Mid season break!

The old saying is there are three good reasons to be a teacher - Christmas, Easter and Summer! 6 if you include the good old half term breaks.  Which I am now in. Made it. Survived a term with my headspace largely intact.  I guess my overwhelming feeling from the term is one of 'meh!'  But that might just be an effect of the medication.  I'm less bothered by circumstances but less excited too.  Which is a problem.  I'd like to be able to describe my new role in school but I'm not sure that I can.  I think I am doing a Teaching Assistants job but for lots more money.  Which is fine ... I like money.  It's just not that satisfying and I still miss the sheer excitement and day to day lunacy of working with Early Years.  Made the mistake at a recent book look of looking at the Foundation Stage learning journals - do so miss it.

The good news is that I still have to go through an observation cycle for 'appraisal' purposes!  The better news is I have one on the week we go back but that's ages away!  Now a full time class teacher teaches 190 days a year or 380 sessions of a morning or afternoon give or take 10% PPA (preparation, planning and assessment) time.  I class teach .1 so 19 days a year or 38 sessions.  They get three observations a year so one every 63 teaching days (ish) and I also have three observations a year so one every 6 days (ish).  My observation will happen on my sixth class teaching session (my third with year 6) so that'd be like a regular teacher having an observed lesson on the Wednesday of the first week of term.  Anyway there's no use complaining or trying to point this out or that at my last occupational health assessment it was pointed out that this would/could be quite damaging to my health.  It's the times we live in folks.

My crystal ball prediction is that the lesson will be graded 'requires improvement' or just a little bit crap.

We'll see.  I'll report back later.

On a much more positive note I had a lovely time at another local primary school telling stories to their reception and Year 1 classes and drawing at the same time.  I was very anxious beforehand but I was well received and it all went very well.  So a big shout out to Weston All Saints Primary school in particular their Little Wasps!

It's Observation Time Again

Remind me


What's the point of classroom observations?

NUT Magazine

The NUT – National Union of Teachers (when I started teaching you had to be in a union – not sure with the rise of Free Schools and Academies whether that is still true?) of whom I am a member have sent me their new school year magazine with ‘a manifesto for our children’s education’.  I have had a quick read through and am shocked by the number of letters and articles and references to the apparent ‘culling of 50 plus teachers’ – that’s age not waist size!  Though the latter may well be vulnerable as well.  It looks like there’s a lot of it about.  Nobody wants us 50+ teachers, male or female! Apparently.

The main method of getting rid of them seems to be competency and lesson observations!  Hmm my last one was RI (which seems to be the acronym for ‘Requires Improvement” – like I have said before show me a lesson that doesn’t require some improvement – I digress!) and I hear ominous cello music in the background … There’s an encouraging letter, name and address supplied, from someone who managed to go to tribunal and get an unfair dismissal verdict and one hopes a good cash payout.  But it seems most just drift off quietly, like Scott’s Antartic explorers!  Feeling the chill, someone close that tent flap!

As was so kindly pointed out to me on our First INSET day – I am the oldest teacher in the school!  Oh there are ancient teaching assistants amongst the teachers I am the oldest. Actually the head is a year or two older than me but I am still in the classroom.  I think I should be treated like the leader of the house!  It was interesting in a recent staff meeting where we were tracking data that I was the only teacher who knew what the current year 6 children were like as infants (they were my second year one class after moving down from Year 6) and therefore the only person who knew where they had come from.  I think it’s important that a school has people who can do that, who know the children not just as data on a spreadsheet.  I do so love a spreadsheet.  It’s quite hard to type sarcastically!

Anyway it’s time for my nap.  Peace Out!

There's No Help For You People

A few years ago I went with some friends to New York.  What a place!  Anyway one of the tourist things we did was the Empire State Building – it’s odd I don’t really like heights but because New York is so massive it didn’t feel that high.  Anyway once you come out of the lift, sorry, elevator, before you walk up and onto the viewing platform they try a big sell to get you to buy, hire a audioguide.  I’m a cheapskate and will avoid spending money if I can.  But? These are Americans, these are New Yorkers and they can sell.  The spiel basically went; ‘This is your last chance! There is no help out there for you people! Sure you can see a bridge but you have no idea which bridge? Once you go past there is no help for you people’ and so on.  Nevertheless I resisted and managed to avoid the photo as well in a very British style. ‘Sorry I’m English, I’m afraid I can’t understand a word you are saying.  Thank you! Thank you very much. No! Sorry haven’t a clue what you are saying!’  Trust me it works, especially on Americans, just be extra polite and put a posh accent on or broad London one.  Sounded like Vinnie Jones!

But it has stayed with me.  And that’s what happens with lesson observations.  There is no help for you people.  That’s the judgment – deal with it! 

There’s no one there to say ‘Are you okay? I hear it didn’t go well, do you want to talk?’ No, you just have to deal with it. So last thing on Friday you are basically told ‘You’re crap!’ and that’s your weekend gone.  You don’t sleep properly, you worry, you keep going over it in your head and you tell yourself that it’s all true and that’s who you are!  Well, that’s what happens to me! And when you ask for help – you are told that there is no help. Then on Monday you are asked if you can do extra and you are not even sure if you can do the basic job.  Because all your confidence has gone been destroyed in two words. 

I have said it before but that’s the problem with observation.  It is subjective! No matter what the framework says.  It’s not science; it’s not objective.  It’s one person’s opinion and basically it hurts and no one cares. And you end up hating yourself and hating your job and you can’t see how you will face going in to work the next time.  And you’ve been finding that hard for a long time.

There’s no help for you people!

Requires Improvement

Requires Improvement is there any more ridiculous lesson observation judgment?  Why do we just accept these things in teaching without asking questions?  Of course a lesson requires improvement! All lessons require improvement.  Outstanding lessons require improvement!  Anything in life requires improvement - as they say in baseball nobody bats 1.0!

Ask any teacher about a lesson and they'd probably say it required improvement.

In fact most teachers generally think their teaching is a bit crap!

I know mine is!