Many of you will already know or will have worked out that I am a teacher and I so I have always treated September as my New Year rather than the traditional January 1st. As the new term begins I thought I would share a few of my resolutions with you.
1. I will not get wound up by slow drivers on the way into work. 42 miles per hour is a perfectly reasonable speed on a straight open road in perfect weather conditions. Tractors have every right to be on the road during the morning rush hour without pulling over to let people pass and the mobile speed camera van going at 15 miles an hour below the speed limit ALL the way from North Walsham to Norwich is absolutely fine by me.
2. I am not going to swear, at least not much, unless it really is necessary. I think I'll have a 'swear box' and put a pound into my Sancerre fund every time I use a profanity.
3. I am going to keep my Mark Book beautiful. This has been one of my resolutions for the last 17 years and I still haven't achieved it. There will be no crossings out, no gaps, no use of multi-coloured pens. If a new pupil joins my class late in the term they will have to change their surname to something beginning with 'Y' or 'Z' so I can put them on the end without ruining the alphabetical list. For example 'Jack Cooke' would be offered the choice of 'Jack Yooke' or 'Jack Zooke'.
4. I will not get half way through September and start feeding my family ready meals, pizza or Weetabix for tea.
5. I will not even once threaten to resign and go and work in Tesco. However, Waitrose might be a different matter altogether.
6. I will not get depressed about the fact that I probably have another 24 years teaching ahead of me and that my pension is currently something like £26.78 lump sum and £1.54 a month.
7. I won't hit November and start going to bed at 8.30 just so I can survive the next day. Sad lamp and vitamin D instead.
To see how I am getting on visit http://normalfornnorfolk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/new-years-resolutions-24-hours-in.html
Holt, home to Gresham's School and the over-priced boutique, is situated a few miles inland from the North Norfolk coast. Holt appears to have been spared the fate of other 'market towns' in Norfolk (i.e. rapid decline) due to two factors. First, it doesn't appear to actually have a market, although I could be wrong on this point and am sure someone will gently correct me if I am. Second, as I mentioned earlier, it boasts 'Norfolk's 'Premier' Private School', and thus attracts quite a posh clientele both in terms of inhabitants and visitors.
Although I like Holt, it also fills me with an instant sense of impending doom. This is due more to associations I have with it than to the town itself.
As a young child I travelled through Holt every week day on the way to school. It represented that half way marker between home and school when you realised that you hadn't managed to convince your mum that you had stomach ache, and had reached the point of no return and death by spelling test.
Many years later I had my first driving lessons in Holt which were also cause for stomach churning fear, mainly on the part of other road users and pedestrians. I wasn't a naturally observant driver and frequently used to fail to stop at the pedestrian crossing in the centre of the town. There is always an added frisson of danger when driving in Holt as it is pretty much devoid of pavements but plentiful in its supply of ambling tourists, elderly residents and Boden-bedecked yummy mummies just popping into Larners for some Vignotte.
More recently it was the venue for our wedding and, although I felt very little in the way of nerves that day, I shall never forget driving down the road parallel to the church and seeing the rows of cars parked there. I experienced that moment of it all becoming 'real'. People had actually turned up for it and were in the church waiting for me including, I hoped, my future husband.
As far as I am aware there are few actual tourist attractions in Holt. It's more a case of the whole town being an attraction it itself. There are lots of quirky shops and boutiques, an Art Gallery and of course Byfords which does fantastic cakes. If you have a mid-morning snack there you won't need to eat for the rest of the day, but then, if you've spent the day in Holt you probably won't be able to afford to eat for the rest of the day!
Now, I know that I am not alone in adult circles in being a bit partial to the odd packet of Haribo and I have found that the more open I have been, the more people I have found over the age of 25 who share my gelatine addiction. I'm sure there are support groups out there somewhere for the real hard-core users, and a twelve-step plan to wean you off the gummy bears.
Normally when I am at home I am ok, as we tend not to have Haribo in the house, but my real downfall is when I'm at school. I keep a big stash of this type of sweet in my desk as prizes/bribes/danger money for the kids I teach. I'm sure this goes against all guidelines on good practice, what with our being a healthy eating school and all that, but I find that fresh fruit doesn't keep so well and is nowhere near as effective. "Come on Tyler, just finish this piece of work and you can have some grapes".
Normally I can resist. The Haribo are in a tin in a locked drawer, otherwise they do tend to 'disappear', so I have to make an effort to get to them - but after a particularly challenging day I do sometimes find myself reaching into the pupils' sweet tin for a little something. The trouble is once you've had some it is hard to stop. I guess the combination of sugar, e numbers and chewiness is meant to be addictive otherwise they wouldn't sell so many.
I have sometimes toyed with the idea of buying sweets which I don't like, such as toffees or mints, but the trouble is the kids don't like them either. One 13 year old girl asked "Miss. Why don't you buy us chocolate instead?". I found myself in one of those painful situations where you can hear yourself saying something, know it's stupid, but it's too late to stop yourself. "They wouldn't last too well in a stuffy classroom, and there's nothing worse than a sticky mess in your drawers", was what I said. I hate it when that happens. She might have a point though? I'm sure melted, congealed and re-set chocolate would be much easier for me to say no to.
With the debate about children's lunches 'on the menu' again (sorry, that was appalling, I can only apologise and promise not to do it again) I have been thinking back to my school days and the offerings, masquerading as food, which we were given on a daily basis. Now I was by no means a fussy eater, but some of the dishes we were fed were quite frankly inedible. We re-christened the Spaghetti Bolognese 'minced morsels' which, if I remember rightly was a dog food. Looking back I don't think it contained a shred of beef. If we could return to the late 70s and test it I think we might solve the mystery of what happened to Shergar. By far the worst though was 'Cowboy Hotpot' a cunning but ultimately ill-advised attempt to make us eat liver. To this day offal is the only thing that I really can't stomach.
On the whole Bryn has packed lunches and, being an ASBO mum, I am probably partly to blame for the recent assertion that our children would get much healthier food if they ate school dinners. I would love him to have school dinners every day (even at the weekends in fact) as I hate the chore of making his packed lunch in the evening along with the umpteen other things I have to squeeze in as my bed calls to me. A couple of weeks ago I got off the sofa and said rather wearily to Bryn "I suppose I'd better go and get your packed lunch ready". Much to my surprise he said "I'll do it". We went to the kitchen and I cleaned out his lunch box. Then he said "Can you get me a smoothie out of the fridge?", so I did. Next came "I can't reach the Pom Bears. Can you get some down?", so I did. Then he asked "Can you get me a cheese scone and the butter out of the fridge and cut the scone in half?" So I did. It continued in a similar vein for a while longer when he finally he declared "This is easy. I don't know why you make such a fuss about it"!!!!
So, having spent the last few weeks dishing out the reports I am now on the receiving end, and took possession of our son's yesterday. Now, I know what you're thinking. He's in year 3. Surely his report will just say 'Bryn is eight years old and therefore knows everything. There is nothing more I can teach him'. You may laugh, but to listen to him sometimes you would think this was the case. I have spent most of my life labouring under the misapprehension that I was of at least average intelligence and am so grateful to my son for showing me how wrong I was.
Anyway, back to the report. I quickly skim read to see if I could find any obvious 'teacher code' alerting me to the fact that my son was doing poorly at school and was therefore destined to become a drug addict/petty criminal/estate agent but could see no such comments. Parts of it were quite difficult to understand and I had to ask Bryn what some sentences meant.
'He needs to use inverse relationships to verify the accuracy of an answer'
'He needs to independently use appropriate ways of presenting data ...using appropriate scales for each axis'. Whatever happened to 'Could do better'?
There were a couple of other phrases which caught my eye. In the R.E. comment it said 'This year he has learnt about submission in Islam'. Submission in Islam? How about teaching him about submission at home?! Perhaps we should convert. The other one said 'He is able to mix paint economically'. Well, that's good to know. If the whole Brain Surgeon thing doesn't work out then at least there'll be a job for him at Home Base.
Finally I had a last look through to make sure I hadn't missed anything vital. Nowhere could I see the phrase 'Bryn is a pleasure to teach'. Phew, what a relief. He is not the Head Teacher's son.
This morning my lovely boss (he'll be reading this) asked me what kind of Teacher's Planner I would like for next year. This always causes great excitement as it is the only freebie we get these days, following the discontinuation of valium-tipped board pens. (Dear Customs and Excise/Drugs Squad/Ofsted - that was a joke - no dawn raids please.)
His first question was quite simple. "A4 or A5?" "A4 please. It's easier to hide my mobile phone from the kids with an A4 one."
Second question. "Ring bound or loose leaf?" " Loose leaf"
Third question. "What colour?" "What colour? Ooh the red is quite nice but I had red this year so maybe not. I don't like the orange one - looks like a baby's nappy. Um, how about green? Oh, no it's that horrible dull green isn't it. What other colours do they do? Is there a pink?"
My boss was trying very hard to appear patient but I know him well enough by now to spot the signs.
"I know", I exclaimed. "I'll have that colour!", pointing to the vivid shade of puce which was spreading from his neck up his face.
In the end I plumped for blue. I may not be needing it anyway if I get my P45 in the next few days.
"If you speak to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you speak to him in his own language, that goes to his heart" - Nelson Mandela.
As a languages teacher, who has to do daily battle with the linguistic prejudices of the average English teenager, I find this quotation beautiful and inspirational. I have it on my classroom door hoping that, if I fail to do so, then at least the great Madiba might inspire them to open their minds just a little bit. If I had a euro for each time a child has said to me "Why do we have to learn a foreign language? Everyone speaks English anyway", then I would probably be comfortably able to bail out most of the Eurozone with a bit left over for a nice holiday.
As it happens most of the world does not speak English. Just 6% speak it as their mother tongue and only 25% speak any at all. That's three quarters of the world excluded. I know, I'm showing off - I can do Maths too!
I have been hugely thrilled to see that my posts are being read in France, Russia, Germany and Serbia as well as the USA, Canada and UK. When I told Bryn that I had page views from America and Serbia he said "That will be Obama and Djokovic!" Who knows? Whoever you are, wherever you are, thank you for reading and please do leave comments on any of the posts.
I find myself awake at stupid o'clock this morning, a time usually only experienced in any meaningful sense by shift workers and small infants. Speaking of small infants, I am taken back to the days when Bryn was tiny and 5.30 am was considered a lie in and you knew it was going to be a bad day if the baby had woken you up before the CBeebies channel had come on air.
There could be many reasons for my current bout of sleeplessness: clammy nights, feeling hungry, things on my mind. However, on this particular day I like to think that I have woken up in sympathy with my colleagues who, as I write, are setting off for Germany with 35 excited teenagers. I myself have been on this trip a number of times but, more recently, have gone over to the dark side and accompanied the Spanish jollies (let's face it, that's what all you non-teachers think they are!) instead. On the last German trip two years ago we had literally been on the road (or to be more accurate, the school drive) for 20 seconds when one 13 year old girl threw up over herself and her (ex) friend. At this early stage of the trip I was still feeling reasonably fresh and enthusiastic and so set about cleaning up the mess. If anyone thinks teachers have an easy job then they should try cleaning up someone else's child's vomit on a moving coach. The novelty will soon wear off I can assure you.
...and so it was that I earned myself the (unpaid) title of 'Teacher in charge of Vomit'. Later on in the trip, the lack of fruit served at the hotel necessitated the addition of 'constipation' and 'rickets' to my responsibilities. All in day's work!
It's that time of the year where most parents will be getting their little darlings' end-of-year reports, and where most teachers will be reaching for the gin as they write their 104th comment about how well/badly little Johnny is doing.
As a teacher with nearly 20 years experience of report writing I thought I would de-code some teacher short-hand for you.
- Tom always works with enthusiasm. = Tom cannot sit still and keeps shouting out.
- Annie has an enquiring mind. = Annie never stops asking pointless questions.
- Jessica is quiet and conscientious. = Jessica is a teacher's pet.
- Hugo is a pleasure to teach. = Hugo is the Head Teacher's son.
- Sam is confident and not afraid to express his opinions = Sam is annoying and full of himself.
- I have seen a real improvement in Kyle's attitude = Kyle hasn't hit anyone this week.
- Emma has worked steadily this year and has made reasonable progress. = Emma has done sod all.
- George needs to make more effort in order to make the progress he is capable of = No chance.
