We double dare you!

So it’s still unknown if we’re gonna strike or not. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13918723 So the government’s warning us...well as teachers, we all know what happens when we warn one of the children...the same thing that happens if you say don’t touch; or don’t dare...they will always touch and they will dare every time. xxx

'Tis the season to be jolly.

I am pleased to hear about the strike. Not only because it’s a day off, but I’m pleased so many people are taking it on. I can use the strike day to get my reports written. They say it will be the biggest strike in history and YES! This time we will win!

It’s yet another ‘busy time of the year’ for teachers; as is every time of the year, apart from the 6 week holiday. It is the season of ‘copy and paste’ and ‘find and replace’. These days parents seem happy with their kids’ school reports. There’s a reason for this, they haven’t read between the lines. At the end of the day, the kids will probably keep their report forever. It is best to do a good job but report writing can be a long and tedious task!

Here’s some tips (and if you have some more please let me know):

·         Check your school policy before writing them.

·         Check with your manager after writing the first couple of reports.

·         Ensure you know how to use copy and paste, find and replace (but remember the purpose of a school report, if they’re all the same, there’s no point writing them and it’s just yet another purposeless task.)

·         There’s no point being nasty, you will only wind yourself up and get told to rewrite them. If the little sod has irritated you all year, remember you are getting rid of them soon.

·         Overdo the praise on well behaved, high ability children – they will tell the other parents in the playground and next year’s parents will want their child to have a report like that- kinda makes you feel good too.

·         Try and say things about the child which will make them better rather than just moaning about them – pointless and again, you can wind yourself up.

·         Think what you really want to say about that child and check the statements below to find a nice way of wording it:

What you want to say:	How to say it:
He is a lazy sod who can’t be arsed with anything.	Sometimes he lacks interest.
He’s a lying little bastard.	He shows creativity and imagination.
...School bully who I always have to bullock.	…has participated in discussions about developing effective and satisfying relationships with peers.
Naughty little shit who’s been driving me mad all year.	…is easily distracted.
*NAME* is a lazy fucker.	*NAME* is occasionally reluctant to participate.
*NAME* is thick.	*NAME* still needs much adult support with practical work.
...can’t write.	...uses drawings to record information.
We’ve taught it but they haven’t learnt it.	...has experienced.
...is simple.	...is able to make simple predictions. ...is able to read simple texts. ...is able to do simple calculations. (emphasis on the simple)
...is tone deaf.	…has difficulty in responding to pitch and rhythm in musical compositions.
...is still pretty crap at...	…is improving…
...the lights are on but nobody’s home.	…is able to switch on the computer. (and that is actually all they are able to do)
...has no mates.	…prefers to work alone.
...keeps bloody swearing.	… understands and reads simple signs and symbols.
Teacher’s pet.	...is an able and enthusiastic member of the group who takes a keen interest in school and appears to enjoy all aspects of the work.

I know these statements sounds bad and negative towards the poor innocent sods but I’m just joking around and negativity is somewhat humorous. It’s a way to make writing 30 reports more interesting and light hearted. I treasure my own school reports which described me as, ‘a high spirited child of a dramatic nature.’ Unfortunately my mum was a teacher and knew that I’d been naughty and had tantrums. Reports can be so much fun!

xxx

OFSTED!!!!!!

So I haven’t written for a few weeks as it has been hectic yet good. I sent off my applications and got an interview at a beautiful school THEN we had the Ofsted telephone call and Ofsted were coming the day of my interview. The boss begged for me to change the date of my interview and so I did. I knew it would be an instant inadequate if a cover teacher took my class. The kids are monkeys and I have so many systems in place that it is tricky for a supply teacher. I have reward charts, star of the day, dinosaur of the day, marble jars, monitors, stickers and lots more...

I thought I’m not letting Ofsted get in between me and that job, so I prepared well. The interview went very well so I was gutted when I wasn’t offered the post. All that work for nothing! At least I’d lost out to a deputy head teacher. But it turns out the work wasn’t for nothing...they said I’d given such a good interview that they’d recommended me to another head teacher and I got a job at his school. It is not as ideal as what I applied for but it is definitely an opportunity. It was one of those moments when you realise everything has a purpose. I also realised how much head teachers talk as they knew so much about my current school too.

After my interview, I prepared like crazy for OFSTED. Then I waited and waited and waited....but they never came to my class. Then the next day I waited and they came for a maximum of 20 minutes and the kids were awful!!! One child even grabbed my boobs in front of the Ofsted inspector. Nothing like that had ever happened before and I expected an instant INADEQUATE. Luckily I got a good grading for my lesson-phew!!!  All that worry for 20 minutes!!! I deliver a lesson I deem to be crap and they say it was really good. Luckily I’m a teacher whose main concern is always the learning. Making things look good rather than making things work can make things tumble down before you. Lots of the teachers were upset to miss out on an ‘outstanding’ grading for their lesson. But do you really have to work your butt off to get an outstanding? I think the outstanding grading comes for the maximising of progress and learning. The inspector told me in my class, there could be more learning if the behaviour was better as the children did not always stop to listen immediately. That was fair enough I thought. There’s lots of discussion about what makes an outstanding lesson. My only concern is; once everyone is outstanding it will become the new satisfactory and that would be hard work.

Laters

Miss Phitt xx

APPLYING FOR JOBS – Academy or not academy? And saving pensions too...

I haven’t written for a bit because I have been in the full throw of filling out application forms. After many years out of playing this game, I found it was a much longer process than I anticipated -especially after my first full week teaching after so many days off. I didn’t really allow myself enough time and didn’t research as much as I would have liked or make my forms as impeccable and professional as I would have liked. It’s all a learning process and I know better for next time. Now is the time when most teachers look for jobs as we only have 2 weeks to give notice for a job starting in September.

The application forms were asking for full working history with no gaps and reasons for leaving. I am sure ‘reasons for leaving’ hasn’t appeared on my teaching application forms in the past. With a full working history of looking up my dates of pot washing and fruit picking, I knew that I would only be applying for jobs I REALLY REALLY wanted. ‘Reason for leaving’ can be a bit of a problem as there’s no way of making ‘got sacked’ look good even if it was 14 years ago; and how relevant is ‘pot washing’ to a teaching job? I get the kids to wash up. We will see how it goes because at the end of the day there is nothing wrong with the job I’ve got; it’s just that some days it seems like ‘existing and surviving’ rather than ‘enjoyment and excitement’.

After seeing the salaries available working in an academy, I began to do my research. Would I want to work in one? The answer is no. The academies are replacing skanky comprehensives and they look like something which has landed from Mars right on top of the comprehensive obliterating it. The unions are strongly anti-academy. I wondered why...it turns out there is no protection regarding teachers’ wellbeing and workload. Despite huge salaries being offered, they are not protected. They state that academies exist for monetary purposes not for the quality of standards in teaching and learning. They state the government wants to privatise schools so that they don’t have to pay for them.

Pensions

So after recalculating the way pension contributions are to be made, teachers will be making greater contributions for the same pension. I believe I would be paying £150 more per month for a pension I am expected to receive aged 68. £150 per month is quite useful to me so I am not contented to see it going on nothing. Most teachers too, have studied a minimum of 4 years so have substantial student loans to pay off. I have paid off my student loan which was probably due to me working 25 hours a week whilst doing a full time degree and the support of my parents, which not everybody has. However I do think this had an impact on the degree I got. Some of the teachers I work with have up to £25K student loan to pay off. After hearing of these increased contributions, I considered cashing in my pension but you can only do this within your first years of teaching. The NUT has a ballot to strike so that’s the action I will take. Our pay has been frozen, now pensions are threatened...if we don’t do anything what will be next? Take action and play with the pension loss calculator at http://www.teachers.org.uk/

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