End of the holidays

Tomorrow we are back to work. I am not quite in teacher mode yet. A long holiday abroad and returning to gorgeous sunshine makes it feel like it’s already the summer holidays. These long holidays are a definite perk of teaching. In fact independent schools have even longer holidays so that may be a career route to look at.

I’ve just been to South America and haven’t quite returned in one piece. We decided to climb a volcano in Chile without thinking about it carefully. People had said it was hard but after reaching the summit with just a little bit of a sweat I thought they were wimps until...I slid the 2.8km back down on my arse and landed on a volcanic rock. Still feeling it now...over a week later...the pain’s not easing...

We were very excited to stay in an ecotouristic hotel. I was expecting solar panelling, composting, those holes in the ceiling which let natural light through but at less than £10 a night the reality of this ecotouristic hotel was a sign saying ‘please shower with a friend and turn the light out when you are bonking.’

Holiday Time xx

The long holiday has begun; life is very good for all us teachers. In fact it has never been so good with next term bringing us 2 bank holidays and a polling day as well as being a very short term; of course we will still be paid the same amount. If cuts involve cutting the amount of time we have to work, I don’t mind so much. My excitement is shared by all different kinds of teachers all over. In fact my excitement has made people question if I really enjoy my job. Most of the time I do but I enjoy relaxing, going on holiday and doing what I want even more. If there was a career of doing what I wanted, relaxing and going on holiday and getting paid for it- I would do it. I know some people classify being on the dole as this but I feel the dole is not the job for me. I like to burn the candle at both ends and even through the middle at times.

Miss Phitt xx

Getting the buggers to behave

Have you read the papers this week? There always seems to be a teacher who has behaved badly. This week there was the teacher in Germany who killed a rabbit and ate it ...but then again we are always told to produce practical lessons and that was very practical – not a worksheet in sight! There was another teacher whose pupils found topless photographs of her. She was working at a top boys’ school. As a former topless model didn’t the school consider it might be a bad idea to employ her at an all boys’ school? I’m not a topless model but would probably think carefully before applying for a job at an all boys’ school. When I was a student teacher, I remember what some teenage boy students could be like. I turned up for my teaching practice smartly dressed in a black suit. Unfortunately the school uniform turned out to be a black blazer. I was waiting outside the classroom and the teenage boys assumed I was a new pupil. I got to hear all their banter and excitement about having a student teacher. Then I went in and taught them.

Perhaps having to be a role model makes teachers rebel. When my teaching is not going so well, I have often thought about packing it all in and getting a job as a stripper, but it’s never a serious thought... is it? I have read about a male teacher who was caught moonlighting as a stripper and a female teacher who took up the new career of being a porn star as it was better paid. It must be the impact of teachers’ pay cuts.

5 days to go until the Easter holidays. Life is good right now as a teacher. There’s planning and assessments to be done and then that’s it. I’m ready for the holiday, some relaxation and some serious scoffing of Easter eggs. My 5 year olds are not usually happy to be presented with an assessment booklet full of too much writing but since I have renamed an assessment ‘a quiz’ things have been good. I also tell them the quiz is a reward for working so hard and that they will find it great fun. They feel obliged to at least pretend they are enjoying it as they wouldn’t want to appear ungrateful, which is a great relief after the tears and tantrums I got when I called it ‘an assessment’.  The teachers are looking forward to the holidays, so are the children. The parents on the other hand are not so happy