mobile?

I'm teaching in a mobile classroom today. Mobile 5. I'm never quite sure why they're called that - they're not very mobile. In my opinion anything that requires a plumber, an electrician, a crane, several labourers, a fleet of HGVs and a cement truck to install cannot be called portable, handipack, funsize, or mobile. If it came with its own wheels, steering wheel, and wasn't the width of three buses then maybe, just maybe, I would be happy to call it a mobile - but it doesn't. This one is much bigger than most of the classrooms inside the actual school building, is wired into the phone system, electricity, computer network, water pipes, and has been here longer than four generations of pupils have; and it's not going anywhere anytime soon... Mobile?!

So where was I? Today I'm teaching in a hut, a prefab, a portakabin, a (relatively) temporary, an outdoor, a cardboard classroom. And I must say that I quite like the experience. Yes it goes through temperature extremes with frightening speed; yes there is a weird musty smell; yes you have to stumble over snow banks to get to and from it - but I can forgive all of that.

There is a wonderful sense of isolation out here. It's like a tiny school on its own rather than just another little brick in a big pile of bricks. And the fact that I don't share a wall with anyone means that my classes can be as noisy as I like without worrying about distracting someone else's lesson. I can have pupils shout and stamp and sing and clap without that nagging feeling that my next door neighbour disapproves of my teaching methods.
I should probably have the confidence to teach the way I feel is right whether people can hear me or not - it's just easier this way. But it's much bigger than that.
It's the sense that civilisation ends at the doorway - beyond only wilderness, long stretches of uneducated wilderness - unknowns. But here, in our little cardboard oasis of culture we are safe - safe and civilised. This little island of learning with extreme temperatures and a musty smell becomes the last outpost for true education of the soul.

Is that roof leaking?

then they came for me; and there was no one left to tweet

I have to thank Mike & Alex for drawing my attention to this article on the BBC website. I hadn't heard about it before and, once you've taken a scan through it you'll understand why I found it a bit unnerving.

To paraphrase viciously, a young teacher in Scotland is being investigated because it was discovered that she had been updating her twitter page with messages, some of which referred to her classes and pupils.

The secondary teacher in Argyll and Bute is understood to have posted up to 38 updates a day on the Twitter site. One said: "Had S3 period 6 for last two years...don't know who least wants to do anything, them or me."

'The fool!' I thought when first I read about her. 'Every teacher knows that you can't publish information about pupils without explicit parental permission. She must be stupid to do that.' Except as I read through some examples of what she had actually written it began to dawn on me that she wasn't actually posting anything more revealing than I have here.

"The thought of having some of my S4 beyond exam time doesn't bear thinking about - for them as well as me I suspect."

In fact I imagine I have occasionally been a lot less anonymous in my musings than she has. She doesn't mention pupils by name, her comments seem fairly generalised and focus more on her than on the pupils she is teaching. So what is her crime? It gets worse for her:

Argyll and Bute Council policy states that teachers may access professional blogs which have educational value but are not allowed to have their own blog. However, the teacher in question has a blog on which she said she had been too busy using Twitter to update it recently.

For those who, like me, have remained immune to the lure of the tweet let me explain. Twitter is just a way to deliver mundane details of your life to many friends at once. Through Twitter you can develop followers who regularly check up on your feed. It's basically a way to make your stalkers feel more involved. I care nothing for Twitter. But blogging...

"Teachers are not allowed to have their own blogs." Um.

So, unlike the teacher in question - I don't tweet (or whatever it is) - I don't really see the appeal. But like the teacher in question, I do have a blog. Like the teacher in question, I occasionally mention anecdotes from my life as a teacher online. Like the teacher in question, I have been known to express dissatisfaction in life. Up to this point I have never been told that I was not allowed to do so. It seems if I were working in Argyll and Bute I would be breaching official guidelines.

And quite honestly that is ridiculous.

Now clearly I haven't read everything that this teacher posted. I'll be first in line to point and make disapproving facial expressions at her if she has been commenting on identifiable pupils. I will shake my head slowly if it turns out she has been bringing her school and its good name into disrepute. But if it's simply the case that she has been uploading her thoughts and feelings in a pointless, if slightly narcissistic webby kind of a way then what is she doing that it so different from all the twitter users in other professions? Exactly how has what she was doing impacted on the educational wellbeing of pupils in the Argyll area? How was it having any impact on anything until someone thought it necessary to bring it to the attention of the press? Absolutely ridiculous.

But it has had an impact on me. And that might be a good thing. It's been a wake up call about the comments I make. I need to take a lot more care when talking about school. I need to put more effort into making my comments more general and less personalised. I need to increase anonymity on many levels.
This annoys me.
When you work in education you soon find that your life revolves around a constrictive regime. You become bound up in targets and paperwork to the point that sometimes you need to poke a hole through which to breathe. We spend so long living by someone's rules that the idea of finding a place of our own where we can express our own expressions, where we can breathe in air that hasn't been passed through a committee process and risk assessment survey first.

Am I worried about what is happening to that teacher in Argyll? Yes. I really am. I would hate to think that other education authorities would feel the need to follow suit. If the situation arose where I was told that I shouldn't keep a blog then TOASNT would be gone quicker than... well, quicker than it went when I accidentally hit the delete button last year. How I hope it doesn't come to that. But from now on, in any effort to avoid names I will no longer mention Dave - he will now be 'the Welsh Castle Sketcher', Mike and Alex will become 'London's Bushmills Residents', Kylie - you are now 'the Sporadic Antipodean', Karen 'Florida's vg Bridget Jones', and Brazen Teacher (as if that isn't anonymous enough) will henceforth become 'Another Teacher at risk of being put under investigation because it seems we can't be trusted to update blogs without passing out sensitive information and ruining the lives of all those around us.'

Council officials were investigating whether she had put sensitive information on public display and whether it was during work hours.

"Council policy states that teachers may access professional blogs which have educational value but are not allowed to have their own blog." Wouldn't you love to live in a place where public workers aren't allowed to express personal opinion? You now have the choice of China or Argyll it seems.

back to SNT

It's been so long since I've done any special needs work for any length of time I've almost forgotten what it means. But a couple of hours covering a special needs class this morning showed me just how much I miss it. I absolutely loved every second. And let me tell you why:

1. Working in an atmosphere devoid of any subcurrent. So often I am on edge when I teach - always worried about saying or doing anything that can be misconstrued. Sometimes I feel as if I have to view everything I say from every possible angle before actually saying it. Today everything I said was taken at face value - there was no cynicism, no posturing. It was such a refreshing change from the lesson I'd had before it where a pupil had confronted me. He knew he was wrong pretty quickly into the conversation but he couldn't lose face by backing down. I think I did an alright job of diffusing the situation - but it would have been wonderful not to have to.

2. In general the pupils love what they are doing. Our targets/assessment obsessed education system often makes me feel like I am training pupils to pass tests rather than actually educating them. And you can't inspire someone through paper 1 section B. People are inspired by feats of ingenuity - wonderful literature - art - the way the world works... not by 'you should spend no more than 45 minutes on this question. It is worth 18 marks.' In this class I was teaching the pupils what we needed to know - and they could see why they needed to know it. True they had forgotten most of it by the time I'd said the second syllable of lunchtime... but...

3. I miss the downright cheerfulness of a special needs classroom. Here there are no allusions to prison cells. The windows are huge and bar free (and sport a couple of rather beautiful stained glass designs I note - impressive), The motivational posters are colourful and... well, motivational. Even the over sized pencils and triangular big nib pens make me feel somehow better about the world.

4. The small class sizes must be a huge consideration. You simply cannot compare trying to control and teach 30 people, all with different priorities, in a cramped, airless classroom to this. My life is normally so filled with racing to cover all the objectives for all the pupils in thirty minutes that it is a joy to be able to spend time with individual pupils - helping them with their individual needs. What a relief it is to be able to take more time over a particular issue because some pupils seem to be struggling with it, safe in the knowledge that there aren't half a dozen pupils getting fidgety at the other side of the room because they're finished the task and are getting bored waiting to move on

I know this is all just temporary. I know that tomorrow I will be back to porridge - but let me take one more deep breath and enjoy it while I can.

moving on

We nearly always have a feeling of a job unfinished. I am leaving pupils mid season – in the middle of their secondary education.

I feel old now. As if in a direct answer to my last entry where I complained that subs never get to see how their pupils progress, a pupil in my new school stopped me in the corridor today. She’s in her final year of secondary education – just a few months from university and adult life.

“Mr C!!! It’s me. Don’t you remember me?”

I should point out that this is not my first time teaching at this particular school. Towards the end of my PGCE (teacher training) I had a placement there. After the placement they took me on as a classroom assistant while I completed my training – and, once I became a fully trained teacher of English language and literature, they took me on as a teacher – a technology, art and maths teacher.

I was in my first year teaching and this particular pupil was in her first year of secondary school. I taught her technology. “Isn’t it weird? You were here when I started out – and now you’re here as I finish.”

As I struggled to remember what her name was I came to the realisation that I have now been teaching for one complete cycle – an educational generation. I have been here for the lifespan of a secondary pupil – just not the same ‘here’

There are many landmarks in a teacher's career. I’ve been told you only really feel old when you find out that one of your pupils is the son or daughter of someone you taught. Perhaps my next one will be when I see a pupil leaving school who was only starting primary school in 2001. But for now let me pause, sigh and reflect upon the last seven years, and the vocation that has swallowed them whole.

what next?

As I type this around 15,000 primary school pupils are sitting the final paper of the last leven plus exams in Northern Ireland. The test that will determine which secondary school they attend. Despite the fact that most of the rest of Britain scrapped this form of selection over a decade ago we have held on firmly and proud. And now we let go.

I should be happy. I hate that sham of an exam; that overblown IQ test. Some will suggest that it is a fair system, a mertitocracy of sorts. Poor and rich are assessed on equal ground. 'Life is a series of tests' they will tell you, 'the quicker people learn to deal with stress rather than avoid it the better.'
I, myself, have managed to avoid stress most of my working life (mainly by avoiding working maybe) and I hate the idea of the eleven plus. Who wants to be branded a failure before they even reach their teens? And meritocracy? How does that explain the huge class imbalance we have in our schools?

So I should be happy - but I'm not. At time of going to press our Assembly, the people we intrusted with running our wee country, have yet to agree on what should replace the 11+. I have yet to decide what I think should replace the 11+. Parents of year 6 pupils, who have no idea what their children will be facing in twelve short months time, are asking teachers for answers - we don't have any.

While there is no official plan in place for a replacement a dangerous vacuum has been created. Schools are taking it into their own hands to create selection processes. I find that faintly terrifying. The school where I currently work have decided, along with 29 other Grammars, to form their own 'Association of Quality Education.' This association will produce their own assessment papers. Let's face it - they're creating their very own eleven plus.

Meantime all those 10 year old year 6 kids are being batted around in a game of politics. Their uncertainities are being used as canon fodder with which the DUP and Sinn Fein are battering each other. And that can only be viewed as wrong on so many levels.

inspirational?

How did you end up where you are today?

I don't mean transportation. I mean doing what you're doing with your life. I only ask because I'm beginning to think I may have had the wrong idea.

Talking to people in the staff room here I get the impression that good teachers breed good teachers. So many of the staff here seem to have been inspired by a superhuman teacher from their childhood - someone who made such a difference to their lives that they had no option but to pay it forward and enter the pedagogy business.

My high school English teacher, who for some reason assigned me the role of Portia in The Merchant of Venice when we read it aloud in class -- it was the first time I'd ever done anything remotely like acting, and I thought, hmmmmm...

Megan Mullally

Then I started to think about acting, sports and music awards. How often have I heard someone get up and thank their high school music/drama/chemistry teacher who told them they could reach for the stars when no one else believed in them. It seems the world would have been a much less talented place had there not been some superb confidence builders in the teaching profession. It’s something I always say with a smile when a pupil thanks me for putting up with them for a term or helping them through something they find particularly challenging, “Just remember me when you’re making your acceptance speech.” I say it half jokingly.

When I was in sixth grade, I had a science teacher named Mrs. Walton. She’d had my older brother, Durran, in her class the year before. Durran is as smart as they come, the kind of student that every teach­er loved. I idolized him. One day she gave us a test. I’d studied as hard as I could, but got a mediocre grade—nowhere near what Durran had probably scored. My eyes filled with tears.
Mrs. Walton came up to me.
“You’ll do better next time,” she said.
I shook my head. “I’ll never be like Durran,” I said.
She shook her head, then said softly, “No, you don’t have to be like Durran. You just have to be the best Shaun the world’s ever seen.”
Those words clicked in my head. That’s been my goal ever since.
Shaun Alexander, Seattle Seahawks

But me, why did I become a teacher? Was it because I was inspired by one of my teachers. Well, here’s the problem. I despised my English teacher. Looking back I realise that is a bit of an overreaction – she was never that bad to me – but let’s just say she and I never really saw eye to eye. I remember at one point she decided to instigate a new rule that if someone forgot a book or a pen or a homework they would have a mark put beside their name. If someone got three marks beside their name they would be given an after school detention. I was in detention two days later. Three marks, two days.

I will readily admit that most of the issues she and I had were of my creation. I rubbed her the wrong way. I was lazy. I was, at times, insolent – lots of times. I lied to her, I skipped class, I never handed in any work on time. Looking back I can understand why I was never her pupil of the month. But what I never understood was why she didn’t get my writing. In the five years that she taught me English I never achieved a mark higher than a C. It could be an end of year exam, a piece of creative writing, a detailed critique of a Philip Larkin poem or a haiku – nothing I did was ever worthy of an A or a B.

Right in the middle of my time at secondary school I had two years with another teacher. My GCSE years. Suddenly the world changed. In two years I never once got anything lower than an A for anything. I was the best in the class – the teacher loved what I wrote and regularly told me how she looked forward to reading the next piece. The world of English became a brighter place. So much so that I felt confident of taking English Literature on as one of my post 16 specialties. And with it my previous teacher. And with her my previous grades.

D,D,D,C,D,D,C . The frustrating thing is that I can’t claim she was marking me unfairly. I had a second teacher at the same time who was giving me similar grades. Between them I was predicted a slim pass in my A Level English Lit. I was predicted an E and told that they were being generous; told that I had made a bad choice when picking subjects. How did I do? Well, I’m not going to say I aced the exam – but a decade later I am teaching A Level English Literature to pupils of my own after completing an English Literature degree. You don’t do that with an E.

Teachers are often the people who inspire us the most. I know I wouldn't be where I am today without my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Duncan. She so believed in me, and for the first time, made me embrace the idea of learning. I learned to love learning because of Mrs. Duncan.

Oprah Winfrey

So I find it difficult to give her any credit when I think on how I got where I am. I know she is owed some – I learned a lot from her, even picked up her hatred of words such as ‘hard’ or ‘nice’. There is no doubt she had an effect on me – but my inspiration? No. Although having just read back a couple of paragraphs maybe I did have an inspirational English teacher after all. Maybe my preoccupation with the negative has overcast the positive effect of my GCSE teacher. So when I get up to make my acceptance speech, you know, when I win that Academy Award/Man Booker Award/Tony; Mrs Doherty – this is for you.

education could damage your health

Week #2, school #2; and I have an admission to make. This subbing lark should come with a health warning: May seriously damage your moral high ground.

Anyone who knows me would be able to tell you my views of the Grammar school system and academic selection. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that still holds onto academic selection for entry into secondary schools and it is holding onto it fiercely. I, just in case you don’t already know, am fiercely opposed to a two tier education system (or indeed the three or four tier system we actually have)
It is an opinion that has brought me into verbal conflict with several members of my family and my closest friends, all of whom benefited from a Grammar school education. I, myself, benefited from a Grammar school education – the difference being that I have worked most of my adult life with children who didn’t pass the test at eleven and are thus not benefiting from a Grammar school education. I see what the great divide does to them. I have witnessed the sense of resignation they have that they aren’t ‘meant’ to be academic so they’ll not bother. I’ve worked on breaking down barriers that a sense of failure (aged eleven) builds. And it’s just not right.

The Grammars in Northern Ireland wield a lot of power. The Government love them because they allow us to produce the best exam results in the UK year after year. And how do they achieve such fantastic results? Well, using academic selection they pick out the pupils with the highest IQs; the academic cream if you like. Unsurprisingly these pupils perform well in national tests (relatively speaking) which gain the schools good reputations. These good reputations make them extremely attractive for business and community support (everyone loves a winner) so they see all kinds of funding opportunities opening up. They can plough this money into improving the infrastructure and resources of the school, which in turn improves their standing in exam league tables and leads to a higher percentage of post 16 students, who attract the largest amount of governmental and commercial funding. And so the cycle continues.

I’m not suggesting that Grammar schools are wallowing in cash. The way state education funding is at present no schools are finding it easy to balance books. It just seems to me that Grammar schools are better equipped for this hardship and seem to find it easier to produce money than non selective schools when push comes to shove. Just look at the beautiful gardens and perfectly manicured playing fields on which Grammar schools play their Rugger and Cricket. Compare those to the council owned dog walking parks that the high school next door use.

Grammar schools produce results; of that there is no doubt. If I hadn’t gone to a Grammar I doubt very much that I would have gone to university – I have no idea what I would’ve done but I wasn’t the kind of pupil who could motivate themselves against the odds. I would have blended in and faded out of education. I certainly wouldn’t be a teacher.
Back when I was eleven I did the test that was to determine whether at thirty one I would be sitting typing up a blog in a classroom after teaching a year 12 poetry lesson or… well I just don’t know.

I’ll be honest. The reason I fixate on this issue is because in my mind I shouldn’t have passed that test. I failed every one of the practices in the build up . Somehow I squeezed through and onto the road to Grammar school. To this day I don’t know how. In quiet moments I find my mind wander into ‘Sliding Doors’ territory and I find myself imaging what my life would be like had I dropped a couple more points in that test. I know it’s pointless; I believe that things happen for a reason, that I was guided up the path I was meant to take – but I can’t help wondering. And then I start wondering about the pupils I teach. What would happen to them if they’d done just a little better or worse when they were eleven.

I believe that schools selecting their pupils on the basis of IQ is wrong; I believe that eleven is far too young to map out someone’s educational career; and I believe labelling pupils as either academic or non-academic is just plain immoral.

After all of that please don’t think less of me because I am writing this entry from a classroom of a Grammar school. Just because I am in a position where I have to take what work is offered doesn’t dilute my opinions. I’ll teach their pupils, I’ll take the pay cheque but they can’t make me like it.

supply, supply and supply again

Back to subbing.

Different term, different kids, different school, same old challenges. Well for the most part anyway. However the task does seem a little different this year. In the past I have always been fortunate enough to end up working in the same school for the entire year. This year, however, I am facing the prospect of moving around looking for work where I can get it.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about returning to the chalk face. There is a certain amount of relief involved. If you include the summer holidays I haven’t taught in over three months. From a purely financial point of view the relief is immense. They say that most of us are only three pay cheques away from homelessness. I may not be in risk of that just yet but I was beginning to watch the outflow from my bank account with increasing concern.

It is, however, much more than just a financial relief. I was (whisper it softly) missing the working day. I missed the hubbub of the school, the flow of people in the corridors, the characters in the classroom. This may not sound like the cynical old grouch, lacking in any semblance of the youthful idealism with which he once glowed, to whom you have become accustomed – for that I apologise – but sometimes… well… I just miss teaching.

But, as I said, this is a new school and a whole new experience. New beginnings always worry me a little (you’d think I’d get used to them considering I go through this annually.) I’m not a huge fan of readjustment, and fitting in around a completely new system with a completely new set of rules, with a staffroom full of strangers and a classroom full of young strangers fills me with dread.

It’s a good dread though.

growing pains

I have a house plant – a coleus – I know it’s called a coleus because I looked it up. It was given to me by a class I used to teach; not because I was special in any way or because I was their favourite teacher, they gave one to most of their teachers. I expect they were using them to look at germination or something in science; then at the start of the summer holidays they gave them away.

I got to know the kids in this particular class pretty well over the course of the year. Not only did I have them for drama but I was also giving many of them extra support in reading or counting on a daily basis. Their literacy and numeracy ability levels were on the distinctly low side and it made school an extremely challenging and confusing place to be.

When they handed me the plant it was a little green thing with two leaves in a small yoghurt pot. And that is how it stayed for the next few weeks in my kitchen window. I have to say I was rather under-whelmed.

Then I was worried.

Surely, after three weeks of loving care it should have grown at least a little. I didn’t necessarily expect exotic colours and bounteous fruit – but was a third leaf too much to ask? I told my mother about it and she laughed.

A week after my mother removed the tiny plant from its yoghurt pot and replanted it into something bigger it doubled in size. Another week later it had over twenty leaves of varying shades of red and green, and had doubled in size again. When it started to block the light coming through the kitchen window I began to worry, but I had to admit that it was a thing of beauty.

It got me thinking about those kids who gave me the plant in the first place. The ones whose lives are being constrained by an inability to read or count. The metaphor is an obvious one. I wonder what would happen if, somehow, they were set free. Would they go on to become things of beauty? I have no doubt they will; somehow they will find a way around their problems and then who knows what they will be capable of - but I’ll be more than a little concerned if they start blocking the light coming through my kitchen window.

i'm so proud

This photo makes me want to cry. I don’t know which is worse – the basic spelling error or the fact that they felt it was appropriate to put a smiley face on a sign apologising for a errant service. It’s almost as if they are saying “We’re very sorry for your inconvenience – but really we’re not – actually we find it rather amusing – right now we’re watching you dancing with a screaming bladder on our CCTV – it’s hilarious.”

No, the worst thing about it is that I took the photo at a filling station in an area where I’ve been teaching English – obviously I have failed.

On the upside I’ve just noticed that I am in the photo and for a change I don’t hate it.

Loving the hair.

Never Happy

You just can’t trust these admin types. After venting about how they blocked Blogger and all that’s good about the internet for practically the whole of the Easter Holiday I returned on Monday to find it has been unblocked.

This should be cause for celebration – A carnival of liberty. We could light a torch of freedom and run with it through the streets of London… or maybe not. It is surely nothing but good news. So why am I sitting looking at my computer screen with mixture of bemusement and concern?

Maybe you’re thinking that there’s no pleasing this man. Maybe you’re thinking I’m only happy when I’ve got something to complain about. I just have this nagging concern about why Blogger was unblocked again. They must have blocked it for a reason – I may not agree with their reasoning but they must have had one. What has changed? Why haven’t they stuck to their guns and continued to make my life more difficult? Maybe I’m a stubborn old fool but when I make a principled stand against something it takes an awful lot to make me admit I’m wrong.

I’d love to imagine that they read my post and were so moved by my argument (and insults) that they had a complete change of heart. I’d love that but I can eliminate the theory for three separate reasons: 1. How could they read it when blogger had been blocked from the network? 2. No one actually reads this blog. 3. If I were them and I read something like what was in that post it would do nothing other than harden my resolve.

So I’m confused.

While in the mood for complaining let me add this; what on earth am I going to use as my excuse for not updating this more regularly now?

student politics

Our year 12s have started a petition to be allowed to go on study leave early. The head boy just brought it round to get me to sign it half an hour ago.

I was a bit confused - I don't even teach the year 12s so why they felt my signature would lend any weight is beyond me. I looked down through the list of names and comments and I realised that there were quite a lot of teachers who were more than happy to wave good bye to their GCSE classes, including the head of year who seems to have given the whole thing his blessing.

I, as is the mode, am in two minds. I don't trust kids enough to work on their own at home in the build up to big examinations. This cynicism comes from my own experience. I did practically nothing to prepare for my own GCSEs and when it came to A-levels I did nothing. In fact during my A-levels I was out every night.

Maybe it's unfair to tar this present crop with my brush; but I just can't see how sending them off early is going to improve their chances.

Having said that I am impressed with their initiative. Getting the whole thing sanctioned by their head of year was a stroke of genius - it lends gravity and makes the rest of us more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they have completed the course and have handed in all the coursework why not set them free to fly. Apart from anything else it'll free up some time for the other classes.

Me? I sat firmly on the fence. I signed the petition but wrote the words 'I'm too busy marking to take the time to form an opinion on the matter.' The head boy wasn't impressed.

let us live our lives!

I’m angry – really angry. I’ve tried looking at it for every point of view, tried to work out their thought process, but I give up. The powers that be in terms of IT provision in Northern Ireland Education have decided that Blogger is too much of a risk to young minds and blocked it from the C2K network. This means that anyone trying to access a Blogger or Blogspot blog from any school in Northern Ireland will be shown a blocked access page instead.

I am appalled. As an English teacher I teach the variety and uses of blogs, I encouraged pupils to express themselves using blogs, I used blogs to look at the concept of writing for a specific audience. Now I am completely unable to look up any of my trusted sites.

It’s not just blogging that is suffering from C2k blocking. When I was a learning support teacher I regularly used word games from the East of the Web website. These were incredibly useful and fun ways to improve all kinds of literacy skills. Within six months of discovering them I lost them again – apparently in their clampdown on gaming sites East of the Web got the chop again. Surely even the IT geeks in Belfast running our network can distinguish between educational games and games where little cartoon tanks firing atom bombs at each other – maybe then they can explain why my pupils can play the later but not the former.

From a personal point of view it’s a pain in the arse as well. For the better part of two years I’ve been adding posts to ToaSNT during my lunches and free periods. Now that’s impossible – well almost.

In their efforts to avoid our impressionable young folks seeing anything with bad language, sex or violence C2K have blocked even the tamest of sites. By blocking hardcore porn the pupils moved to softcore, by blocking that the pupils moved onto ‘mild references to’, when all of that got blocked pupils moved into chat rooms. But, as we all know, chat rooms are evil and eventually got blocked. The pupils then moved into social interaction sites. Then Bebo and Myspace made headline news and Youtube became the home of happy slapping – so they got banned. This meant that anything that allowed pupils to upload photos, share ideas or actually express an opinion (horror!) had to be blocked and so we get to wave goodbye to blogs – well almost.

You see, here’s the thing. With everything of interest blocked the pupils had to get inventive. Every week they discover a new proxy site and, before it gets blocked, use it to check out their bebo pages and prank youtubes. Of course the proxies aren’t exactly discerning types and so we see the return of hardcore porn and sickening violence.

Ironic, eh?

So C2K please, for the sake of my sanity and a sex ed teacher’s ability to research lesson plans, get off your power filled, litigation fearing censor fest and give us a system that lets us teach… and maybe write the odd blog entry during our frees.

I am so SO sorry

I was thinking of changing the title of this blog to ‘Thoughts of a Substitute Teacher (TOAST)’ but to be honest being a substitute teacher commands so little respect that I doubt you’d bother listening to me long enough to actually read the explanation. You’d be plotting how you could put a drawing pin on my seat, or how you could get every mobile phone in the room to go off at exactly the same moment, or how you could persuade me that your regular teacher allows you to watch videos and eat popcorn in class all the time.

Maybe it would help if we changed the name. Substitute teacher sounds like someone who you bring on when the science teacher gets injured in a nasty challenge down the left wing. Maybe we should call them ‘guest teachers.’

I have to apologise to sub teachers everywhere. As a pupil I mocked you, I showed you no respect and I took advantage of your temporary status by pushing classroom boundaries to the limit at every opportunity. As a teacher I belittled your standing and possibly contributed to your hardships by not leaving enough work to cover a Friday afternoon double period. Covering the odd class for an absent colleague every now and again gave me the false impression that yours was a pressure-free existence, void of challenge or purpose. My opinions have changed dramatically.

For the past few months I have been a substitute teacher and I don’t believe I have done a more difficult job in my life. Standing in front of a group of thirty kids, none of whom you know, a group of kids who are determined to push you as far as they can, a group of kids whose names include (apparently) David Beckham, Mickey Mouse, Cevin(sic) Costner and Cesc Fabregas… Standing there knowing that you have to gainfully employ them despite the fact that you don’t know what topic/unit of work they’re doing, what work they’ve already done and in what ability range they lie. Of course there’s no point in asking them what they’ve done so far:

Miss always reads to us from Autotrader, and then sends us down to the off license for some WKD Blue.We don’t have any textbooks. We watch Jeremy Kyle and make notes on lie detectors and their use in the discovery of whether or not some woman’s husband has been sleeping with her sister for three years. Notes? No, sorry, don’t know what they are – but we do a lot of word searches and colouring in.

So, here it is – my open letter of apology to substitute teachers everywhere. Yours is not an easy lot. You have skills I didn’t know existed and deserve every bit as much respect, if not more, than regular teachers. I have had my eyes opened with crowbars and offer my most humble apology – I am truly, truly sorry.

good will to all men

The last week of school – traditionally film week. Some teachers have been letting their pupils watch films since the end of last week but I’ve been holding out until today. This is mainly because I only have three movies they’d actually want to watch. I’ve often thought of introducing them to Kieslowski’s finest works but I’m worried they’d think the subtitles were an attempt to make them do work surreptitiously.

Sub teaching is a tough job at the best of times, but at this time of year it really is a nightmare. Imagine facing thirty angry teens who have no intention of doing what you ask them to do. Imagine the look of bemusement, nea, amused disbelief on their faces as you start to hand out their books, the snorts of indignation as you begin to write on the board. Imagine the howls of protest that drown out your instructions… It really isn’t worth the hassle, nor the stress headache which accompanies it. I want to make it to the holidays in one piece.

I remember with fondness the days I took small groups of pupils. I used to introduce them to the joys of scrabble and chess; partly to exercise their logic and vocabulary and partly because playing novices gave me a chance of actually winning occasionally. My less than noble motives were soon foiled as most of the kids became extraordinarily good at these games in a very short time. I’m not convinced I could use the same techniques today. I’m not sure I’d be able to pacify thirty sullen teenagers with board games and cries of “well done. You win again.”

Which is why I am writing this in semi darkness while my class watch ‘Ghostbusters.’ At least it’s educational – sort of. They mention scientific stuff sometimes and that’s good enough for me. But before you judge me please take a moment and consider the alternative.

Shock of 2007

I could have fallen off my chair. Who’d have thought it? Apparently… prepare yourselves for this now… rumour has it that… are you sitting down?... it seems that this year the A-level results were the best they’ve ever been. EVER been!

OK, perhaps the magnitude of this news has been tempered by the fact that we hear this every year. Every year for twenty five years to be precise. I’d love to know what the class of ’81 did wrong that they didn’t beat the previous best. I’m thinking they spent too much time recording the top ten off the radio onto cassette for their walkmans (walkmen?)

Every year it is the same old story, and every year we hear the same arguments – the exams aren’t getting easier, just different – A-levels are more skills based than knowledge based – Standards of teaching and learning are improving year on year – blah blah blah blah blah.

It’s not that I disagree with any of the above statements. I just think that the inevitability of announcements of ‘the best ever results’ each year devalues the achievements of the pupils. I honestly believe we need to year or two where the results plateau for us to take them seriously again. Having said that I would feel terrible for whatever group of pupils it is who break the trend – they will be shunned by society no doubt.

Of more concern to me, however, is the fact that much of this year’s improvement was overwhelmingly down to private and selective schools. Now before proponents of private and selective education start rejoicing and dancing in the aisles I don’t think this is particularly good news (no, DPW, I still haven’t taken your arguments for private education on board.)

It appears to me that the achievements divide between the Private and Selective sector and the Comprehensives is growing ever more rapidly; apparently it is at its widest for more than a decade. Some commentators predict that this, already large chasm, will become an impassable canyon with the introduction of an A* grade in a few years. Despite this being wonderful news for the upper to mid middle classes living within spitting distance of a decent grammar school, it is terrible for rest of the country. This is one of the reasons I’m not a big fan of the A-level. One of many.

But this is not the time to be having a rant about the injustices of the education system. Now is the time to be congratulating those who did well in their exams this year and wishing them all the very best in whatever it is they do next.

must try harder

If there is one task I can't stand doing it is writing reports. In my job I do these for pupils at the end of each term - I would have thought I'd be an expert by now. Fortunately the range of things I have to report on in Learning Support is vast and makes the process much more straight forward. It is in my subject teaching that I struggle.

You see I also teach a couple of periods of drama. I love drama, and I love teaching drama. And the fact that I only teach one class makes it something I look forward to as a bit of a change. It also means that I don't have too many reports to write. Thirteen to be precise.

Why am I struggling to come up with thirteen individual comments? There are teachers out there who have hundreds. I know each of the children personally. I can describe them in great depth. I can see dramtic potential (or lack thereof) in each and could talk about it for hours. But putting it down in one short phrase without resorting to cliches is proving to be a difficult task.

Keen, hard working, attempts everything to the best of their ability.

An energetic and enthusiastic pupil with a great imagination.

Shows good understandingpleasant and cooperative has a good grasp of the basic skills required.

an excellent independent learner.

They really should teach us how to do this stuff during teacher training. My brain has gone blank and I've turned to this blog as my favoured method for procrastination. There are web sites out there to help come up with things to say - but the NI Education network (C2K) has blocked them. Typical!

hands up if you are an invisible pupil

Education has been in the news quite a bit recently, what with the Conservatives wanting to do away with grammar schools, well wanting to do away with grammar schools that haven't been built yet (is that possible?), then wanting to renew their love of grammar schools. But most people know my views on academic selection and the priviledged few by now so I want to think about another education story.

Teachers who encourage whole classes to put their hands up to answer a question, risk leaving quiet children behind, a government study suggests. bbc.co.uk

This study was widely reported on Friday and it left me a little confused. Predictably the right wing press (who apparently want us to go back to sitting in rows and writing on slates - best pupil getting to warm their hands at the range for 30 seconds at breaktime) jumped on it as another example of political correctness gone overboard. While I am loathed to show any sort of support for this approach, after reading the report I am left wondering whether it was actually needed.According to Secretary of State for Education and Skills Alan Johnson,

This practical report takes hands-on learning from the classroom about strategies that work, and gives that knowledge back to the frontline... I want to remove the barriers which prevent any individual child from reaching their full potential... These reports will help all teachers to personalise their classroom teaching to the needs of specific groups. DfES

I have to get this man to help me prepare my job applications. He knows all the right words. I still get the impression that, sometimes, these reports are written for the sake of writing reports.Of course teachers have to be aware of th"invisible" pupil. Of course teachers have to ensure that each individual pupil is taking something from the lesson and is hitting the learning objectives. Of course we need to encourage pupils to step out of their comfort zone and push themselves to achieve their potential. None of this is new. I was able to spout all of this during my teacher training - I knew it then and I knew it before I read this report. The report makes suggestions for classroom strategies that, quite frankly, if teachers didn't already know they need to go back to training. The report provides guidelines for identifying "invisible pupils" that are as common sense as not driving at night with broken headlights,

Invisible children• are quiet and undemanding; the description of them as ‘invisible children’ comes from teachers• don’t mind if they don’t receive immediate attention and will sit for long periods waiting for it• are uncomfortable with open-ended questions• many have strategies to avoid the teacher’s gaze in the classroom

The words "Um, duh" spring to mind. I'm all for DfES taking an interest in improving the education of our youngsters - I just wish they could do so without patronising those of us who do it every day.

league tables? who's bothered

The School League tables have been published. I'm not really that bothered - they're only for English Schools. It doesn't really matter anyway - the results are so confusing no one understands what they mean anyway. Schools using the International GCSE system will find that those results don't count towards their league position and no account was taken for school's who lose the cream of their pupils to selective schools in the area. That is what happened to the school at the bottom of the table. (apparently) On the BBC Education website one headmaster of a school using the IGCSEs commented that the new exams are:

widely held to be a more challenging exam and much better preparation for A-level mathematics... But at this time every year schools that have made the transition pay the price as league tables are issued which give no recognition of IGCSE at all, while awarding points aplenty for floristry, hairdressing, Indian head massage and cake decorating.

Maybe he's just bitter - or maybe this league table, like much of the red tape in education, is meaningless. Personally I find it interesting to read for entertainment value but I'm odd like that. I have to admit that I was relieved to see that a School where I had considered teaching performed badly - maybe they'll still want me in a few years.

finally

Finally - a news story on which I am perfectly qualified to comment. Ruth Kelly has chosen to send one of her children to a private school to cater for his special educational needs.
As someone who feels very uncomfortable with the very concept of private education I have strong opinions about choosing to pay for an educational advantage. As someone working in the special education field I have strong opinions about funding for mainstream state special needs funding. Yes, I believe I am perfectly qualified to judge a Labour government on education, education, education.

But I'm not sure I actually can comment on this story. I'm missing one vital qualification - I'm not a parent.

I don't know how I would feel in her position. I can only assume that I would want the best for my child and if that involved paying money, and if I was in a position to afford the expense... well, I just don't know. The one thing I do know is that family surely comes before career.

So a moment comes where I can express a qualified position and I feel unable to do so - sorry.