There's one in every class

I am a great fan of Catherine Tate: she is a very gifted comedian and her Donna was a great companion for Dr. Who. I am less keen on the schoolgirl Lauren. This grotesque is so well observed she is only just a caricature and a hair's breadth away from reality.

Every class has its Lauren: in training if not yet fully formed. I can laugh at her on screen - and, indeed, I use her in my work with student teachers - but it is slightly uncomfortable laughter because I deal with her acolytes on a daily basis. I wonder, too, to what extent Lauren has set a standard and made her own unique contribution to classroom management issues up and down the land.

British comedy doesn't (yet) have its male Lauren: Harry Enfield's Kevin is far too gauche to be taken seriously, but I have my male Laurens too. Consider this Yr 10 incident:

Chris, come and sit here please.

Why?

Because you don't sit there.

I've always sat here.

And every lesson I move you to here.

But I haven't done anything wrong.

But you will if you stay there.

What have I done wrong?

You talk when you sit there.

I don't.

You already have. Come and sit here.

But I didn't do anything wrong.

Just come and sit here.

You can't move me.

Yes I can. I'm in charge.

I'm not moving.

Come and sit here please.

And so it went on from bad to worse. Remember too, that while this little floor show was going on, twenty other kids were waiting for their lesson to start.

I'm not moving. I haven't done anything wrong.

Well, you're disobeying my instructions for a starter.

I'm not moving.

Do as you're told.

(The outcome becomes inevitable.)

O.K. Chris you have to leave.

You haven't given me three strikes!

When a student is sent to another room he must take a form with him which he must complete and which invites him to reflect on the incident and on his behaviour. The first question asks: What happened? Chris's answer was: I was sent out for no reason.

Later that day I had a Yr 9 class. We are studying Revelation - as in the phenomenon, not the book. It is a killer topic and we do well to stay on task. Beckie, who needs no encouragement to be off task, is staring at the door. There is a face framed in its window. There should be no one there: everyone should be in lessons. I move towards the door and the face disappears. When I open the door a Yr 10 boy called Mark is standing there.

Move away from the door.

He ostentatiously moves one step away.

No, right away. Back to your class. What lesson should you be in?

None of your business.

(This is going well then. Behind me twenty seven fourteen year olds are getting restless.)

You need to go back to your class.

No.

I change tack.

Come into my room then, off the corridor.

No.

So you won't come in or go away.

No.

So, let's be clear what's happening here: you are choosing to disobey the direct instructions of a member of staff.

Yes.

(Oh good. I resist the temptation to slug him one.)

Then you have a problem.

Who are you to tell me what to do?

A behaviour support worker arrives. Come away Mark before you get into trouble.

It's too late for that.

I return to my class having achieved the last word and I leave Mark to the tender care of the BSW. There are raised voices outside the room.

It transpired that Mark should have been in Art but had been sent out. This is a regular occurrence. The only problem is that he refuses to go to where he has been sent and ends up on the wander. One wonders how this state of affairs has been allowed to continue without some appropriate resolution - ie, one where Mark is told in no uncertain terms what to do, no options. Having an unpredictable and provocative boy like Mark on the wander unsupervised puts others like me in a potentially vulnerable position.

Problems with Predictive Text

It is the half-term break here and that means I get to meet up with my friend and colleague John, the mad Physicist. ("I'm terribly sorry, he's from Wakefield.")

As I am thinking about setting off I ponder what I can do to wind him up. Given that he is generally sartorially challenged I send him a text: Try to look smart eh?

Almost by return I get the response. "In on ink you cheeky twat."

I have no idea what this means.

Picture this: I am sitting in the bar waiting for him, drinking a cappuccino and gazing idly out of the window, when the man himself shows up wearing a sweatshirt fleece and looking a mere three steps up from the homeless. As anticipated he berates me for my temerity in asking him to smarten up. I'm really sorry, but I didn't understand your text. The sentiment, yes, but not the actual words. I show him the phone which he holds at arms length and squints at.

I was in bed and I didn't have my specs. It says "I'm on hol you cheeky twat."

Actually it doesn't.

It's supposed to. Why didn't you look at the other letter combos on each button?

As if! In on ink too! Well that's my alternative career as a psychic out of the window then. Interesting how the insult got through but not the rest. John sits down in front of me and then unzips his sweatshirt to reveal a great deal of grey and untamed chest hair. I try to rise above it but fail to his great amusement.

It's going to be a long lunch hour.

The things they say

Another gem from the classroom.

I'd been talking about third world poverty and had been mentioned cholera.

At the plenary I asked. What C is a water-borne disease?

Sir, Sir!! Chlamidia!

I sometimes wonder whether my pupils and I have been in the same room.

An Inspector is expected

We are suffering from OFSTED Fever. I don't know whether that is a real condition but it should be. My prescription is calmness and not buying into the hype or, failing that, copious amounts of alcohol when other people do.

OFSTED are expected soon. I have been through this five times now and I have noted with a certain degree of irritation how suddenly we are expected to stop the normal routine of teaching to jump through hoops imposed on us by some senior managers.

Yesterday I experienced a "drop in": a member of our Senior Management Team dropped in unannounced and proceeded to observe my lesson for twenty minutes in the last half of the lesson. I don't have a problem with that: I've been teaching for twenty eight years and am confident in my ability and know my worth. I also feel instinctively that we should have an open door policy and should be willing to accept peer observation. I love watching my colleagues in other subject areas teaching.

He did not ask for my lesson plan, whci I thought was odd.

Ah, but he had a check list. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

He "dropped in" again later to give me feedback.

I'm sorry. It's bad news. I graded you as a four which means unsatisfactory.

I smile non-commitally.

You see some of the kids said they weren't enjoying the lesson. OFSTED would be concerned about that.

I smile again. So my worth is judged by the fact that not 100% of my pupils enjoy my subject. What, I wonder, are the chances of that ever happening in any lesson? Not impossible but very unlikely in the real world of the classroom I guess.

Your marking is up to date but you use smiley face stamps and the like and you use code letters that the kids have to look up in their decoder to see their target. There were hardly any personalised comments.

I'm becoming irritated now.

Do you know how many students I teach whose books need marking?

That's not really the point.

Oh, but I think it is. I have 448 pupils on my timetable. That's 448 books to mark. And you want each one to have a personalised comment each time? That's why I've devised the marking decoder and its grades. There aren't enough hours in the day.

Well that's what OFSTED are looking for.

Then they're applying unreasonable criteria when it comes to R.S. teachers. One size fits all isn't a good policy.

Pause

Anyway the kids said you didn't often do group work.

That's not strictly true. I NEVER do group work. Well, not with Year 9.

My colleague looked horrified.

They're too immature. I need to keep them on task and until they're ready to take it seriously - which I will use my professional judgement to assess - there will be no group work. Every time I observe group work elsewhere about a quarter of the kids are actually working and the rest are opting out and chatting. I don't do teaching styles because someone thinks they're of educational value when everything in my experience tells me otherwise.

But it's what raises you above unsatisfactory.

They'll see what they'll see.

But the lesson was too teacher led.

Yes. I am the expert and they learn from me. I don't like this sharing of ignorance: "Let's have a discussion." O.K. you start and I'll join in. What? "But we don't know what to say." Exactly. That's because you don't know anything to discuss yet.

I log on to my computer and bring up the powerpoint I had been using. In the first half of the lesson we did this pairs exercise I show him a creative writing tool designed to encourage pupils to evaluate from two perspectives.

But I didn't see that.

Then you should have come in the first half of the lesson. Are you suggesting that I should compromise the continuity of my lesson content to throw in a sudden group activity - out of context - because an inspector comes in the room?

Well if that's what it takes. They say they do a lot of copying from the board.

Now this one really irks me. If I could guarantee they'd absorb everything I say in lessons for all time, then I'd never require them to copy anything down. But I can't, so they will. How will they revise for the exams - which we are put under incredible pressure to get top grades for, by the way - if they've nothing to revise from? This is an information and content led subject. I show him some of the other activities on the powerpoint, all of which are designed to be a break from writing and all of which are designed to reinforce learning.

Did you use them today?

No. I use one or two per lesson depending on the circumstances.

Ah, but I didn't see them.

So I'm judged on what you didn't see, even though I've shown you what I do?

There was no evidence of pupil peer assessment.

We did that last lesson when they marked each other's answers from a past exam question using the exam board's marking criteria.

Ah, but that wasn't in the twenty minutes I saw.

I transcend the moment. Thank you God.

I shall smile sweetly and do what I always do. Isn't it amazing how my groups get such good grades from an inadequate teacher?

In my time as a teacher I've seen all these trends come and go and reappear rebranded for a new generation. Some are better than others and some are just gimmicks. I look at the assessment criteria I have for my Student Teacher, provided by his university and one leaps out at me: "To avoid the substitution of fun activities for purposeful teaching."

I rest my case.

I relate the incident to a couple of colleagues at the end of the day. I'm not taking this at all seriously but my geographer friend is incensed and the colleague who teaches Social studies is resigned: That'll be me too then.

My student teacher goes home perplexed by the possibility that his mentor is an inadequate teacher.

There is outrage at this morning's Humanities Faculty meeting.

My career, it seems, can be summed up by one snapshot, twenty minute observation that takes no account of the unique demands of my subject area nor any sense of the context of that part of the lesson.

What a great system!

The horriderist teacher in school

Mr. Mohammad was taking my Yr 7 class today. They are sweethearts but rather needy. I want to gather them all up and take them home. Mr Mohammad has been teaching them about Muslim prayer - well, it makes more sense than me teaching it to them - and he has devised a board game for them. They had a ball. (I notice they've stopped asking me when I'll be teaching them again.)

Year 8 were different. They came in in a very odd mood. I think it may have been windy out. Seriously: that's all it takes.

Mr Mohammad was also doing Muslim prayer with them and wanted them to learn the movements. He is a gentle man in every sense and I felt what he was doing with them looked rather good fun. The girls were certainly up for it.

Not Marcus.

I aren't doing that! (They're from near Bradford remember.)

I am working in the office next door with the door open, struggling to put together a powerpoint presentation on religion and prejudice for Yr 10 and I overhear all this. (Mr. Mo is so close to the end of his teaching practice now that I just pop my head round the door every ten minutes or so.)

Marcus continues to argue.

I aren't religious. You can't make me do it. That's gay, that is.

Mrs. Carol, their support assistant, looks about to have apoplexy so I decide to rescue Marcus before she gets to him.

Come with me. You can work in the office on the desk next to mine.

Strangely the little chap isn't at all grateful. And me having saved him from certain death. Mrs. Carol is a saint, but even she can be pushed so far.

Marcus come with me. That's not a request, it's an instruction.

But I've not done owt!

Yes ... maybe that's the problem.

It's not fair.

I can see this is heading towards a claim that his human rights are being infringed.

Yeah, now about that ... that's not strictly true is it Marcus? You've upset people and you didn't like it when that teacher called you a knob the other week did you?

That was you.

Really? I don't remember. But you're missing the point. It's not nice to be upset is it? Now just sit there.

I'm not doing any work.

As you please.

And you can't make me.

Whatever.

I get on with my powerpoint which involves doing a Google-image search for gay policemen.

I'm bored.

This is me not caring.

For God's sake!

Stop whining Janice.

For God's sake!

Janice!

I'm not called Janice.

Then stop behaving like one.

You can shut up.

Oh now that's just being rude and not at all grown up.

Well you're not being grown up.

Ahh but I am grown up.

I'm grown up too.

You're twelve and three foot two. Don't make me laugh.

I'm bored.

And boring.

Can I go back next door now?

Oooh, let me think. No.

It's not fair.

That's life, that is. Think on.

You're the horriderist teacher in the school.

Ahh. Thanks.

Year 10 and Transcendence

I've been having a problem with some of my students. They don't get God. Years ago there used to be a book called "Your God is too small." and I think of that every time a child says to me with all the wisdom and arrogance of a 15 yr old, "But Sir, I don't believe in God. How could one man create a universe?"

Right Fans, I'm a man and I've not created many universes recently.

They look at me inscrutably.

O.K. What I mean is, I've never created a universe. Do you see the point?

Impassive stares. I consider instituting a seance on the basis that I'm not having much luck with the living so I might as well try the dead.

I don't get it.

(Now there's a phrase that irritates me beyond measure. It is usually intoned with a whine and translated means "I'm too lazy to think it through.")

Why do we even have to do this? (This from William. When the going gets tough the tough ... No that's not right. When the going gets tough my kids moan about having to do the subject.)

Look. If God exists - and I know that's a big if for many - that God must be beyond and above our wildest understanding. When we begin to use descriptors we immediately diminish God because we have to reduce him to something we can understand. We are describing the indescribable and not doing it justice

I show them the picture above.

That's my idea of Transcendence.

Is that God then?

NOOOOOO! (Pause for deep breath.) That's supposed to be us representing our awareness of our insignificance in comparison to God and surrendering to the Transcendent.

I throw my arms wide as if in supplication and the sudden movement triggers the lights to come on. I stand there bathed in the glow as if I was caught in the spotlight of the Berlin Wall.*

Wow Sir! Now I get it.

* Note to my American friends - that's a reference to history. It was in Europe so you won't know about it.

Year 8

I don't have a lot to do with the younger kids in school. I just have this one Year 8 class once a fortnight. They crease me up and I get a glimpse of what it must be like to teach in primary education.

They are at the bottom end of the mixed ability spectrum and if they are all in school - rare - there are about fifteen of them.

Today we started the life of Gautama the Buddha. It was a bit like carpet-time: I read them the story and then they had to sequence slips of card with the story on in the right order. The mistake I made was in giving all the pairs green card rather than a different colour per pair.

Tim, why have you got 27 slips? You should have 10.

Casey: don't put them in your ear, O.K? ...... No, it's not nice.

We then set out to draw the story in eight pictures.

Right Ashton, too much noise from you. I'm putting the three minute timer on for your silence. We need respite and I don't want to go home having killed another pupil.

Sir, can I draw sponge-Bob Square-Pants?

No. Why?

You said Gautama met a Holy man.

No...still not getting it.

Well, Sponge-Bob is full of holes.

O God.

Ashton: well done. A whole three minutes. Why didn't you do any work during that time? What....? What do you mean you can't multi-task? No. Being quiet and not working is not multi-tasking.

Jonny: why have you drawn Shrek?

I haven't. You said Gautama met a sick man. I've drawn him green because he was sick.

Sir, Sir, I didn't understand that bit. I've drawn someone being sick.

Oh yes. So you have Zoe.

I have too. I used that lady off Little Britain as my model.

Yes, O.K. Perhaps when I said sick I should have said ill.

Vikki why have you drawn a stick man?

It says so on the board.

Read it to me.

Gautama met a stick man.

And again.

Gautama met a sick man. Oh.

Got it.

A year 11 boy called Dean arrives in my doorway in disgrace from another colleague.

Got some work to do? Good. Sit there and get on with it."

Jessica: Why have you drawn Gautama as pregnant in every picture? No don't tell me. Let me guess. Because you can only draw stick men and then you got to the bit where he wasted away from fasting and you couldn't tell the difference between that picture and the others so you put a belly on him. Am I right? Thought so.

Sam: Why is that lady carrying a skateboard? Oh...Right. That's the baby Gautama. O.K.

Tim. Don't do that.

Sir: this crayon box has got blood on it.

Ah, Jess, you found me out. I used that tupperware box to kill the last pupil who got on my nerves.

Really?

No. I think you'll find it's ink.

No Dean. You can't come back next lesson. I don't care if it's more fun in here. Turn round Casey. He's too old for you.