My new school

Random stuff about my new school:

a) The Senior Management Team is mostly older time-served teachers, which is a relief after a succession of young whipper-snappers who talk the talk but don't walk if they can possibly drive around in their flash Audis instead. There is one younger senior teacher whose main role seems to be making highly colourful charts and wearing the flashiest designer clothes and brand new white trainers on Inset days, so I already have him marked out for possible future ridicule.

b) I've been there two weeks and I still don't really know much about what goes on outside of my classroom. But now I'm almost over being a complete "newbie" and people keep telling me about things I've never heard of and assuming that I know what they are talking about. Ditto with people's names. "Can you let Mrs H know as soon as you can?" - a typical phrase that sends me into a panic as there are at least three teachers with the same names and I can't put any names to faces.

c) There are some very helpful people who have gone out of their way to assist me with various things and have made my whole experience much more pleasant with their thoughtfulness. The smallest of gestures can mean a big deal to somebody new. Thanks guys.

d) The classrooms don't have many cupboards. So there's nowhere to stash all my resources or go to pull faces when the kids annoy me or take the mickey out of my accent.

e) It took me over a week to stop thinking about the last school as "my school" and to stop texting my old colleagues every lunchtime to catch up on the gossip.

f) Things that look shiny on your interview day must only look that way through the sheen of nerves. When you're actually there, for real, you can see the literal and metaphorical cracks.

So there you have just a few first impressions. Some things don't change though. I've left it until tea-time on Sunday to do my homework - that is, make resources for several schemes of work I've never taught before. And week three is when the novelty of new school / back at school wears off for the pupils, so I'm expecting a rougher ride over the next few days...

Wondering about wandering

Maybe this is my shortest ever rant, but I just want to say that I really, really, really hate it when people muddle up "wander" with "wonder". There are some other idiot mistakes that annoy me, but I've just watched a promotional video online where the presenter mixes them up and I just wanted to go "arghhhhhhh grrrrrrrrrrr".

Bully Teacher

I thought I'd shaken off the shackles of my old school, but having been in this week to see the exam results, I feel wound up again by some of my (ex) colleagues. Like every workplace, schools have a number of people working there who really shouldn't be, and like the public sector in general, it's quite difficult to get rid of incompetent members of staff. And then there are staff who should be booted right out of the door but for some reason Management thinks they are valuable assets to the school who should be rewarded and retained with promotions.

One of these disgraces is Mr A. When you first meet him, you will probably recognise his type: one of the lads, seemingly popular with the kids, likes a joke and a laugh and has many of the LSAs swooning. Add into the mix that he teaches a shortage subject and filled a vacancy that had been wide open for a long time, and you can see why he looks like an attractive proposition.

But then you dig deeper. Why do the kids love him so much? Well, he takes lunchtime sports training every now and again, and he is the king of practical jokes. Oh yes, he's always having a laugh and a joke with the kids. But then you start to hear complaints from members of your form.

"We don't learn anything from him."
"He picked up my pencil case and emptied it all over the desk, and everyone was laughing but I didn't think it was funny."
"We're always playing games but we didn't cover what we needed for the exam."
"I wanted to ask him something but he told me to go away because he was emailing his friends."
"He scribbled on my book right in front of me then told me off and said I'd done it."
"He shouted at us all for not doing the homework but he hadn't set any."
"He lost my book and then told me off for forgetting it. But he's lost it."
"We watch lots of videos. Last lesson we watched 'Die Hard'. It's really good but it had nothing to do with (the subject)."

Now some of these you would be inclined to explain away. What teacher hasn't been accused of losing a child's book? Who hasn't shown a video at the end of term? Surely these games are educational, but he's such a great teacher that the kids don't even realise they are learning? But after having given Mr A the benefit of the doubt, there comes a time when these comments start to add up into something more than the occasional slackery.

Mr A is a bully. He commands a group of laddish teachers whose behaviour deteriorates in his presence as they compete to keep up with his "jokes". At least one NQT has emulated his behaviour, seeing how popular it makes him, and has gone from being a really promising teacher to an arrogant slacker. Mr A bullies the children. Messing about with their stuff might seem like a laugh to the class, but it's the kind of thing the class bully does to intimidate others and make themselves look popular.

Mr A is also really thick. In his shortage subject, the barriers for recruitment must be lower, and whilst he knows enough (allegedly) to teach his own subject (if he could ever be bothered), his general knowledge and common sense are way below par. He can't write very well, and so his corrections and notes read like an illiterate Year 7's.

And in September Mr A's reward for all of this? - a promotion to head of year, where he can continue to bully children and charm their parents.

Loaded

The BBC's Education website has given burglars hope that the recession will not affect them by pinpointing that come the autumn, student rooms will provide rich pickings in the way of easily portable electrical consumables: Students bring kit worth £6,000

I would have had an easier time of it too if I had had a mobile phone instead of wasting valuable drinking, ahem, studying minutes queuing for the pay phones to ring home once a fortnight or when the money had run out. I wouldn't have spent ages wandering around campus to see where everybody was when a quick text message would have confirmed that.

But then I would have probably spent all my time messing about on the internet instead.

In Limbo

There we are then. As I've had a leaving party, embarrassing speech scenario, and am about a stone heavier from all the "goodbye" parties (aka chcolate overload) with each class I taught, I can assume that I have officially left my school, even if they are paying me up until the end of August.

So now I'm in limbo.

I don't even have a timetable for my new school yet, which saves me an hour of colouring-in this summer. I don't have any schemes of work to prepare for the old department for the new school year, and in fact I don't really know what my new department does or how they do it. I went for a visit, but everybody was in that "can't be bothered, let's worry about it in September" frame of mind, and if I had asked I would only have been interrupting their video viewing, so I didn't bother either. Somewhere I have about two weeks' worth of generic winging-it lessons, so I'll dust those off the night before.

Which means that I should be feeling less burdened than the past umpteen years, but I don't. It's only the second day of the holidays but I can't settle. Does any teacher immediately switch off? There's a term's worth of dust layering shelves I haven't looked at in daylight for a good few weeks, and the spare room is chest-high in boxes of resources I found lurking at the back of my cupboard. I have so much to sort out but I just want to flop down and watch old films.

The transition time between hectic end-of-termness and yawning summer holiday is limbo time too.

Sexuality - strong and warm and wild and free

I was just browsing around some of my regular haunts in the blogshere and reading MissB's comments on sexuality reminded me of something I was going to say earlier. In contrast to MissB's observations about boys wanting to be uber-masculine, there's a really odd trend in my school at the moment. It's now the done thing for boys to show that they are camp as a row of tents... provided they are the studs of the school in the first place. Wannabe-studs seem to have to flaunt their passion for pink as a rite of passage to show they are so over having to prove themselves to the girls. I've never seen such behaviour before, and I'm wondering how much influence metrosexuals such as David Beckham and Gavin Henson have had on this trend.

For example, when giving out coloured paper to Year 8s for some time-filling poster activity, the boys all want pink, and also want to shout this out so that everybody in the class knows that they haven't gone for manly maroon or boyish blue. In corridors between lessons, those boys who drip with cheap and chunky gold jewellery greet each other with mafia-style hugs and kisses, and all that's missing is the heavy coat being shrugged from their shoulders.

Now I'm all for breaking down gendered stereotypes, but this is all just a bit disconcerting. I just get the impression that there's more going on here than we're aware of. And I don't think it's as simplistic as passing wraps of drugs or salt (both equal menaces in our "healthy eating" school). Maybe I'm just missing something obvious - a TV programme they are imitating, for example. But whatever's going on, all I know is that we need to start stocking up on pink paper.

Can you help?

I wonder if anyone could help? Today, after counting up how many lessons I have left to count down, and realising that I will never see some of the children or staff again after a couple of weeks' time, I experienced a strange feeling. It was like a twinge, but it wasn't anger or cynicism or elation. It was this odd kind of sensation that made the corners of my mouth droop. If anyone knows what I could possibly be feeling, then please contact me in the usual way...