Corridors of Chaos

Today has been a day of non-stop chaos, veering between the organised and the disorganised. A bunch of us regular teachers were off-timetable so we could attend an in-house training session, and so supply teachers old and new were taking our places. By last lesson today, I thought I would go and check that all was well with the supply teacher covering my classes, as the last group he had are well-renowned for naughtiness, and he was only just out of training and still looking for his first proper post.

But in the room where he was supposed to be was a regular teacher, who had decided to hijack this room in my absence because it has facilities that her assigned room doesn't have, and when I wandered along to where this group allegedly were, I found instead another supply teacher sitting at a desk reading whilst the group she was supervising were texting on their banned mobile phones, throwing bits of paper around, and slouching around with their feet propped up on the desks. But as she didn't seem bothered I thought I'd leave it.

This happened a further three times. I'd open a door slightly, peer in, see chaos within - but a chaos that wasn't my group - and shut the door quickly again. In the end I gave up, I just walked along two corridors of closed doors from which leaked sounds of anything but quiet learning.

I never did find my teaching group. But I did see a member of senior management walking the same corridors, turning a deaf ear to whatever was going on.