A Week In The Life Of A Bog Standard Teacher

Now is the time of year that those who are thinking of doing a PGCE next September are spending a fortnight in a school observing things as part of the preparation for the course. We have a few in our school, and I pity them. I've therefore decided to write a week-long diary so that if they search for "Typical Week For A Teacher" in a well-known, or even not very well-known search engine, this might appear to warn them off. Please remember that I don't teach in an inner city school, I teach is a pretty well-to-do town in a leafy county. I am also not making any of this up!

Sunday:
I've got some planning to do today which should take a couple of hours, plus I want to spend some time with the family (wife, children etc.). They will probably have to wait because I don't want to get caught on the hop with a "drop-in" from senior management, which is bound to happen if I put this planning off.

I did the planning and spent the rest of the day barking at my daughter and wife because I know I have to go back to school tomorrow and try to get "above average" progress out of a load of pupils who genuinely care for little other than gossip, where their next cigarette is coming from, and social networking sites. All my planning since I got my current timetable has been to try and create interest in my subject with kids who have no interest themselves and are supported fully in this attitude by their parents.

Monday:
I have 4 lessons today, two with Year 11 who have mocks starting soon and are currently fairly keen, although having said that during one of the lessons the guy sat in front of me talked all lesson about computer games various other irrelevant stuff despite my attempting to persuade him that perhaps those conversations weren't the most productive. He's a nice lad too, intelligent, nice parents who should do fairly well in the summer but won't get what he should do because he will leave everything to the last minute, which rarely works.

My other two lessons are with bottom sets, one in key stage 3 and one in key stage 4. These will be constant battles to stop them talking, essentially playing musical chairs until we find a seating arrangement that is quietest. In fact the musical chairs in key stage 3 lasted longer than normal and my classroom isn't a hexagon, so all the people I wanted to sit in corners (ie. as far away from the people they wanted to talk to), I couldn't. The key stage 4 lesson was actually worse where they all think that qualifications are irrelevant because they have "work experience", to the tune of pot washing in a cafe, selling weed in the local park etc. You ask them to get on with some work and they look at you as though you've just torn them away from a close relative's funeral. The teaching assistant was equally baffled as to what to attempt, so I said she could go and help some people who actually wanted it.

Meeting after school to discuss all the students in my house who has "cause for concern", The list was lengthy, although I know that we actually get off quite lightly. Nine of the names that cropped up were from my tutor group, and that doesn't include my Year 11s, many of whom are being mentored separately. It all boils down to the same thing: "the kids mess about in lessons (not just mine), and when their teachers ask them to do some work they turn on them". The meeting was not a happy one and consensus seems to be that behaviour is on a very slippery and steep slope at present.

I arrived at about 7.45am this morning and am now leaving at 5.15pm. I still have a bit to do when I get home.

Tuesday:
I woke up at 2.30am and eventually got up at 4.15am having attempted to get back to sleep but my mind distracted by various work issues, mainly centred around a boy in my tutor group who I also teach. He can be unpleasant, but hasn't really been recently. I did get a snotty email from the school's head of special needs the other week regarding him though, and I need to feedback to her on his recent performance in my lessons, which include attempting to talk to seagulls in the playground, annoying/distracting as many people as he possibly can, and shouting at a bloke walking past the school. A far as I can see the only thing that's wrong with him his that he's a sociopath, but I've not doubt that he's been diagnosed with some form of special need as his parents try to excuse their inadequate parenting with medical certificates.

Not many lessons today due to Year 11 mock exams, which is great. I do have reports to write though, and various other things to get my teeth into, so it won't be a tea and chat day, I will be sat at my desk for almost all of it. I may even have a look through some exercise books and write a formative comment along the lines of "Well done Johnny, your method for doing this is excellent, but next time, to push you on to the next level, why not attempt a question like this...". The kids won't read my comments, but Ofsted will think it's wonderful, and that's the main thing I'm told, as we are expecting them soon.

Quite a nice day actually due to the mock exams and even the student who ruin every one of one particular class' lessons wasn't in today, so superb. Spent about 3 hours marking, but it's out of the way now so I don't have to worry about it any more. Tomorrow will be worse, so I made the most of today! I still arrived at 7.45am and left at 4.45pm plus did a couple of hours in th

Wednesday:
I teach every lesson on a Wednesday and it's hard work! II woke up but as most teachers will tell you, being away is more hassle than going in when you rubbish. What many don't realise is that a sick teacher still has to get up and plan all their lessons, which isn't easy when you know that the person covering is unlikely to be a specialist in your subject.

I made it anyway, and got a bonus free due to mock exams. Only got sworn at once and had a massive struggle trying to get a couple of classes to do something was like extracting blood from a stone, mainly due to a couple of snowflakes coning down early on.

I got in as usual at 7.45am and left at 4.45pm but have marking to do when I get home which will take a good hour and a half. I will probably cook dinner for the family and then settle down to it after that.

Thursday:
Four lessons today, but two tests thanks to the fact that we have to track every student and therefore they do an exam paper every half term. This is so that we knbow how each child is progressing, but puts pressure on teachers to fit the entire curriculum in, but on the other hand at least the kids get used to exams and the types of questions that are asked. It does add marking pressure on to teachers, but we can get the class to mark their own for some of it - in a different coloured pen of course, to avoid cheating!

What is the main thrust of this though? You guessed it, Ofsted. As time has gone on it does appear that everything that schools and teachers do is geared to what Ofsted would think rather than what's best for the children. In general Ofsted are trying to do the right thing, with little success, and seem not to have grasped the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and a teacher has to have a bit of time for sleeping and eating. Take, for example, out new marking policy, all based on what Ofsted expect to see. We have to mark every book fortnightly, which doesn't sound too bad, but not when each book has to be checked and the3n around half a page covered with some praise, a tip on how to move onto the next level, plus a challenge question for the kids to have a go at. Marking a set of books takes between an hour and 90 minutes, and at my school each teacher has around 6 classes. That's 9 hours per fortnight, which is all your free time at school. Add to that the lesson planning as well as other paperwork a teacher has to do, meaning that in order to get by you have to work at least a 9 or 10 hour day during the week, plus a bit at weekends.

Started at 7.45pm and left at 5.15pm, plus did a couple of hours in the evening. I forgot to mention that I had duty (unpaid) before school, during break and after school.

Friday:
Five lessons and lunch duty on the playground. Ok, so I get paid for the duty but I didn't choose to have it on a day when I have no free periods - I was stitiched up a bit by the guy who organises it and isn't a teacher. There you go.

The day went as usual with a mixture of apathy and abuse, and that was just from the staff! In all seriousness it was a pretty miserable day where one student, who has already been told that they should think about applying for another school before he forcibly has to find another school told me to "F Off" and was generally vile. As well as that I got a volley of abuse from one of my tutor group who had a detention, not set by me, but another subject area. I was just the messenger, but had to take it as that's just how it seems to work with students from a certain background who are essentially untouchable discipline-wise.

This time of year as we near the end of the longest term of the school year, the children are tired as are the staff. It's dark and cold and thoroughly miserable. One comes to accept the fact that the students will get a bit tetchy and so will the staff.

Started at 7.45am and left at 5.15pm. I've decided to leave the work I need to do for the weekend. A couple of hours should do it.

Homework

Michael Gove has announced that headteachers can decide upon their own school's homework policy based upon their clientele rather than being set guidelines from Whitehall. My initial reaction: that's good of him, to allow schools to make some decisions. My second reaction: what use is homework anyway?

Homework is arguably the most time-consuming part of a teacher's job. Teachers rarely like setting it and students rarely like doing it, so why does it exist? There are a number of reasons:

1. The most important one: parents expect it. It makes no difference what is set, but if a school had a policy of not setting the stuff, and there are good reasons for having such a policy which I will cover later, many parents would moan and the school's numbers would begin to fall, with the end result being its closure. Parental perception of homework is that it shows them what their child is learning in class, despite the fact that the parents themselves spend hours doing the stuff to dig their offspring put of a potential detention.
2. It should reinforce what a child has learnt in school, but many homeworks are set for the sake of it, which is ultimately a waste of time. Current guidelines suggest that a 14 to 16 year old should have around 2-3 hours per night of homework. This is ridiculous - homeworks should be around 10 minutes long if a child fully understands what to do, and a little longer if they have to learn it again because they weren't paying attention in class.
3. It gives the teacher some results and evidence (it's that word "data" again) to track a child's progress and performance over a year and possibly identify weaknesses in their knowledge. This is useful for the teacher and child, assuming that the child has the gumption to actually make an effort to fill these holes in their learning. Tests in class can also do this.

Why should homework be scrapped?

1. There's not a student or teacher who "loves", or dare I say even "likes" homework. It worsens the work/life balance for both parties and is generally a pain in the rear end to do and mark.
2. The amount of time teachers spend chasing up missing homework could be far better utilised planning "outstanding" lessons.
3. It prevents school children from having a childhood, like running around the park or playing sport apparently, or so the report on the BBC website said. I would possibly swap the two activities mentioned with "drinking cheap cider and smoking at the park" and "playing XBox", but I know what they mean. Children ought to be allowed to have a childhood is the point.

My solution:

Teachers should set homework, when it's relevent, but no more than once per week and it shouldn't be very time consuming. Children can do the homework if they want to, and if they do, it will get marked. If a child chooses not to do the homework, even on time, then that's their loss. The same should go for coursework.

Thank you Michael for allowing schools this opportunity. Let's see who's brave enough to make use of it.

No Notice Ofsteds

Sir Michael Wilshaw has made his mark barely fortnight into his tenure as Chief Inspector of Schools by announcing that from Autumn 2012 schools will not receive any notice of an Ofsted inspection. Is this a major thing? No, is the short answer, and it should have always been like that in my view.

Currently schools get 2 days notice, so removing that will make little or no difference. It won't allow schools the opportunity to make certain troublemakers "disappear" through exclusions in those 2 days. Inspectors will get to see schools how all the students, teachers and parents see it, which should be a good thing.

I only have one worry with regards to this, and that is a knee-jerk reaction from headteachers so desperate for a good Ofsted judgement in order to further their careers, I mean, to ensure that the children at their school receive the best education available to them.

Headteachers and their underlings are constantly trying to second guess Ofsted's views/judgements. Ofsted seem fixated on paperwork and data, a fact that Wilshaw states that he want to address, although I doubt that he will. I am therefore awaiting the announcement from the head at our school that all staff must hand in full, written up lesson plans at least a week in advance. Other schools apparently do it, but the turnover of staff at those schools is far higher than at others because there simply aren't enough hours in the day. Also, what use are they? None, in fact most teachers when forced to wrtite them, barely take any notice of them at all - they are just a paperwork exercise. They take at least an hour to fill in, and if you have 5 lessons one day, that 5 extra hours to find. Whatever happened to the work/life balance?

Now you may think that I'm advocating that teachers don't plan lessons, and I can assure you that I'm not. What I am suggesting is that you don't need to break every minute of every lesson down into specific activities. I also think that having every possible detail of every child in a class on a lesson plan is completely unnecessary as teachers, I'm not sure if you'd noticed, are generally quite intelligent, and tend to remember important information like a child who struggles with English or maybe has a torrid home life. That's not to mention the cost of photocopying (about 4p per copy); the bill for the photocopying alone would run into tens of thousands of pounds per year. And on top of that the extra server memory required to save all the plans electronically.

You won't hear me say this too often, but Wilshaw's idea is fine in itself, I just worry about the repercussions.