

Geese flying overhead, through the blue sky. I looked up and watched them fly directly above me, in a V formation. Beautiful.

SACRE meeting on Wednesday night went very well, although there was a lot of running around trying to find the correct keys etc. I made a presentation, and it went across well. There were some very interesting questions, particularly about how we teach about sex and relationships in a Catholic school, and whether or not there is a tension between Science and RE in how we teach about the creation of the world. There isn't, I don't think, although some of our pupils have a different point of view on things ... Anyway, left school at 9:45pm that night. Had arrived at 7:45am ...

On Thursday, a TV researcher got in touch about another one of my blogs and the technology I use in my classroom. We had a chat, then she emailed asking if they could come and film me with a class in the ICT suite on Monday or Tuesday! I'd expect longer notification for an ordinary observation! Have told her I'll need to get Head's permission and pupil consent first, so we'll wait and see what happens.

Friday ended up being really busy - I had 3 non-contacts, but they all got taken up with admin type things, so I still haven't planned my lessons for this coming week. Am about to do that now.

On Friday evening, we were going out to an opening, so I met up with H in town. We went to a gallery just off Bond Street (some nice shops around there!!!), but then discovered it was all locked up. The exhibition there had obviously been on for a while. Later we discovered that the gallery did have another opening on that night - in Munich!

We wondered what to do, and H remembered that there was another opening in Whitechapel, so we decided to try and find it. Eventually found the opening to the Fieldgate Gallery near Atlantis. That was quite fun. I particularly liked a couple of works by Maria Anwander, for example a video of someone swimming in a pool that is set inside a sink. There was also an excellent painting by Andy Harper, which looked very realistic. You can see some pictures from the exhibition here.

Seeing we were in the area, we decided to head down Brick Lane to Chutney's. As we were about to enter, a girl standing outside was calling out, "We've got a celebrity dining here tonight - Carole from Big Brother!" And, sure enough, she was there - in fact, we were almost placed right beside her, within elbow knocking when you use your knife distance, but H prefers to be further inside the restaurant, away from the door, so we sat nearer the middle of the restaurant. I had chicken passanda - very nice, as always.

Yesterday I had another course to attend, which ran from 10am to about 3.30pm. I found it really hard to keep my eyes open! Afterwards I wanted to buy a pair of more casual shoes, and the Dorothy Perkins next to Bond Street tube station had a huge selection - nice to be able to find some so quickly and easily! Then I headed across to Mexx, where a little top caught my eye. I tried it on, and bought that too ... Will go back, I liked their look.

Today I've been to church, and now I have to plan those lessons. This week I am giving a presentation on Wednesday to teachers from other schools, and we need to plan for our upcoming open evening. So I expect it will be busy again! And I still need to finish my dissertation ...

Busy, busy!

Back to School

Apologies for not blogging this week! School started back on Monday. Pupils gradually arrived back, and although there have been phone calls home, detentions, incident reports, and trying to arrange counselling, it's been a generally positive start.

Although no pupil diaries have arrived, exercise books arrived on Wednesday night, timetables arrived on Thursday morning, we have no target levels ...

Have had two openings this week - one on my birthday, the other last night, followed by a delicious Vietnamese meal. Highly recommended. Especially the lemon water!

Computer is annoying me at moment - very slow. So I'm off for now!

Etiquette and Martial Arts

Today I learnt what a teacher should do if a pupil slaps another pupil in my class. Ignore it, and ignore the return slap that will follow. Mothers tell daughters to slap someone back if they are slapped first, and my sending someone to the referral room will make no difference. If the person who was slapped first does not retaliate in kind, then they may be thought of as weak, so they will lose face. Not good. As teachers, we are paid to teach, so we should ignore any of this kind of behaviour.

If a pupil who has been ignoring us all year comes to us a week or two before the exams asking for extra help in our own time, we should help them, rather than telling them that they should have concentrated all year then they'd understand - after all, that is what we are paid to do. If a pupil decides not to focus all year, they should still get our help. We don't have free time. We don't need time to mark, prepare or assess - we should be at every students' beck and call for whenever they need us.

If someone asks me which area I'm from, it's probably safe to tell them if I'm in my own area - otherwise tell them that I'm visiting my grandmother in that area, or say I'm from outside London (still best to be visiting my aunt or someone).

If my little brother or sister "borrows" my new shoes and returns them in an appalling state, then I should beat them.

Overall, the Etiquette session was an eye-opener. Very interesting ... it ended up being about conflict and assertiveness rather than etiquette, and would probably have benefitted from another session on the difference between agressiveness and assertiveness.

After the break, I decided to try out Ka-Zimba, an African form of martial arts. It was very interesting to watch the instructor demonstrate what this martial art can look like. One of the boys, whom I think does boxing, tried to fight with him, while the instructor glided around, avoiding any hits and showing how he could have got some fatal blows in, but doing this all fairly slowly and not hurting the pupil in any way. It was dance-like, and even funny at times, and you could see how effective it could be. We learnt some key moves - ngoma, stepping in and out, and another called spear and shield. Then we "freestyled" against each other in the ring. Fun!

More etiquette tomorrow, although I think I'll have a look and see if there is something else active that I could swap to do in the second session!

Next week - plans

I now know the plans for next week. And I will be teaching non-stop. We all will be. Teaching every lesson. Drugs and Sport. Teaching about the connection, that is. Not taking them and doing some. Although by the looks of the timetable, that could be an interesting option.

Am annoyed with Sky and Virgin Media. Trying to change broadband providers. Very complicated, when I'm sure it shouldn't be. Will try again tomorrow.

Think I'm teaching all day tomorrow as well. Have offered to do lots of cover for a colleague who is out on subject business.

It's the little things that make teaching worthwhile. The Year 11 student, whom I only taught about once during a revision session in the holidays, who came to say thank you and that the session was really helpful. The Year 8 tutee, who looked really pleased when I agreed that I hoped to continue being his form tutor while he is at school. The Year 9 girl who had been a bit awkward during the lesson, and when I was still nice to her at the end of the lesson, got up, while I was outside shouting at pupils who had gone running outside, cleaned my board for me, which made my end of school routine much easier. The Year 10 boy who smiled in recognition of the fact that H and I went to see him play basketball at the weekend. The three Sixth Formers who are so happy at going away for a few days to a Youth Festival, and asked if there would be an iron there. The Year 7 girl who realises that the class isn't going to leave while the room is still untidy and goes around picking up the papers even though she had already tidied up her area.

The good pupils, the trying hard pupils, the grateful pupils, the wanting to learn pupils, the thoughtful pupils, the humorous pupils, the dedicated pupils, the polite pupils, the hardworking pupils ... I salute you!

They're all going crazy.

Or so it seems. They're all mad. Running around, can't stay in their seats, won't stop talking ... All the work is written on the board (Read page 76. Answer the questions on page 77) and when asked why they're books aren't open, they say "I don't know what to do". How many weeks until half term?

(Although, I have to add, they're not all that bad, and some of my Year 8s were working very well on the computers today.)

A Good Week

It's nice to celebrate a good week once in a while! Although there has not been any one particular event that has been the highlight of the week, or anything particularly good that has happened, it has been a good week. I have sent pupils to the Referral Room, handed out detentions and made phone calls, but in the main I have stayed calm while those things have been happening, and overall my impression is of a good week, a fairly non-stressful week, and a week when I've had a few good conversations with pupils and have seem some achieve a little bit.

Here's to a great weekend and another positive week!

Questions

A couple of fine days, partly because of the support I have received from other members of staff in helping get classes settled. With the new Year 10 groups, it's important that they follow the rules from the start, and see that they will be able to learn in the lesson, so it was great to have people around at the start of the lesson as I placed pupils in the correct seats. Hopefully pupils will eventually get the message ... I had to send one pupil to the Referral Room because he moved seat after being told not to. They don't seem to understand the concept of a seating plan ...

Other than that, the highlight of today was chatting well into lunchtime with a few Year 10 boys. There had been a very small class because most of the class were sitting an exam, so we used it as an opportunity for them to ask questions, and for us to discuss such issues as "Why did Jesus not come down from the cross?", "Why are we here?", "Are ouija boards 'real' in some way?", "What will happen to good people who do not believe in God when they die?" and "What if Jesus had got married and had a child?" One boy sort of pulled me up when he said that I hadn't once said, "I don't know" - I'm not sure if he meant it as a criticism or a compliment, but I used that opportunity to point out that I (obviously) don't know the answers to these questions, but since I'm interested in them anyway, I've spent a lot of my time reading up on and finding out about the alternative answers.

My Year 11 class was also quite focused (well, some of them were for most of the time, which is saying something ... and those that weren't were sleeping or simply staring straight forward with a blank look on their face, so at least they weren't disturbing others!).

I hope Friday passes smoothly ...