I saw a meme the other day and it was fantastic. It showed a person with a massive great big stone on their back. It had all of the things that are crappy in the world at the moment written on it: COVID; Lockdown; home-schooling; no time to work; not […]
teacherlife
45 posts
Or at least that’s what some people who have you think! Last week teachers were superheroes and now we’ve reverted to being workshy faineants who only work 9 till 3 at a push. Never is our position anywhere in the middle. There are three things that prompted me to write […]
Neither it would seem. Apparently, according to the internet we (teachers I mean) are either superhumans or lazy gits. And which end of the teachering-spectrum we fall depends on which particularly flavour of newspaper you read. I’m bored of the construction of teachers as lazy. It doesn’t upset me or […]
When different parts of a body don’t speak to one another (or communicate through nerves and whatnot) then that body tends to have difficulties doing various bits and bobs. If I try to chew with my whole mouth but I’ve had something done on my teeth with anaesthetic, then my […]
The gravity of what I do when I work with kiddos hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday. A kiddo I’ve been working with also was always going to be assessed by me this summer, but it ran a little later than we were hoping to start everything off […]
On Tuesday, I had a twitter chat with a chap I met at a conference a couple of years ago. He’s a nice bloke and works in education policy, and computery stuff, and setting up what teachers need to teach. He has done some really important work and has raised […]
Back in the Day A ‘Walk of shame’ has always had really negative and stigmatised connotations for me. It was something to sort-of hide and sort-of revel in when I was at uni and playing rugby. It tended to be preceded by a somewhat jaunty and vivacious night out with […]
I live in a strange old twilight zone between schools and Universities. It’s manifested in my home life and professional lives concurrently, and at the moment, it’s properly bruising my brain. Scottish Highers and Standard Grades. A levels. GCSEs. They’ve all been cancelled this year and SATs have been stopped […]
I’m in the National Education Union. I have been in the NASUWT in a past life in Yorkshire, before I went to South America for a while, then moved to the South West. I am proud Trade Unionist and I value what unions work for and their purpose of improving […]
This last month has been bonkers. It’s properly bonkers. May is usually a busy one with family birthdays, bank holidays and frequent trips up the A350. The weather is usually stunning (I’m a big fan of late spring and early summer), and we’re gearing up for a whole load of […]
“No they can’t. Or well, perhaps they can because parents are home-schooling perfectly well and they don’t need teachers at all.” “Look at the New Oak Academy materials that we’ve had to make because schools aren’t doing what they need to and it’s just not good enough. In fact it’s […]
That’s it. I confess. I have LITERALLY been watching grass grow. That is where my life has got to. The thing is, I confess again… it’s not the first time I’ve done it. About 5 years ago, our house and garden needed gutting and re-doing. Part of that garden re-do […]
Lock down is happening in spring, so each week the days are getting longer and the nights are getting shorter. I like that. I am a daytime person and I love natural light. As I write this, I am next to our big front room windows that let light flood […]
When I’m in school it’s for 2 days a week. It’s a cracking 2 days a week and I enjoy is immensely. It’s a good chunk of my general weekly workload and it’s something that makes everything else I do feasible. But it’s also not that much of the week […]
I’ve got dogs. Anyone who knows me or follows me on Twitter or Facebook will know this and probably think I am a daft, dog-crazy pet-parent. I am. I am all of those things and soooooo much more when it comes to these hounds. They are absolutely my world and […]
I will preface this with the fact that I won’t use any references. I won’t cite anything proper. I’m just going to have a bit of a ramble. Lots of people on my Facebook (old grump here!) and Twitter feeds are talking about home-schooling their kids. And they’re finding it […]
Today, I got a lovely comment from a student on Show My Homework. The student doesn’t always find learning easy and has a wobbly time in life. But they engaged, did their work beautifully and on time. And I could give them feedback in a way that works for lots […]
“I can’t do anything with them at home!” “He’s at school, so you need to deal with him!” “She’s so moody! I just can’t talk to her!” The number of times I’ve heard these phrases (or something equivalent), I cannot tell, both as a form tutor and as SENDCo. Sometimes […]
Some people can be excluded by what is meant to be inclusion. For neuro-diverse people our classrooms can be a ticking time bomb. The sounds, the smells, the expectations, the infrastructure, the movement, the unpredictability, the inflexibility. All of these can push people whose world view is that little bit […]
This week I’ve been back at work and started new work and it’s all been bonkers. Being back in school after a while out. I had the Little Dude and was on mat leave. Monday saw me go to INSET at a setting I know well and have enjoyed volunteering […]
I’d have written sooner, but someone cut through the internet cable in our road and we’re waiting for it to be fixed- it’s been more than 2 weeks and so far Open Reach have not been forthcoming! Then my laptop fell on the floor and the screen is pretty darn […]
I had my hair cut today. And I had lunch out. Then I came home and I played with my doglets, watched ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ and child the little dude. Then I tutored some awesome kids and made really yummy dinner (no-one has reported any adverse effects yet […]
I have just read two very different articles which could be interpreted as ‘pupil voice’. One, written by a teenager at the coalface of the exam system, is scathingly well-written, sharing her frustrations with the limitations of her school’s curriculum. The other, written by a teacher talks about the conflicts […]
I had a meeting this week in Wiltshire, with a commissioner from the council, a seminar as part of my AMBDA course with some Educational Psychologists from BANES and I’m in the middle of writing a book chapter on parents and schools working together to support dyslexic young people, mainly […]
This week, on Wednesday I was part of a short film made for the BBC Teach webpages. It’s about workload and nothing I said in the filming was particularly controversial or shocking. Spoiler alert: I work longer than my contracted hours and I think all the people in the film […]
I am, at times, decidedly cynical about politicians and their edicts. I am essentially a left-winger but struggle to identify with Labour in its present guise. Generally I find myself grating against most things that come out of a large proportion of politicians’ mouths. However, I find myself agreeing with […]
Success is subjective thing. One person’s trash is another’s treasure; one man’s meat is another’s poison; to each their own etc. There is a plethora of sayings that essentially say that some stuff is better for one person that it might be for another and that we don’t all have […]
Exam malpractice is a serious matter and any ‘Exams Officer’ or ‘SenCo’ knows that from reading the JCQ exam regulations or the Access Arrangements documentation from JCQ. Centres can lose their exam hosting status, people can lose their jobs and students can lose their entire suite of qualifications for breaches […]
I work part-time as a classroom teacher. I was a full-time teacher and SENCO but I’m not going to talk about full time teaching here, rather how I found a professional mish-mash of occupations that helps me to have a balanced working life. I have been full time and part-time […]
I am going to preface this by saying that it is all based on my own personal opinion, experience and dogmas. I’m not citing research and do not claim to be a guru on the matter. Also, that the ideas in the heading are not mutually exclusive. You can have […]
So at first reading, the headline “Ban pushy parents from emailing teachers, says Ofsted” would suggest that Ofsted thinks that schools have the time or the resources to do so and that it is actually something that they’ve said. On further reading, it’s not that at all. I’m all for […]
… what I really really want is to have time. More time to spend with my students and my colleagues each day and each week so that I can make sure that I meet their needs, support their progress and build better relationships. As the end of the school year […]
I read this article this morning and I saw red. I saw really, really red and decided to write. I think it’s important I caveat this rant by saying that I agree with some of the sentiment behind the article: all teachers are teachers of SEN. However, conflating being a […]
I don’t know if I count as an experienced teacher. I’ve been doing it in various forms for 12 years and I like to think that I’m in the right job. I think that one of the things that means I’m still a teacher is that I have been able […]
This time last year, I had just secured a new post at my current school after having made the decision to go part time as a teacher and do lots of other things alongside it. I had been SenCo at a lovely independent school in Wiltshire and had learned a […]
Reading about the next stage of academisation of English schools today sort of made me pull a bit of a grimace. I got a little bit cross and then facepalmed, because there just doesn’t seem anything new about the concepts being trundled out as though they are shiny new toy. […]
My mum worked for years in a secondary school in Warwickshire and she was the person in charge of putting together the timetable. She used to meet up with other timetablers from schools nearby, including a Deputy Head of the school I attended (I was quite a character at school, […]
I’ve never made it to a union conference yet and this year is no different. I always mean to but I just end up ill or with family for Easter at church. This year was an ill year and I have spent a huge amount of time feeling like death-warmed-up […]
2018 was a funny old year. I finished 2017 and moved into 2018 as a Dr rather than a Mrs and that was quite a big change. I graduated my PhD and was picked up at the University of Bath Winter Ceremony as quite an out-of-the-ordinary Phd-er. I did it […]
The Times Educational Supplement reported this week that primary school teachers are suffering significant levels of distress as a result of their jobs. This is at the same time that teachers are also viewed as one of the most trusted professions. There is a disjoint and it is something that […]
I am in a very privileged position, in that I genuinely love my job. I have flexibility because of the different things I do around my classroom-based time and I am eternally grateful for that. I realise that there are significant numbers of people who are not in that position. […]
This is quite a close-to-the-core kind of post, where things that tie into my professional and academic knowledge to my own experiences of learning and education meet. I grew up in Leamington Spa and went to a really blooming good comprehensive school in Warwick, where I was supported by great […]
This week has been a funny old week, but in a lovely way. I’ve been running around like a airborne insect with a cobalt-posterior and that does tend to be how I navigate life. Mr Dr Ross has been away so that doglets and I have been making the most […]
Usually I write on Wednesdays, as I’m not at in school. I didn’t manage it this Wednesday, as the day ended up being a little bit bonkers and I wound up running out of evening. I was slightly disappointed with myself for missing my own, self-appointed schedule. However, I am really […]
My PhD focussed on supporting young people with dyslexia and explored how they understood themselves through their relationship with their dyslexia. On one hand, I found that young people could frame their dyslexia positively and that is didn’t need to impact their access to learning and pr ogress negatively. ON […]