Year 10: an update.

In other news, I am so proud of the change in attitude my Year 10 class have had since my last post about them.

With three and a half weeks to go until the end of term, I was suddenly struck by the sheer volume of work we had left to do. We still needed to finish annotating the scenes from Romeo & Juliet, we needed to watch the film and make notes about the relevant scenes (a crucial part of the assessment), we needed to carry out a mock, create sound assessment plans and then actually do the assessment. I also needed to mark the mocks to give some feedback to them before the assessment. I panicked. I explained to them. They panicked. Then we pulled together.

Some of the lessons did end up being a bit of a lecture, which I could be happier about but it just became about getting the job done, rather than flowery approaches. The kids seemed to respond well too and they really got their heads down and tackled the work head on. We had several lessons where I encouraged them to work together, use the computers, and make their own interpretations and the notes from the film were largely their own thinking too. They have done brilliantly and I don't feel anywhere near as nervous about the actual assessment as I did last time.

I feel really proud of them; they've stepped up to the plate and taken on quite a mammoth task. Their essay writing skills are the only issue but we did some major troubleshooting of that this week and I'm hoping that some of it will have gone in. There's only one or two who I'm not 100% confident of but I'm hoping that there will be a much higher percentage of them getting into Band 4/5 this time.

It's a learning process for me too. Last year, my classes were all Key Stage 3 and so I am a bit rusty when it comes to GCSE. However, I feel like I and my Year 10 beauties have hit our stride with this work. So, keep your fingers crossed that the assessments show this to be true!!

An American Horror Story

The terrible events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, yesterday, will have sent a shiver down the spines of parents and teachers alike, everywhere. It is another in a long line of school massacres which have plagued the United States in the last decade or so and raises immediate questions about American gun laws. In the UK, it leaves many of us grateful for the stringent laws we have in place. From my own experience, arriving in America and seeing airport security guards and police officers carrying guns, is something which scared me. You just don't see it over here and it struck me how these sights must have the exact opposite effect on young people who have grown up in a nation where guns are commonplace.

The events of yesterday left 20 children and 7 others dead. The time has come for Obama to step in and put a stop to these flagrantly relaxed gun laws. Not only that, but it raises questions in British schools as to how long it will be before there are similar problems here.

As a teacher, it is part of my job to keep an eye on the children in my care. Some of them are quiet, some of them are loud, but all of them are fragile. Growing up is hard and it's easy to become resentful in an environment where looks, clothes and generally 'fitting in' are deemed more important than anything else. One girl (who reminds me a bit of me when I was her age) is bullied badly simply because she isn't interested in sex, drugs and alcohol like other girls in her year group are. She's made to feel as though she's not normal when actually, she's one of the most normal kids I know. What happens if she felt unsupported at home too, or had less teachers looking out for her? What if she felt so miserable that she became resentful and bitter? What if she lived in a country where she could gain easy access to a gun and decided to silence her bullies once and for all? Kids pick on the weak and then, eventually, the weak get angry, once all the confidence and self-esteem has been drained from them.

We can only speculate why the gunman yesterday, who's being cautiously named as 20 year-old, Adam Lanza, chose to do what he did yesterday. He walked into an elementary school of children aged anywhere between three and eleven, and killed twenty of them. His actions and his choices can never be excused, even if they can be explained but it will never make up for the tragedy they caused. However, we must do more to ensure that disturbed children do not grow up to be disturbed adults and in doing so, we will water down the chances of people feeling so angry that they feel like they need to take such drastic action. Kids like the girl I describe above need support and love to ensure that she knows how normal she is.

No amount of analysis can dismiss just how horrific the events of yesterday were, and still are. However, there is time to make changes to prevent these monstrosities from happening again. Until such time, my thoughts go out to the victims and their families - no words can ever remove the pain they must be feeling.

Ban guns, ban bullets; love our children.

The Man should try teaching Year 9.

The government have launched yet another negative attack on the teaching profession. In short, if you're not deemed to be a strong teacher, you will be paid less than your peers. There are pros and cons to this move, but from where I'm standing, one greatly outweighs the other.

Teaching is already a profession laden with anxiety, stress and paranoia. It's like being at school again but with the added pressure that you actually care about how you're doing and, instead of a detention when you mess up, you get complaints from parents and meetings with your line manager. It is a profession of criticism and you have to be quite thick-skinned. I'm not and one of the hardest things I had to learn was the ability to turn a critical comment into a positive boost to my performance. In every other area of life, if you were faced with constant comments and criticisms, you'd probably either kick off or crumble but, in teaching, you have to cheerfully take it on the chin and then prove yourself to be implementing that advice at the nearest available possibility. Whether we like it or not, if someone is struggling, it does seep out and whilst teachers are generally supportive folk, it does mean you can end up feeling very self-conscious.

So now, the government, in their infinite wisdom, have elected to provide teaching with yet another competitive, performance-based hierarchy to conform to. As if the pressure of line management meetings, observations, data collections, report writing and parent's evening isn't enough (not to mention the pressure we put on ourselves as intrinsic, natural-born perfectionists anyway). All of this is just parts of the job that we grumble about but accept. However, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel nervous every time one of these things crops up. I KNOW I'm a good teacher - I'm passionate, enthusiastic, giving and devoted to my job and students but even then, I worry. So now, I have to worry about whether I'm going to receive my pay rise every year and, if I don't, I get to spend a whole year feeling like the loser teacher who messed up so much that they didn't want to pay her properly; an entire year worrying about getting it all wrong again; an entire year of feeling like every email I get suggesting I attend a CPD session is a pointed statement about how crap I am.

As you can see, I put enough pressure on myself as it is.

I can see the benefits of this. The rewards of working hard are relatively low at the moment because we're all equal. Last year, when my Year 8 class achieved a higher number of Level 6s than predicted, I was told 'Well done, you need to improve children going from Level 4 to 5 though.' Fair enough, I do, but it'd be lovely to be rewarded for such things. Also, it might make it easier to spot teachers who do need more support AND it will help to ensure that children are receiving the best possible education which, at the end of the day, should be our priority at all times.

However, another major issue is the potential for this move to create more difficulties than solutions. For example, when applying for jobs in the future, if I've stayed on the same level of pay for a few years, will potential employers see that as a sign that I'm not worth interviewing, or even employing? Or, will it be like we're supposed to do with the kids and have intervention strategies put into place to ensure that we do make progress as teachers?

In short, I can't help but feel like education has become a profession that is too obsessed with targets and progress. The increasing number of academies is not helping the situation, and nor is the government with its incessant demand for more, more, MORE from teachers. The job is hard, the kids are awkward, the hours are long and we all devote ourselves to it; it's not so much a job as it is a vocation - a lifestyle, even. So, why now must I prove myself to warrant being paid correctly?

The government's lust for making teaching a respected profession filled with individuals who have first-class degrees (see the recent changes to the PGCE bursaries) and who reach ever-increasing targets (in spite of it being nearly entirely down to the students anyway), is something which is in danger of alienating passionate individuals who simply just love working with kids. Students must be provided with the best opportunities to learn, I agree. However, all of these government initiatives are only serving to demoralise and stress out the teachers who can give those opportunities. Teaching is in danger of becoming a heartless, soul-sucking profession filled with individuals who are only there for the wage. What a sad state of affairs.