Tuesday, August 21, 2007

On the treadmill

That's it - I'm Mrs Aarayan now, and *I* am a Real Teacher. 32 11 year-olds think so, so it must be true.

All weekend before the Monday I was, how shall I say.... a miserable git. Just feeling terrified, negative: "I can't do it, I don't even know if I want to do it, I can't cope".

The news early on Friday morning, just as I was starting to feel like it *might* just be ok, that I was to have a new boy, with extremely complex additional needs, and who would bring my class total to one under the legal limit, put me on somewhat of a downer.

So, I worried myself sick, irritated my husband beyond belief and dragged myself up and out the door at 6.45am on Monday morning, to begin what I was sure would be the first day of a truly crappy career. However, as is so often the case, I was wrong.

Yes it's definitely going to be difficult, but it's going to be ok - I'm earning the class's respect and reaping rewards in generally good behaviour. I'm managing not to take bad behaviour personally and set appropriate sanctions and rewards, and I'm making my class a positive, effective learning environment for the children who want to learn.

I am confident that I will have plenty of stories to tell, albeit deeply anonymised, because this is certainly going to be an interesting year if nothing else.

The first battle is won - never again will I have to endure the build up and the dread of that first bell on my first ever day as a teacher. I've started on the treadmill and I've survived. And more importantly, I'm starting to believe that I may actually be a real, live teacher.

Let's wait and see....

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Let's start at the very beginning

Today was my first day as a salaried teacher. Admittedly, I didn't have to teach anybody anything, it was inservice, but my contract began today, and from today I am a real, live teacher.

So how was it? Well, the school performed very badly in last September's HMIe inspection report and as such has alot of work to do to avoid this ever happening again. Much of this work has been begun, but alot still has to happen, and since the previous HeadTeacher has now left and a new HT has joined the staff, big changes are afoot. The school is also in the process of being systematically rebuilt and refurnished, so it is a time of massive change and, hopefully, improvement.

The upshot of all this is... meetings. We discussed the previous inspection and the results, how the staff felt things had improved and where they felt things needed to go in order to develop which was interesting for me, not having seen the school as it was when the fateful inspection took place. I know what I need to be doing in my class to improve learning and teaching and meet the requirements of the HMIe, but it's difficult to think in a wider, whole-school context because I don't know the school. This will be a long-running thing, and I think the theme of the year will be "Development Meetings".....fun.

After that we had some discussions about contracted time and stuff which made no sense to any of us probationers, followed by a yummy lunch.

A Fire Dude (official title) came to talk to us from the Council, due in part to the fact that the school has only *just* ceased to be an official "building site" and instead be classified as a "place of work", so we now know how not to burn to death.

After this I had a meeting with my stage partners (i.e. the other teachers of P7, of which there is 1 full time, 2 job share and my own 0.3 - the teacher who takes the class when I'm not there). We planned activities for the week ahead, and all in all I feel much more comfortable about what's going to happen next week and what I'm going to be doing.

Then I went back to my classroom, faffed around for an hour and came home, steadfastly resisting the urge to take stuff back with me, stare at it, panic, and do nothing useful at all.

Tomorrow it's back to school to get all the fiddly little jobs like putting name labels on the children's trays, creating group sheets, making laminated letters to label the big wall boards with (saying things like "environmental studies" etc.) and I expect we'll talk more about timetabling, development plans etc.

So, now you know what an inservice day is like (you poor, bored souls), tonight Paul and I are going to order a new and lovely bed, and I'm going to drink some wine and possibly have chinese for dinner (even though that's very naughty) to celebrate the fact that I am now, officially, a properly independent grown up.

Now, when you're all facing the front, listening carefully and not talking, you may put your chairs up on the tables, get your bags and line up at the door for home-time....

Good evening, class - see you tomorrow :)

Sunday, August 12, 2007

General Catch-up

Well, until school starts on the 20th I have very little of Earth-shattering importance to share, so instead I thought I'd just tell you about all the gubbins I've been up to recently.

For the first 3 days of next week I'll be attending a Probationers induction thing giving us, I presume, all the information we should have had a uni in the space of 3 days, to prepare us for the year ahead as woefully under-prepared and inexperienced teachers. The last two days of the week will be in-service days in school, talking about.....schooly things. I think.

I've already been into school for a day and organised my classroom, which feels a weird thing to say: "My classroom". As though I am in some way.... in control. This feels not only weird, but also like a big fat lie. Anyway, it looks pretty lovely now and just needs a few homely touches, such as some nice kids' books (which I have loads of.... What. They're good!), a plant or two and a lamp. Yes, I'm a girl - there's not a room in the world that can't be drastically improved by a plant and a lamp.

All I have to worry about now is what I'm actually going to teach. But, Pshaw! 'Tis but a minor concern.

In other news, Paul and I are doing all sorts of nice housey things, like repainting, having the floors sanded and buying a new and oh-so-lovely bed. When you've spent 6 years sleeping on a mattress which came from Ikea you'll understand the joy this news brings me. No more springs in the armpit in the middle of the night! No more bruises on my hip-bones from said springs, which I can only assume are made out of the earthly manifestation of Pain. Nonononono. Now it's all pocket-sprung, memory-foam, super-dooper loveliness, originally commissioned for the Emperor Fabulous himself, coupled with a solid Oak bedframe which will weigh an utter ton, but look like the dog's bollocks. Or even the Emperor Fabulous's bollocks - I mean, why not - we've already got his mattress.

Furthermore! There is a blocked up fireplace in our bedroom. We may, just *may* unblock it, and then we'll have a working fire in our bedroom. By the sea.

Do *you* have an open fire in your bedroom by the sea? No? Well I do. Nearly.

We're also having our hallway repainted. I accept full responsibility for the fact that our hallway is the same colour as Hell. I thought it would look cool and sophisticated or something. How wrong I was - it looks like we got very very drunk, and said;

"What colour shall we paint this internal hallway which has no windows in order for it to look as shit as humanly possible, and so that if any small children wander in they will assume that they have accidentally stumbled upon the lair of a wicked witch who will, at best, turn them into hideous beasts and enslave them and at worst eat them?"

"Oooh, honey, there's one on this colour chart called - 'Bowels of Hell Red 104' - would that do? Or would you prefer 'Intestinal Tract 19'? And make sure you get it all over the ceiling as well - that's a really classy look."

So, no more of that - we're going for plain old boring pale, ivory-ish yellow.

No, not Magnolia. No. Magnolia's.... different. How? I don't know, it just is.

Really, completely different.

Ok. It's Magnolia. Shut up.

Japanese Folk - crazy or cool? You decide. Provided you decide they're cool.

I know it's bad form just to post YouTube videos on your blog, but the world needs to see this, due to its fantastic-ness.