Getting in the car to drive to work on Monday morning and as the sharp coldness hacked my breath, I wondered: 'Do Monday mornings ever get better? Will they always be that dread-filled nauseous challenge?'
This week was always going to be a long one, right from that Monday morning drive to work, I knew that for sure. It was confirmed by 7:30 when I got to work and realised not only was there no milk for a cuppa, the person who was on milk duty this week was away on a school trip for 4 days. So my week started with a peppermint tea. First period on a Monday, I have non-contact time so it's nice to get in and organised as much as possible. I was able to finish off some S1 marking and get the resources I needed photocopied.
Then came S4. This is a class that I am just not sure about if I am honest. They are all lovely but a lot of them have a troubled background or are going through a lot at home. I see this class three times per week and shared them with another teacher the other two periods. However, the other teacher has now left and I am on my maximum amount of class contact time so the class is put out for a cover teacher twice per week. This is a lot of change for these pupils and I get that they are starting to feel a little bit unloved and perhaps resentful. A lot of them do not have a lot of stability at home and look to school to provide a solid routine of security for them. Come Tuesday, the class were becoming a bit more cheeky and less willing to work and whilst obviously, I can't allow them to get away with that, I had to bear in mind that they probably felt like they were being passed from pillar to post and a little bit unwanted. There was a lot going on in the class on Tuesday when they came to English, the dynamics were a little different and there seemed to be a lot of disruption and very little motivation to work. This class are a relatively low-ability class who require a lot of individual support. For one boy with Asperger's, it was all too much and he had to get up and leave the class because it was just too disrupted for him. After Tuesday's lesson when a disclosure was made about something, I ended up having to take matters to senior management to resolve the issue. I didn't see the class again until Friday morning but they were much more settled and I managed to get them to do a reasonable amount of work so this was a much more positive lesson for all involved.
My S3 class are the same as always, keen to learn but too chatty. I wouldn't mind the constant chatter at every opportunity that arises IF it was about the task that they were set. While I get on well with this class and I enjoy the big characters in the class, the constant low-level disruption gets very tiring and in many ways is actually worse than the bigger incidents. At least if something major happens, it is dealt with and then we move on. With the small stuff, there is nothing that can really be done without facing the risk of losing your voice from constantly repeating phrases like 'Ok, everybody stop talking' or (my personal favourite) 'There is nobody in here that needs to be talking, everyone has a task to get on with.' By midweek, I decided that I would have a chat to the whole class about the importance of paying attention and not talking at times they shouldn't be. Thus far, it hasn't worked. I will try out something else on Monday and see if that works. By Friday, I must say, the class had settled a lot except one poor girl who just couldn't stop crying because her boyfriend had dumped her. I definitely don't miss being a teenager.
A lot of classroom management and presence it trial and error because what works for one teacher won't work for another. This is even true on a class to class basis. It's all fine and well if sending one pupil out of an S1 class works in settling the rest of that class but for an S5 class, it may have no effect at all. The balance has to be right and this is something that I have really learned this week.
S1, I have to be honest, got themselves in a lot of trouble this week. At the start of term, I explained to them that we would be in a different classroom every period. I asked them to get out their timetables and write the room numbers on them for each day that they are in English. So now 6 weeks in when I have pupils 10, 15 and on one occasion 20 minutes late to class with the excuse 'I didn't know what room we were in', I get extremely annoyed. I can see the changes in this class since the day they walked in terrified at joining a new school. A few of them have become very confident and overpowering in the sense that they make inappropriate remarks or snigger to each other when another person gives an answer. It can be frustrating and it is something that I have been trying my best to pick them up on. Give them their due, they do listen once I ask them to stop. The other issue in the class is one pupil who refuses to listen to a word I say and then, once everyone else has started working, he asks what he is supposed to do. An example: We are reading Treasure Island (an abridged version for younger pupils) together, we have read up to chapter 7 in the novel over the past 2 weeks. We have also made notes and answered questions on each chapter. Imagine my frustration when yesterday, said pupil puts his hand up and asks 'Miss, who is Jim Hawkins?' (lead character of the story, been in it since the first sentence of the book). I quite honestly could have screamed. The more annoying thing is that the reason he asked this is one of two options: 1. He really hasn't been listening the whole time or 2. He thinks he is funny and asks obvious questions to get a laugh from his peers. I am going for the latter. This is just one example, there are several.
S5 this week has been a different experience than even I could have expected. The pupils who had been put to other classrooms to work last week seemed desperate to feel like they could be part of the class again. I allowed them back with the warning that they would be sent elsewhere at the first sign of disruption. They tested this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and true to my word, I sent them to other rooms. On Thursday, not one pupil was sent out, everyone managed to get the work done that I had set and I was really happy. Hopefully it lasts!! (I did have another weeper in this class too this week, also a result of boyfriend drama!)
Thursday saw the first meeting of the staff book club that I have started so I have started to compile a list of book suggestions for the coming weeks/months. I have also been thinking of a school blog page so that those who can't make the meetings can comment freely on the discussion too.
This week for me has not so much been about teaching but more about meetings about teaching. I had a meeting on Wednesday morning, Wednesday night, Thursday afternoon, Thursday night and then Friday afternoon. It has been exhausting and I have literally wanted to crawl straight to bed as soon as I get home from school each day. The meeting on Friday is one I have to mention though.
Probationer teachers have to show that they are doing continual professional development throughout the year (as do other teachers, but there is more focus during probation). As a result, my local authority provides a programme of carious development opportunities throughout the year. This week, my half day Friday was non-existant again because I had to attend a CPD course on Positive Behaviour Strategies run by a local school who caters for young people with severe emotional, social and/or behavioural issues that mean they cannot function as part of mainstream schooling. Before I arrived, I had heard of the school and the stories that come from there but I had never actually seen it before. The doors to every room inside were locked and a staff member had to unlock the toilet door to allow one of the other probationers to use it. It turns out, the doors only open from the inside, not the outside without a key. This is not to keep pupils locked in but to stop them accessing or disrupting other lessons should they end up leaving their own class for whatever reason. The head teacher along with another member of staff greeted all of the local probationers and invited us to have tea and coffee then we listened to them about what some of the roots are to behaviour issues in the classroom. What actually causes pupils to behave or act in the way that they do at times. It was fascinating to consider that most pupils only act out in the places where they have boundaries and feel secure. When they lack those boundaries and that security at home, the only other place that they can act in certain ways is in school.
We spoke about how to handle certain situations and put forward our own strategies, shared with the group and then were given lots of tips from the staff at the school. This was definitely the most valuable educational seminar that I have been to and I feel it was even more beneficial than a lot of the lectures on the same subject that were delivered at university. In fact, after I left that campus yesterday afternoon, I genuinely felt like I would love to teach there one day. I feel it is more of a calling for me than mainstream schooling. The attitudes and spirit there were just amazingly awe-inspiring.
Miss.
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