Day 340 - Low Maintenance Trainee

Monday March 22nd

More House are interviewing for Maths teachers today so two of my classes were requisitioned for them to teach. This meant I went from 4 to two lessons and a very relaxed Monday indeed. In addition, they have changed the Year 10 sets so I have one lesson with a new set and then that's it. Everyone is apologising for disrupting my placement and not being available to support me. The lazy me is smiling inwardly as that's two lessons I don't have to teach, the dedicated me is taking the bonus time to plan the best lessons possible for my final two observations this week.

Being low maintenance has its distinct advantages...I wonder how much they would pay me to stay on?

I attempt a very different lesson with Year 8 today as we have finished a topic. I read a chapter about prime numbers from The Number Devil and then ask them to find all the primes up to 100 and complete a puzzle. They are intrigued for about 10 minutes as I have removed the desks and just have a circle of chairs. They soon lose interest. Note to self!

Day 325 - Should Be A Breeze

Sunday March 7th

Tomorrow I start at More House School. I have to teach 4 lessons to classes I don't know on subjects I haven't planned. Should be a breeze. I had a very relaxing day and then drove up to Horsley to pick up Charles' car. I then sat with Frances for an hour, swapping lives.

It hit me at about 8pm and then I panicked.

Day 312 - Tick Tock

Monday February 22nd

It is definitely not a good feeling, coming back into school when I had planned not to be there. Today was a very easy day with Year 10 in exams and handing back 9.2.2 topic test. I was better planned this time with scanned in model answers and they responded much better than last time. They all did relatively well so everyone was in good spirits.

I kicked 7.3.1 off on Time which is an interesting topic for Maths. It's more like life skills. Although not many of them wear watches, they were pretty good at telling the time. Tick Tock.

Day 235 - Child Protection

Monday December 7th

Exciting week ahead with university day and my external observation on Wednesday. As a result, my planning is pretty much under control and today I dragged 10.2.2 kicking and screaming through Box Plots before relaxing while 9.2.2 did a topic test. I noticed one of the girls had quite nasty burn marks and scratches on her arm during the test. I decided they weren't there by accident so I wrote it up and hope the child protection team can get to the bottom of it. That's all I can do.

Planned my observed lesson by the end of school and was home free all evening. Went out for a long run (8 miles) with Neil while Ted was with Compton. Felt it in the legs but happy to get out again after over a week's inactivity.

Day 232 -Relentless Planning

Friday December 4th

The countdown is definitely on. I am tired and am looking forward to a break from the daily grind of planning. I'm enjoying being in the school but the planning is relentless. Next term I will be teaching 4 lessons on a Friday which will be quite a challenge from a planning perspective unless I am sufficiently organised to do some medium term planning ahead of time.

The kids have started to play up us well, especially on a Friday. It's a mixture of fatigue, lesson overload and growing excitement about Christmas.

Day 221 - Teflon Man

Monday November 23rd

I think I got away with my weekend of indolence. Breezed through 10.2.2 in the computer room with some pie charts and frequency diagrams - they looked pretty good when they were all printed out. 9.2.2 was a little scary as increasing and decreasing by percentages did not rest easy with them. Bless.

By lunch, I was in the clear and managed to catch up with things by the end of the afternoon. I promised myself I would not let that happen again and committed to a more disciplined approach to some planning next weekend. Old habits die really hard, teflon man.

Day 209 - Hard Wiring

Wednesday November 11th

My weaknesses are beginning to show - planning ahead has always taken second place to last minute panic and winging it. That really doesn't work in a school, especially when I have three lessons today. My second, related, weakness is lack of discipline. If I give myself an hour to plan a lesson, I will spend 40 minutes doing something else (like this blog) and then killing myself for 20 minutes getting the work done. I keep telling myself to change and on occasion I manage it. When I manage it, it feels good because the work is done, I am relaxed and can enjoy something as a reward. Maybe it's just too hard wired.

Day 203 - Boarding School Memories

Thursday November 5th

Our first November 5th since 1999....

Alice now delights in getting herself to school so I drove up early.

Met my mentee for the first time this morning and got to know each other a little. He is a boarder who only goes home during the holidays. Hmmm, I wonder if I have some relevant experience? Early days, but I hope I can help him as exams seem to be a big issue for him and this is his GCSE year.

The day rushed by and I still did not manage any planning for Friday before I left school. This puts so much pressure on me at home! We sat and watch football on TV while I tried to cobble a few plans together. Too much last minute stuff will trip me up soon.

Day 189 - Running Out Of Steam

Thursday October 22nd

Definitely flagging today with the onset of a cold and the thought of three more lessons on Friday. Thursday is an odd day as I only have one lesson and yet the day gets away from me and I never manage to get any of the Friday lessons planned before I go home. This leaves me a mountain of work to do on Thursday night when I am meant to be training with WADAC.

So I get home feeling tired and a little under the weather, crawl up to bed and spend the next 5 hours sweating over 3 lesson plans for Friday. Worse day so far without question BUT more driven by fatigue and poor planning than anything else. Got it done and fell into an uneasy sleep

Day 185 - 16 Miles

Sunday October 18th

I ran 16 miles with Neil today. Never done that before me and two things struck me. One, I can run 16 miles at a brisk pace and if I trained I could probably do a marathon in 3:10-3:20. Two, the countryside is beautiful around here. We ran out of Winchester towards Eastleigh, through Otterbourne and Shawford, along the River Test. Legs felt OK and we even picked up the pace a bit towards the end.

Cooked myself an outstanding bacon and egg sandwich with lashings of HP sauce and then sat on the sofa and watched the world go by.

Last week before half term coming up and I'm looking forward to the break. Teaching 10 lessons a week is only half a timetable but when you add a couple of hours either side for planning and marking per lesson, that's a minimum 30 hours a week.