Did the strike work?

I haven't heard much about the aftermath of the strike, apart from parents who were inconvenienced by having to look after their own children for the day. But that was the point. Strikes are meant to inconvenience people. They are meant to show what would happen if you didn't have workers doing their jobs. They are meant to highlight what an essential service the workers provide. There was a particularly narky debate going on at Frank Chalk's blog - mostly by posters who look like they could benefit from a little extra education themselves.

Just days after the strike, we heard that several schools in the vicinity are to make staff redundant because of falling pupil numbers. Funding to schools is being cut. Staff in my school have been offered the option of early retirement. And funnily enough, in the current climate of uncertainty about pay, the pressures that an Ofsted inspection brings, the doubts and uncertainties about the new diploma system, and the proposal that schools should monitor pupils' obesity and drug use, there is no shortage of people ready to give up the job.

Ridiculous ideas

Coursework deadlines, mid-term madness... I haven't had a chance to rant for a while! But then I saw this news on the BBC website:

Parents who spend quality time with their children should be rewarded through the benefits system, head teachers' leaders have said.

I don't know where to start on this... the simple truth is, if you don't want to spend quality time with your own children, then don't bloody have any. Unfortunately that's not how many parents see it. Whether it's the middle class mothers whose children were just another item on their "things to do before you're 40" list along with seeing the pyramids and learning to scuba dive, or the benefits-addicted women who have their eye on a house-upgrade, there are plenty of parents who palm off their children to after-school care, weekend clubs, boarding school, or the loving care of the TV.

Now I know what you're thinking. It's expensive bringing up kids these days. It's not practical to expect mother (or father) to stay at home or work part-time so s/he can spend quality time with the children. But what are these expenses? Video games, satellite TV subscriptions, childcare, after-school classes?

I thought perhaps this was a report about giving parents benefits help instead of insisting mothers go back to work as soon as possible after the birth of their children. But instead:

Perhaps parents who spent time reading to their children, going to school parents evenings or helping out in their school, could get higher payments, she [National Association of Head Teachers president Clarissa Williams] suggested.

And I just didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Catholic School

No luck for me on the new job yet, so I'm back to scouring the job adverts. I'm at the stage now where I would even consider a Catholic school, although I'm not sure they would consider me. I'm not even sure if you have to be a believer, a church-goer, or avoid mentioning the Reformation if you work in a Catholic school. I really am that ignorant about it.

I was mulling it over on my way to school this morning, and imagining how I would respond to interview questions about my beliefs and faith. But try as I might, I couldn't get the Father Ted response from my mind: "That would be an ecumenical matter"...

Random Pupil Generator

I saw a question on a discussion board that asked if anyone had a Random Pupil Generator. My mind actually boggled. What was this? A machine that can generate a pupil at any time, any place? How random would this pupil actually be? Would he stand there, befuddled, clutching a guitar or test tube, having been summoned from another lesson into mine? Or would she be an amalgamation of pupils, with the head of one vaguely recognisable pupil and the uniform of a rival school? I had to read on, as you can imagine.

What I discovered was no less amazing, although far more credible and practical. It's actually called a Random Name Picker, and is a fruit machine (or typewriter for those, I suppose, in religious schools where gambling is frowned upon) into which you can copy a class list or any old list of words. The machine then generates a highlighted name at random. Genius! I've just got to figure out how you can save one of your lists now...

Back to the Old School 5

The Ranting Teacher Five Year Retrospective

So here it is, my fifth blog entry for today, to mark Ranting Teacher’s fifth birthday. If you’ve just arrived now, it would probably make more sense to start back down there at the first entry of the day. But, please, that’s just a suggestion; after all, it’s the weekend, it’s my birthday, and I’d like us all to just relax and enjoy… if you can actually enjoy a good moan, that is. Well, I know I can.

Anyhow, I’ve been taking a peek back at my younger self to see what was getting my goat around this time five years ago; what drove me to commit my thoughts to cyberspace before I got committed myself…

Perhaps shockingly to some, but perfectly understandable to others, my work colleagues could sometimes really piss me off. Perhaps I’ve saved this topic until last because it’s the most important factor in why schools fall apart and don’t do as well as they could. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link… and it’s sad to say that there are quite a few weak links in schools and the education system as a whole. My thoughts on this haven’t really changed, and what I think I fear the most is that I will slip into the easy existence of a bone-idle incompetent teacher – and I’ve met a few of these. The more I see those around me - and allegedly in charge of me - cutting corners and screwing up, the more I worry that their bad influence is rubbing off on me.

Five years ago, I wrote about other teachers annoying me by leaving pathetic cover lessons when I was the teacher filling in for them, including the ubiquitous wordsearch, which still annoys me to this day. Then there were the times that somebody else was in my classroom and I would dread walking back in there afterwards, knowing I would be confronted with sweet wrappers, used tissues all over the place, and wrecked wall displays. Since then, I have witnessed many more instances of incompetence, laziness, and double standards. And maybe soon it will be time to spill some more beans on some of the worst offenders I’ve had the displeasure to work with over the past few years...

Back to the Old School 4

The Ranting Teacher Five Year Retrospective

Five years ago, Ranting Teacher was born. I’ve been looking back to see what I was whinging about back then, and if much has changed in that time. This is my fourth of five entries for today, and it’s time to see what I was saying about the kids themselves back then.

They might have wound me up, lied to me, and not listened to a word I said, but sometimes they did make me laugh. I’d forgotten about the boy who ignored my careful instructions for his homework that he was supposed to copy down into his homework diary, and instead just wrote: “Do crappy homework by next Tuesday”. Then there was the boy who was supposed to be engaged in some meaningful paired discussion but instead was telling his small audience about his dad’s porn collection stashed in his wardrobe, unaware I could hear the whole conversation, and that it was all I could picture the next time I met his parents.

Back to the Old School 3

The Ranting Teacher Five Year Retrospective

This is the middle entry for today’s blogging. I’m writing five entries today, because the concept of Ranting Teacher started out on the Internet five years ago this very day, so five is the magic number!

I’ve been looking back over my original website at what was bothering me five years ago. And in doing so I’ve noticed that my posts broadly fall into three different categories: those concerning the pupils, those about their parents, and the rants about my colleagues.

The parents! you may well exclaim. Why yes, why should we not attribute some blame to those who spawn some of the little buggers we have to put up with all day? And sometimes the parents are far worse than their poor long-suffering kids.

For example, I wrote about the Road Rage I felt when parents blocked the roads and caused hazards not only for their darling children trying to reach the school gates safely, but also for me as I battled to beat the buses onto the premises in the morning.

Then I ranted about the parents who encourage their kids to be little shits because it’s some sort of revenge for their own failed school days. And just over four years ago it was time to catalogue the different types of parents who turned up for Parents’ Evenings, from the aggressive and trailer trash types to the nervous parents and those parents about whom you know way too much.

You can read more about all of these at my original website, whilst marvelling at its glorious html technicolour, at Ranting Teacher.