The School’s on Fire

Year 11 are still here. Other schools have long since let their students go. But due to the chronic (and worsening) attendance problem the Metropolitan School can’t afford to let year 11 affect our attendance figures any more than they have already. Of course, in their hearts they know they should have already gone and as a result they are turning up in jeans, and instead of going to lessons they stand around in corridors playing a gambling game which involves throwing money at the wall.

Sometimes, like this morning, a few year 11 students accidentally turn up for a lesson. This causes all sorts of confusion. For instance, today my class of five Year 11s thought they were meant to sit around a table chatting about the Prom. Unfortunately I had planned to teach them a few things they need to know in order to pass their GCSE exam. Conflict was inevitable. I am glad to say I only had to get one girl, Rochelle, removed from the class. She repeatedly refused to cooperate with even the most basic instructions. While we waited for Call-Out to come and get her, the other students were keen to explain that it’s not surprising Rochelle wouldn’t do what she’d been told. No punishments of any kind were being applied to Year 11s at the moment. I pointed out that as far as I knew students had been excluded as recently as two weeks ago.

Rochelle spoke up “Do you mean me? I didn’t get excluded.”

“I’m sure you did, That’s what your Year Head told me. I’ll just look it up.”

Sure enough when I looked it up Rochelle hadn’t had an exclusion for an incident a couple of weeks ago. Yes, she had thrown her work on the floor. She had told me: “Fuck off, I’m not doing it”. Her acting Year Head, Jenny Goodyear, had told me she had a two-day exclusion. However, both Rochelle and the computer were telling me this hadn’t happened.

Not long after Call-Out had arrived and removed her (with some arguing) from the class, Clay Broadmoor turned up at door.

“Have you heard? The school’s on fire.”

“Really? Well you’d better get to your lesson before anyone thinks you started it.”

“I’m not going to my lesson. The science block’s on fire”.

Clay eventually left. The lesson ended and I sent my class out for break. A minute later an email arrived saying “Don’t let your classes out because of an incident in the science block”.

Some of my students returned. The order came through eventually for all year 10 and 11 students to go to the hall. (Other years went to a different part of the school). The science block was on fire. The students were to be released to go home. However, their parents would each have to be contacted by a member of staff first. Now we just had to explain this to a hall full of year 10 and year 11 students.

This proved to be impossible. As soon as the words “go home” had been uttered there was pandemonium. First there was loud and protracted cheering, followed by the out break of some kind of fight. Staff with mobile phones lined up to make the calls but students were impatient. Why should they have to wait? Students attempted to make their own phone calls or attempted to make a break through the fire escape (about 15 succeeded).

I had the misfortune to be right near the main door. Inevitably, for an hour, I was the bouncer on the door. Nobody else seemed to want this job. No member of SMT came over to do it. No Head of Year or Head of Department took an interest. No teacher who had been at the school longer than me gave me a break. As ever, by attempting to enforce the rules, I had taken on sole responsibility for a massive task. Most of the time I simply had to let out kids who’d been given a note by a member of staff or let in kids who hadn’t made it to the hall in the first place because they’d been wandering the school grounds as an alternative to lessons. Unfortunately, I was also confronted by the kids who couldn’t wait their turn. One gang of large students attempted to charge through me, and when I held my ground and shouted at them to sit down they just shouted back at me or told me my breath stunk. Chanel from my year 10 class came up to me, held her nose to indicate that she thought I smelt. (Yes, barely three hours since I’d had a bath and brushed my teeth I was being accused of both having body odour and bad breath. If you are at all familiar with children you’ll know that anybody who inconveniences them has bad breath, a body odour problem, a history of homosexuality and a fat mother. If you are familiar with teaching you’ll know that this kind of abuse is no longer only student to student but aimed at staff on a daily basis.) When I asked to see her note she told me to “fuck off” and then showed me her note anyway.

Eventually we got them all out. We all went back to our rooms to work. We wouldn’t be going home early, but four lessons being cancelled is a teacher’s dream come true.

It turns out it was three Year 9 students who set the fire. I’m amazed they found anywhere in the school to do this that wasn’t already full of truanting year 11s. Only one of them was a child whom I teach, but another was a boy who used to pop into my lesson occasionally to verbally abuse me. As it happens just two days before I had emailed Miss Rush, their year head, to tell her that these two boys were running around the corridors causing trouble. As it also happens there had been no reply and you can be pretty sure nothing was done about them.

With a Little Help from my Friends

I met up with a few old friends recently.

One of them is a councillor with responsibility for education (thankfully not “children’s services”) for a medium size unitary authority. He told me that he thought his authority was doing well, at least according to exam results. I pointed out that results cannot really be compared over time due to changes in exams and he accepted that it was the figures relative to other schools that showed progress had been made. He was also quite keen to point out that there were various groups, such as those responsible for The Cambridge Primary Review who were opposed to testing even though it was the only way to reliably judge whether kids are learning or not. I told him my view that schools were massively failing due to poorly thought out aims, such as inclusion, and idiotic patronising initiatives from both government and from private companies selling snake oil.

He agreed that SEN provision was a mess, but said that it all came down to money; Special Schools cost more. With regard to initiatives telling teachers how to teach, he asked if I was claiming teachers should have more autonomy, because if so then I needed to realise how terrible a lot of teachers were. I pointed out that my real issue was that the initiatives were nonsense. The people who implement initiatives are not any more competent, and certainly not better educated, than ordinary classroom teachers. There are classroom teachers out there with PhDs in psychology being told to implement “expert” ideas that actually contradict everything psychologists know about learning. He suggested academic qualifications were no guarantee of teaching ability. I pointed out that they normally suggest at least some ability to identify bullshit.

Later I met up with a friend who is training to be an accountant and had just been to a training course alongside a number of people who were (or were training to be) “consultants”. He told me that even in business they are expected to start their training with nonsense about learning styles and groupwork. When he looked up some of the ideas he’d encountered online he had noticed that even Wikipedia is wising up to this nonsense. “Learning styles” and the “Belbin Team Inventory” can easily be found to have been widely criticised by those who have researched them. Could it be that school managers might now have no excuse for not simply accepting such fads uncritically?

My friend also told me that a lot of the consultants he met were engaged in work in Further Education. A quick search for “further education consultants uk” on Google reveals that this is indeed a growth industry. Perhaps it’s just me, but when any part of the public sector is spending a fortune on consultants to tell them what to I start to worry that something is going wrong. Perhaps, people who read this who work in FE can reassure me?

Finally, I met up with an old school friend.

He said:

“Stop talking about your work all the time”.

Fair comment really.

Selling Out

I have decided to get out of the Metropolitan School, but I’ve been burnt enough times to know better than to rush.

I looked for a school where I could get a promotion and where the results were good. I didn’t have to wait long. My “email alerts” informed me of a suitable vacancy in a Catholic school in a rather affluent suburban town. The journey was quite lengthy, but no worse than it is to get to the Metropolitan School. The school’s A*-C level was over ninety percent, the area was leafy and privileged and the number of students with SEN was very low.

I spent the next few weeks getting everything sorted. I sought out my headteacher (that took over a week), my priest, and an old friend from Stafford Grove School to agree to give me references. I got the application form and filled it out and was happy to be invited to interview. I was somewhat taken aback to be told by my current headteacher that he’d received a request for references only on the afternoon of the day before the interview, which didn’t indicate a great deal of planning in the interview process. Similarly, when I phoned for more details about the lesson they wanted me to teach as part of the interview I couldn’t get hold of anybody, and couldn’t find out if I’d have access to a projector or interactive whiteboard.

When I arrived I discovered that there were three of us being interviewed. We each had a half hour lesson to teach, a tour of the school and interviews scheduled for the rest of the morning, with mine being planned for just before lunch. Inevitably, I found myself comparing everything with my current school.

The first culture shock was having to teach a year 7 class. They seemed genuinely enthusiastic to have their regular lesson interrupted. None of them asked for a pen, all of them listened to what I said. The biggest shock was when I asked for a volunteer to hand out worksheets and every single hand in the room went up. It was like having a class where every single child was Rod or Todd Flanders. There was one late arrival, Owen, who seemed unwilling to work, and he was on report and clearly being closely monitored.

Afterwards, the assistant head who had observed my lesson gave me feedback. She raved about the lesson, which due to the lack of foreknowledge had mainly consisted of direct questioning and writing on an ordinary whiteboard, i.e. the sort of thing I could have done off the top of my head without preparation. She told me that the lesson was at the very least “good” by OFSTED standards. She praised my behaviour management (apparently I’d done well to spot Owen), use of formative assessment, and relationship with the kids. I was delighted, I am used to having lessons like that criticised at the Metropolitan School. It made it sink in just how much teachers are judged on the attitude of the children, not the quality of the teaching.

The tour of the school was, as you’d expect, a succession of buildings which didn’t really reveal anything, although the children did seem extraordinarily well-behaved. What was very odd about it was that no opportunity was taken to introduce us to the other members of the department.

Then I waited while the other candidates were interviewed, I had the misfortune to be last and had to wait over an hour. Then the assistant head came in and said the head had been held up and asked if I could wait until after lunch. I had no choice but to agree. After lunch the other candidates went for a walk round while I waited for another hour. Finally I was called in. The interview was long, and strange. They had no interest in asking about my use of technology, but were quite happy to ask completely random questions like “What is the definition of Education?” and “So, do you agree that extra-curricular activities are a waste of time?” They reacted to every answer with so much agreement and smiling that it became absolutely impossible to judge whether I’d given a good answer or not.

After the interview I sat with the other candidates and chatted. Apparently we’d all been asked completely different questions which seemed rather odd. We were all equally bemused by the choice of questions and the reactions. None of us had been asked the usual question of “Are you a firm candidate?”

After an hour’s waiting, a teacher from the department we’d applied to came in and chatted. He explained that almost everyone in the department was an NQT. It seemed more than a little odd that nobody had mentioned this.

After another hour’s waiting and we were getting a bit fed up. One of the candidates went to find out if she could go home but failed to get an answer. Finally, we were called to the heads office and told “we don’t want to appoint until we’ve checked some more references. We’ll call tomorrow.”

Two days later the Head phoned to say that all the references had been checked out and were fine but they had been unable to agree who to appoint so had decided not to appoint anybody. By this point it wasn’t even a disappointment. I asked for feedback on the interview and was told only positive things which told me nothing at all.

I don’t know much about posh schools. I’m forming a tentative theory that they are run by people who couldn’t run up the proverbial piss-up in a brewery.

Success

Scene 1: PSHE training

“Okay, now we have finished our icebreakers let’s talk about the next unit in the program. If you look at page 7 of your booklets, you can see where you should be leading your form group. The definition of success that you want them to arrive at after discussion is ‘trying your best to achieve a goal’. Yes, what is it Andrew?”

“That’s not a definition of success.”

“Sorry?”

“You could try your best at something and not achieve it, I could try all I liked but I’m not going to run a four minute mile, or give birth to twins.”

“Well, yes, I see your point, but I think the really important thing to get across here is that if you do try your hardest you have succeeded.”

“You’ve succeeded at trying, but you haven’t necessarily succeeded at whatever it is you were trying to do.”

“I think you are being a bit too traditional here, Andrew.”

“But what if one of my form group points out that this isn’t the definition of success?”

“I’m sure they won’t, they are only year 8.”

Scene 2: PSHE Lesson

“Okay everyone, that was interesting to hear what you thought about success. Now let me tell you what the book says about success. It says that success is ‘trying your best to achieve a goal’”

“Sir, sir”

“Yes, Jade?”

“That’s not what success is. You could try your best at something and not achieve it.”

“Er… yes. Well like I said that is what the book says, we don’t have to agree with the book.”

“But it’s stupid. It just isn’t what the word means. You can’t go around just changing what words mean.”

“Er … yes, I certainly see your point and have to say I do agree with it. I think perhaps we just need to consider what success means in our own lives.”

“Sir, sir”

“Yes, Jade?”

“Why do we have to discuss our own lives? Isn’t that just interfering in our own personal stuff? Why is my private life any business of anyone else.”

“Well, the school is responsible for your emotional well-being, Jade.”

“What’s that?”

“How you feel. Whether you’re happy.”

“But that’s mad. How I feel is my own business and nothing to do with the school.”

“Well I see your point. You might want to try getting elected to the school council next year and making that point there to the people who decide what we do in PSHE.”

“I’m making this point to you, Sir”

“I’m afraid it’s not up to me. I don’t choose to teach PSHE, to be honest I’d much rather be teaching my own subject”.

“You’re good at that, sir. You’re a good teacher. So why do you have to do this PSHE crap? It’s just interfering in our own private business for no reason.”

“Jade, I… Oh is that the time? Everybody, pack up quietly and hand your posters in on the way out.”

Holiday In Hell: Part 2

Continuing the account of a school trip.

You will need to read this entry first.

I awoke to find the boys from Anna Brown’s form all over their corridor, bags strewn across the floor. I told them that they, and their bags, should be in their rooms, unless they were showering, or alternatively they could sit in the lounge. It appeared that they were at their most energetic and I repeatedly had to make sure they were not wrestling in the lounge, or turning the lights off and playing in the dark. This wouldn’t have been a problem if it hadn’t been for Jon. First, he wouldn’t leave the corridor at all, then he re-emerged into the corridor in his boxer shorts dancing and singing “Sex Bomb”. Soon he was displaying his packet of chewing gum (prohibited by the residential centre’s rules) blatantly while stood right next to me. My requests for him to hand over the gum resulted in him running at breakneck speed down the corridor. I soon discovered that there was an unlocked kitchen at the near end of the corridor when I had to remove Jon from it. Then he joined the other boys in the lounge and realised that if he held the light switch down then I couldn’t switch the light back on. It was a relief when he decided that if I wouldn’t allow fourteen boys to wrestle in a dark room it was no fun and ran out towards the dining room, but by this point some of the other boys from Anna’s form were beginning to kick off.

I asked two boys who were on the verge of fighting with each other to follow me and went down to the dining room. Jenny Goodyear was in the kitchen and I asked if she could keep an eye on the two boys. She said she was too busy cooking and it was my responsibility so I should put them at the end of the corridor. I did this, only to find Jon there running his fingers across the fire alarm. I decided that I couldn’t hope to deal with Jon and the other boys at the same time. I insisted Jenny come out of the kitchen to speak to me, I told her that there was no way I could deal with Jon and the other thirteen at the same time. She said I’d have to and I pointed out that I had already made it clear that Jon was a health and safety risk and as she hadn’t acted at the time then would have to deal with it now. She told me I couldn’t speak to her like that and that Jon was fine. Then she complained that it was in front of the kids (despite the fact there was nobody in the empty dining room and I had asked her to come out of the kitchen for precisely this reason). I told her that the very first thing I’d do when I got back to school was contact my union rep. about how she’d ignored my repeated warnings about health and safety. She then told me she’d take Jon but she’d have to cancel breakfast. Then she declared that she’d have all the boys and stormed down the corridor to the boys’ dormitories and announced to them, “You all have to come with me because apparently you are wild and out of control.” I said that she only needed to take Jon but in front of the students she refused, leaving me alone in the boys’ corridors.

I took the time alone to recover from the shock of this behaviour on her part. A couple of boys (one from my form, one from Anna’s) came and chatted to me until other boys were sent to tell them to return. A brief walk round gave Jenny the chance to ask me to write a list of students and comments to go on their certificates. She didn’t explain what certificates so I didn’t ask and just did my best sat back in the boys’ corridor. Anna was organising dodgeball in the hall and I popped in to talk to some of my form. I lost my enthusiasm for being there when I caught Jon cheating and Anna ignored me when I pointed it out.

After helping with a number of tasks set by Jenny I joined the students in the dining room and sat alone at the staff table chatting to the students until Jenny came in to declare that nobody was allowed to talk across the room and to tell me to go and help Clark load the van. I complied. I returned and ate with the other staff (breakfast wasn’t cancelled). Jenny had now gained enthusiasm for setting me tasks. Unfortunately my willingness to do them seemed to encourage her to set more tasks – now with the apparent aim of forcing me to assert my authority (particularly over Jon) and then watching closely as if to pick fault. First I had to help with the next round of the “people at my table” quiz. Then I was shocked to hear it announced that all students were to join me in the hall for games. Fortunately Clark decided to join me and did a far better job of organising four-aside football than I could have done. We even managed to stop Jon climbing up the walls in the hall without having to ask more than four or five times. Eventually Jenny came and got Clark to leave and then watched me, but with the game in full swing there was unlikely to be a problem. Having watched for a bit she called the students back to the dining room to sort out last minute packing. Jon began climbing the wall in the dining hall next to Anna. She ignored it.

I was then given the task of helping students pack their bags in the hall with anything they’d bought while orienteering yesterday. This task was made more difficult by Jon trying to join us through the other door despite having nothing to put in his bag. Then Jenny began sending students through the hall with boxes to put next to the front door of the residential centre. The second student she sent was Jon, who on discovering the large collection of “circus toys” left by the youth workers near the door began playing with them with little regard to safety. Then a large crowd of students came through into the hallway leaving it overcrowded and making it hard to stop Jon’s latest antics. I asked what was going on and the students told me that Jenny had sent them through to stand by the door. I went to her and asked what was going on and she told me she was packing and told me off for failing to keep students out of the hall, I didn’t believe that over a dozen students had spontaneously decided to try and line up at the front door and tell me that she’d instructed it, but I felt there was little point arguing about it. I sent them back out. I’d got most of the crowd out, but Jon started claiming that Jenny had told him he should be at the door. I told him he needed to go back and he couldn’t stand near the door (even though I suspected he was correct about Jenny’s instructions there was no way I was prepared to supervise him in a room full of circus toys while also holding back a crowd). At this point he pushed me out of the way (more due to my shock at being attacked in this way than due to his physical strength).

Apalled by the assault, I left the hall through the crowd, finding Anna in the dining room. I asked her to take Jon away immediately as I’d been assaulted. She said, “I’m doing this, you have to sort it.” I couldn’t believe that anybody could take that attitude about a member of their own tutor group and told her: “You don’t tell a teacher who has just been assaulted that they have to sort it themselves,” and left for the calm of the boys’ corridors, which were now cleared and being cleaned, to recover from what was by this point quite an extreme level of stress. After a few minutes a crowd of boys appeared at the door of the connecting corridor. “Miss Goodyear sent us to stay here,” they told me. Fortunately it was mainly boys from my own tutor group and they quickly went back when I told them the rooms were being cleaned. However, I did have to stop to take two sponge balls away from students who were playing with them, unsupervised, at the top of a steep set of stairs.

The cleaner saw I was less than happy and encouraged me to sit in the lounge. I did so, only to see Jon, in the corridor, grabbing at my bags and possessions, presumably because of the two sponge balls beneath them. I sent him away and the cleaner locked the door of the corridor to keep him from rejoining us. Jon appeared to be utterly unsupervised at this point and free to seek me out despite what had happened.

Eventually I heard that it was far quieter outside and I left and was able to join my tutor group in the mini bus. Overall I had actually had a positive time with my tutor group and even most of Anna’s.

However I felt that I had been repeatedly undermined by having my warnings about Jon – based on my own direct observation and professional judgement – ignored and by the way I had been spoken to, particularly in front of my tutor group. I also felt I’d been undermined by being put into a situation where the only meaningful consequence for poor behaviour was one that I couldn’t deliver and where my requests for others to deliver it were ignored.

I felt that students had been repeatedly endangered by being left with Jon, as had Jon himself, and by being in a situation where it was not possible to adequately supervise them. During large parts of Friday morning it appeared that Jon was free to run around doing whatever he liked. There seemed to be no constraint on where he could go unsupervised in the building and even potentially dangerous behaviour was being ignored. I am also concerned about the hygiene implications of asking students to remove litter from bins of dog mess and cleaning up vomit unsupervised. There had been no guidance on health and safety given to staff. Had I known how the two days were to be run and how little control I’d have over the environment my tutor group were in I would never have agreed to attend.

I felt that the way Jenny had treated me personally was not just unprofessional but had become a form of bullying. The use of the technique of announcing what I was going to be doing in front of the students without telling me first placed me in a situation where I had to choose between putting myself in further stressful situations or arguing with another teacher in front of the students. In particular the repeated efforts to get me to supervise Jon after I had explicitly told her that I considered him to be a danger to himself and others seemed designed to cause me ever increasing amounts of stress. Jenny was willing to send Jon to “help” me with washing up but both she and Anna appeared unwilling for the most part to have Jon in the kitchen with them and used the fact that the were carrying out tasks in or near the kitchen as a reason Jon should be supervised by me rather than them.

I felt that I’d been unsupported even when going through the stress of having been assaulted. The cleaner who had locked the door of the corridor to the dormitories to keep Jon out while I composed myself after the assault had told me that I looked physically ill. She saw me in distress and sat me down, locked the connecting door and checked to see if I was okay. My teaching colleagues on the other hand had ignored my distress, and Jenny had even attempted to send all the boys to me while I was in that state. Only Clark asked me at any point during the trip if I was okay. I am still feeling the physical effects of this level of stress.

It’s probably not a shock to discover that nothing much happened as a result of all this. Jon had already got himself (temporarily) excluded for beating up another child in front of a teacher and a room full of children so there was no point trying to get him excluded for his assault on me. Jenny and Anna had rushed to the head first to complain about me (God knows what for) and if any action was taken against Jenny I was not told about it. Nor did it stand in the way of their subsequent promotions, although unconfirmed rumours in the school suggested that Jenny’s meteoric success as the school’s chief appeaser of naughty boys, came to an end after a dispute with a member of senior management.

On the other hand, it didn’t seem to do any permanent damage to my relationship with my form, or my ability to manage their behaviour (which was often positively commented on a couple of years later when they were causing trouble for other members of staff).

The incident also served to educate me in the dishonesty of appeasement. Jenny and Anna encouraged and praised Jon, they ignored awful behaviour and gave him lots of attention. At times this seemed to please him, but ultimately it made no difference; they could not contain him which was why they repeatedly dumped him on me. Appeasement simply doesn’t work for very long, it is a strategy used only to survive long enough to blame somebody else for the resulting mess.

A final note: I cannot imagine going on any school trip where I haven’t handpicked the students for their obedience. Otherwise school trips are simply not worth the risk. The following news stories all involve students being killed or maimed in circumstances where students disobeyed teachers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1456897.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/4413357.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/3004667.stm

Please notice where the finger of blame is usually pointed.

Holiday In Hell: Part 1

In my first year at the Metropolitan School I was given a year 7 form group. It was a tradition at the school for new form tutors to take their forms on an overnight stay at the Skylark Residential Centre in the first few weeks of term where there would be a chance for us to get to know each other, and take part in a variety of outdoor activities. There they would be supervised by Jenny Goodyear, a veteran of the school (a former primary school teacher) and Dave Levy the school’s youth worker. We were also to be accompanied by Clark Ferris who was a “mentor” employed by the school to assist the year group. Being new to the school I made the error of agreeing to this, and not taking an early slot at the Centre. By the time my form’s turn to go came around other forms had gone and discovered it wasn’t much fun. As a result less than half of the form signed up to go. It was at this point that I made my second error. I was asked if I minded if my form went at the same time (Thursday to Friday) as Anna Brown’s form who were also lacking willing volunteers and I agreed. Here was the account I presented to the headteacher after I returned from the trip:

On arriving at the Skylark Residential Centre on Thursday morning it was explained to students and staff that there were, unlike at school, very few rules. However the one rule was that students were to follow instructions immediately without arguing for reasons of safety. Furthermore, because of the importance of this any student unable to follow instructions would have to be sent home and also barred from future trips. Staff were introduced to students, with Jenny Goodyear encouraging students to call her and Clark Ferris by their first names. Anna Brown also agreed to be called by her first name, leaving me to be put on the spot as to what I wanted to be called, I opted for “Sir”. Neither the lack of rules nor the use of forenames had been discussed with me beforehand. It was also explained that even though there were two tutor groups on the trip (Anna Brown’s and mine) the purpose of the trip was for students to get to know the others in their form and their form tutor. I took it to be the case, as I had when I agreed to go on this trip, that my priority would be to build on my relationship with the members of my form.

It became clear that there were a number of other aspects of the trip I wasn’t previously aware of. I hadn’t realised that neither Clark Ferris nor Dave Levy (who arrived later) would be there for the whole two days, and so in the boys corridor I was, at times, to be left in charge of all the boys, including those from Anna’s form who I didn’t know. This concerned me. I trusted my own tutor group but there were at least a couple of boys in Anna’s form who seemed less than able to follow instructions and, not being able to drive, I was in no position to carry out the threat to take them home if required, leaving me with responsibility but without power. I found out very early on, as we unpacked, that the boys I didn’t know were quite boisterous in their behaviour, as they began running along their corridor into my forms’ corridor, something that Clark came and warned them about. Fortunately, he was in a position to warn them that if they didn’t comply he could take them home. I did ask Anna if there was anything I needed to know about Jon Scott and another boy from her form who seemed very poor at following instructions. She said they weren’t on the SEN register so there probably wasn’t any real grounds to be concerned about their behaviour.

Another surprise was the schedule. I was given no advance warning of what activities were planned and when. I often only found out what was to happen next when it was announced to the students. This was inconvenient, not least because Connor from my form (previously mentioned here) needed to take medication at regular intervals, but it also meant organisation was entirely centred on Jenny Goodyear rather than on all staff working together as a team. I was also surprised to discover that while I was not in the room students had been told that they were to find out the favourite TV programme and a “family fact” about each person at their table at dinner, for them to be quizzed about later. The fact that I wasn’t in the room when the game was announced did not stop Jenny from quizzing me in front of the students about the people at my table, and my poor performance at this was given as a reason for me to do the washing up in the evening. While I would have been quite happy to do this task it seemed rather odd to put me on the spot in that way in front of the students without warning, but I assumed it was down to an oversight.

As the day wore on I began to realise that Jenny seemed not to trust my judgement or skills. I was repeatedly given advice on minor matters. When we went orienteering after lunch I was repeatedly told what to do and quizzed by Jenny on how I’d done it. When (as instructed) I encouraged students to clean up their litter I was quizzed on whether I’d made sure they went to the right bins. I was told off as some of them had used the bins designated for dogs’ mess, and students were instructed to remove litter from those bins in order to put them in another bin. They had been divided into teams and after I had to tell a student in my form off for leaving his team I informed Jenny that (as instructed) I’d yelled at him only to be told, “I don’t think you did. Your problem is that you don’t yell at them.” I remained calm and polite and was supportive of Jenny when members of my form came to see me to tell me that they felt they weren’t enjoying the orienteering as they felt that she was picking on them because she’d had trouble spelling their team name (“The Four Musketeers”).

As I mentioned, Jon Scott had become a concern: he seemed slow to follow instructions and prone to arguing. After the orienteering had finished, Dave Levy led all of the students, two sixth formers employed as youth workers (Lee and Steven) and me on a lengthy walk. I was to look after those at the end of the line, particularly one boy who was asthmatic. We soon became concerned that Jon was behaving in a dangerous manner. As we followed a path up the hill he kept running and climbing on the steep hillside next to the path in a very reckless manner. Dave asked him to stay with him at the front of the line, however he kept running back and forth. He repeatedly ignored instructions from me and from the two youth workers. Apart from climbing on the hillside he also attempted to climb trees and signs, to rip holly leaves off of trees and menace other students with them (despite my repeated request that he put them down). When one of the youth workers instructed him to walk with Dave he said to them (and in front of me), “I’m not doing that, he’s a batty boy.” I felt strongly that his behaviour was dangerous, particularly to himself, to the extent that he would need to be sent home.

When we arrived back at the centre I began explaining my concerns to Dave and to Anna Brown. Before I’d even finished I was told they’d deal with the issue. I returned to my room to freshen up following the long walk. When I left my room I found Jon had entered my form’s corridor and was spraying an aerosol deodorant on himself. Students had been told that, due to the fire alarms, corridors were the best place to do this. I asked him to return to his corridor as this much spray in the air could be hazardous to health as there were several asthmatics around, and he shouldn’t have been there anyway. He refused and continued to spray even more deodorant in an elaborate display.

I was now even more concerned that Jon’s behaviour was dangerous. I returned to the dining room to explain to Jenny (as team leader) and the other staff my concerns. I repeated what I’d said before, and repeated what Jon had said about Dave. Again I was told it would be dealt with before I’d even finished explaining, leaving me in some doubt as to whether anyone was even listening as I explained about the incident with the aerosol. A little later I discovered that the action taken was to give Jon a further talking to, to get him to apologise to me and to ask my permission before he was allowed to rejoin the other students. This seemed entirely inadequate. However, as I couldn’t be the one to drive Jon home I was unsure as to what I could do to get further action taken. At least something had been done, although during dinner I began to wonder how seriously it was being taken when Jenny made a point of telling one of my tutor group who described Jon as “naughty” that labelling was inappropriate. I also felt that other staff (particularly Jenny) now seemed far less friendly to me, although I realised that perhaps I was less friendly due to feeling stressed and frustrated at how my concerns had been ignored. In particular it seemed a little off when during a further round of the “talking about others at the table”-quiz, now involving the headteacher who had popped in for a short visit, Jenny instructed him that we all wished to be called by our first names despite my previously expressed desire to the contrary. I was grateful when he did not heed that advice. The reprimand she gave me for giving one of the students a 500ml bottle of water as opposed to two smaller bottles of squash – “you’re cleaning it up if she wets herself”- was by this point not even a surprise, although with hindsight it seemed strange to speak to me in this way three hours before the students’ bedtime and in front of the headteacher.

After dinner those who had done poorly at the quiz at lunchtime (i.e. me and several members of my form) were consigned to the kitchen to wash up. I was surprised to discover that as well as those deemed unsuccessful in the quiz we were to be joined by those who had misbehaved, which meant Jon and another boy from Anna’s form. Having been unable to constrain his dangerous behaviour in other environments the kitchen, full of knives and hot water, seemed an entirely inappropriate place for me to have to supervise him further. The moment he entered he grabbed a tea towel and began flicking it at the other students. I immediately expelled him from the kitchen, assuming that this would make it even clearer that I would not be able to maintain a safe environment if he was with me. It did however seem more than a little unjust when I and the other washer uppers (mostly from my form) finished only to discover Jon was already playing with the other students in games organised by the youth workers.

However, there were no further problems that evening. (That said, it did concern me that when one of the girls in my tutor group was sick, Jenny declined to assist, and told the girls to clear it up themselves. Fortunately Anna decided to ignore Jenny’s suggestion to leave them to it). Dave and I even managed to get the boys in their rooms ready to sleep at a good time. Although the youth workers left not much later, Dave was intending to stay in the same corridor as me and the boys meaning their were two adults to supervise any potential night time disturbances. Unfortunately Dave had to leave early in the morning, meaning that from seven o’clock on Friday morning it was just me supervising the fourteen boys (including Jon).

TO BE CONTINUED…

Charlene

Charlene was at The Metropolitan School long before I was. I met her in my first term here when she was in year 10. She came into my classroom, refused to sit where I asked, swore at me and walked out. I can’t remember what she said exactly as she has done this about fifteen times over the last year. I suppose that isn’t that many times, but as a perpetual internal truant (i.e. she’d be in school but wouldn’t attend lessons) she probably only attended twenty of my lessons in the four terms I was her teacher.

She is one of the first students to have had an incident recorded in the schools’ behaviour database. Most of what follows comes from that source.

In January of year 9 she was excluded for physical assault. Two months later she was excluded for refusal to follow rules. A month later she was excluded for further refusal plus a number of incidents of verbal abuse to both staff and students. The following month (still only in year 9) she was found in possession of drugs.

Unfortunately, all of this in five months of year 9 (plus whatever incidents had occurred before the current behaviour database started) was not enough to get a permanent exclusion and before she’d finished year 9 she’d had another exclusion for aggressive behaviour to another student.

I can only assume that efforts were made to find alternative provision at this point because there is nothing recorded for the first term of year 10. By February, she was back in school and getting excluded for having a frankly ridiculous number of detentions. A month later she was excluded for verbal abuse to staff and defiance. The same happened the following month. Her exclusions for the next two months (April and May if you haven’t been keeping count) were both for violent behaviour. There were no more exclusions in year 10. However, as we have now reached the point where I was teaching her I know it clearly wasn’t because her behaviour had improved.

She started year 11 with an exclusion for verbal abuse and truancy. I’d like to think that was connected to the abuse she threw at me. She thought I was a terrible teacher and loved to tell me that. And I smell too. By this point she was hardly in any lessons. This arrangement seemed to improve her behaviour but she was out again for verbal abuse and threats against members of staff in December and again in January.

At this point the database entries end. This is because within a month or two Charlene was sent on early study leave (a euphemism for being chucked out but told she could come back for exams). Now I cannot be sure about the details of the final incident that got her out. Communication is never good on these matters and everything I heard was second or third hand. What I do know is that one afternoon as I left school I saw a police car outside the school and several members of senior management. The following day it was announced that after an incident involving several members of her family she and one of her siblings were leaving the school. The word amongst the staff was that the incident had involved a fight with another family and knives were used. It had taken two years of incidents but she was out.

So why am I mentioning this now? Well partly the fact that her sibling (the one who was involved in this final incident) is back in school, but my main reason is this: I saw the register for the sixth form resit class for my subject. She’s been let back into the sixth form and is studying my subject.

Some people claim that the reason teenagers act as if their actions have no consequences is because they are young and impetuous. Consider the case of Charlene. She has committed what would be considered to be criminal offences in the adult world. Yet she is seen as a perfectly suitable candidate to learn a subject she has actively resisted learning for several years, in an institution she has continually harmed. It is not hard to see that in our education system the actions of teenagers genuinely don’t have consequences for them, only for those who want to learn and those who want to teach them.

A Personality Clash

Being an open-minded sort of person I can often see things from more than one perspective. For instance the following “personality clash” between myself and Lemuel can be seen quite differently depending on whether you are myself, Lemuel, or Miss Rush, Lemuel’s head of year, a Special Needs teacher who wasn’t actually in the room.

My Point Of View

“In you come, Lemuel, I’m afraid you’re late. Please sit down. The work’s on the board.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

*

“We’re now 15 minutes into the lesson, can you please start the work, Lemuel?”

“I’ve only just come in”

“You’ve had five minutes now, some people have almost finished. Well done, girls. If you don’t start you are choosing to get a warning”

*

“Okay, Lemuel, I’m giving you your first warning. Can you stop drawing that picture of a car and get on with the work, please?”

“How was I meant to know I was meant to do that?”

“Please, just put that picture away, or I’ll have to give you your next warning”

*

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you your second warning, now, Lemuel. We’ve had twenty minutes and most people have finished. And I need to start the main part of the lesson. If I could just have quiet please everyone. Thank you very much. Today we are going to be doing …”

“I never done nuffink. You gave me a second warning for nuffink.”

“Please don’t talk while I’m talking to the class, Lemuel, I will have to give you your third warning and a detention.”

“This is gay”

“I’m afraid you’ve chosen to get you third warning. Now please stop talking so I can start the lesson or you will be choosing to get sent out.”

“I don’t care”.

“Sshhh! If I can just have quiet again. Thank you very much everyone. Today we will be …”

“I hate this fucking crap”.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the room now.”

Lemuel’s Point Of View

“In you come, Lemuel, just go over there and talk to you friends, we’ll do some work later.”

“Yes, thank you.”

*

“We’re now 15 minutes into the lesson, can you get on with your picture of a car please, Lemuel? I’ll tell you later if there’s going to be any work to do.”

“Yes, sir”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well done, girls. Blah, blah, blah”

*

“Blah, blah,blah, blah. Can you just finish off your picture of the car in the next five minutes or so and get on with the boring work, please?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t realise there was any work.”

“Please, just do your best drawing, and don’t worry about the work.”

*

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you your second warning, now, Lemuel. We’ve had twenty minutes and most people have finished. And I need to start the main part of the lesson. Don’t worry, Lemuel, I’ll just talk over your conversation. Today we are going to be doing …”

“Sorry Sir I haven’t done anything, why did I get a second warning?”

“Please don’t talk while I’m talking to the class, Lemuel, I will have to give you third warning and a detention.”

“I’m not entirely sure this is fair, sir”

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now please stop talking or I will have to send you out for nothing.”

“That seems fair, sir. I’ll be quiet now.”.

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah,blah blah, blah, blah.”

“Sir, can I ask a question”.

“That’s it, I’m sending you out for absolutely no reason.“

Miss Rush’s Point of View

“In you come, you little bastard. Sit down, now. The work’s on the board and you’ll be in trouble if you don’t do it. I don’t care about all your special needs.”

“Yes, sir, Mr Old. Please don’t hit me again, sir.”

*

“We’re now 15 seconds into the lesson, hand over your work, boy!”

“Here it is, Sir. And here’s my homework too. I spent three hours on it”

“You call this homework? I could piss this in my sleep. Have three detentions.”

*

“Okay, you spaz, your picture of a car is crap. You draw like a girl. Have another detention.”

“Please, sir, I can’t do another detention, my father’s seriously ill in hospital”

“Good, I hope he dies soon. Now get on with copying out of a textbook or I’ll come to your house and molest your sister.”

*

“Here, have another ten detentions, Lemuel, you retard. We’ve had two minutes and most people have finished. Now I need you to listen to me just for the sake of it. Anybody who so much as breathes will get a detention. Terrible, you’re all thick. Now does anybody have any questions?”

“Please, Mr Old, don’t hurt me but can I ask a question about the work?”

“No. I don’t want questions from a spacker. Have another detention.”

“Sorry, Mr Old, sir. I don’t know what I was thinking of. I think it’s because I haven’t eaten for a week.”

“I’m afraid I’ve chosen to give you another detention. Now please stop snivelling, I don’t ever want to look at your weasel face again.”

“Sorry, Mr Old”.

“Shut up, loser! God, I hate children. Anyway, today we will be discussing how Lemuel’s mother is a whore.”

“I’m sorry, sir I’m a bit upset about this. She only died last month”

“Piss off!”.

I suppose in a way, all these accounts of my personality clash with Lemuel are true to some extent. But in another, more literal way, only the first one is.

Shoot The Messenger

Almost the last week of term. Almost the end. Year 11 have left. Year 10 are on work experience. The only cloud on the horizon is the redesign of the behaviour database. It’s new and improved but:

• It doesn’t yet print out detention letters.
• All the detentions in the old database have been cancelled.

Not surprisingly the kids have reacted by going a bit mad. Several year 7s I was teaching (in a class that is normally taken by another teacher) seemed determined to be removed from the classroom by refusing to stay in their seats or stop talking. According to the school rules I am obliged to give them several warnings and then email the Call-Out Staff (the people who patrol the corridors at the school) to have the students removed from the class. I did so and the Call-Out Staff didn’t respond (very unusual). After half an hour of waiting, and having had several subsequent emails also ignored, I sent an “all-staff” email:

Can somebody please check the Call-Out Staff, they don’t seem to be responding to emails.

There was no reply. I muddled through. At the end of the lesson a member of Call-Out Staff emailed apologising for having been unable to answer. I recalled my email so that anybody who hadn’t already read it wouldn’t receive it. Five minutes later, Duncan Brown, the Assistant Head in charge of inclusion emailed a reply to my email, carbon copied to SMT:

Mr Old

Why please have you sent this to “All staff”?

Additionally the “Call-Out team” do respond to emails but at present they are three members of staff down out of five. In future if you have a serious issue about a poor reaction time will you please contact me. If you are then unhappy about my response then please contact the Deputy Head in the first instance.

A little shocked, a little stressed, I replied:

I was not complaining about the reaction time, I was asking for help with a pressing problem.
I am used to Call-Out being too busy to collect. I am not used to having no response from Call-Out, no warning that there would be no response, and no response to emails to Call-Out asking about the problem. Therefore I hoped to contact any member of staff for immediate help with removing the students.

I have, of course, recalled the message now that I’ve had a response (although that did indeed take until the end of the lesson), but at the time I was being utterly prevented from teaching my lesson and the support that is normally provided and was urgently needed was not only unavailable, but nobody had even acknowledged to me the fact that it was unavailable. Moreover the complete lack of response to my all staff email would indicate that it was not widely known that Call-Out was unavailable either.

I am sorry if you interpret a member of staff calling for urgent help as a criticism. I suggest that any future incident can be avoided by informing staff in advance that they will not be able to use Call-Out, not 44 minutes after they request assistance.

The following day there was more from Duncan:

Mr Old

I take note of your comments but still insist that you contact me in the first instance if you perceive that there is a problem.

For your information the difficulty was that Paul Michelle was put onto the team at the last minute to man the “Call-out” room but having logged onto the computer, obviously as himself, was not part of the “Call-Out” distribution list and therefore was not receiving any “Call-Out” emails, either from you or any other members of staff.

As for “avoiding” this situation occurring again, it might still occur, because we are all affected by human error.

Can I again emphasize my earlier comments that you contact me if you have a problem in future. Can I suggest as an immediate solution that if you are faced with a similar difficult you might speak to a colleague in an adjoining room who might be able to support you immediately or send a messenger to student services or please contact me by on my mobile.

I replied:

I do not have a phone in my room. There are no adjoining classrooms and the only teacher on this floor of the building would have been a supply teacher.

I could, of course, contact reception or you, which I did by sending an All-Staff email. Given that neither you nor reception responded to my email (except in your case to criticise me for sending it) I fail to see what good this would have done. Given that contacting all logged-on members of staff yesterday resulted in no help at all I’m a little mystified how contacting less people would have made the situation any better. It wouldn’t have even lessened the amount of emails collecting in people’s inboxes because, of course, I recalled my email at the end of the lesson.

The only downside I can see to my email is that more members of staff found out that Call-out wasn’t functioning yesterday than was strictly necessary. Personally I find it useful to be informed when this is the case and am surprised that you consider it a priority to keep this from staff.

In future, however, when Call-Out fail to acknowledge my emails for 29 minutes I will send my requests for help to you, my faculty and the Deputy Head in the first instance. If this results in no resolution to the problem then I will assume that you would prefer it if I send an all staff email rather than leave the room myself, unless you wish to tell me differently.

I hope this has resolved the matter.

He hasn’t replied yet.

I don’t think my replies have done me any favours, but I do not want to stay at a school where you get blamed when you ask for help.

Another observation: For most of my time here Call-Out has been run by non-teaching staff and has worked really well. It is noticeable that its ineffectiveness, and attempts to conceal this ineffectiveness, began this month, when a member of SMT took over responsibility for running it.

God

Form time. Not long ago.

“This is boring. I hate form time” said Ryan.

“It’s St George’s Day today” I replied, changing the subject.

“What?” asked Ryan, “Who’s St. George?”

“He’s the Patron Saint of England” replied Jade. “He fought a dragon”

“Here, let me put his Wikipedia page on the whiteboard” I said, “There you go, it says he is also the patron Saint of Aragon, Catalonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia,”

“This is boring” said Ryan.

“He was a Greek speaker but was born in a place that is now in Turkey” I said.

“Why don’t we have our own saint?” asked Holly.

“It’s typical” complained Julie. “We always have to put up with all these foreigners”.

Ibrahim and Mohsin look uncomfortable. Yusef doesn’t react as his English isn’t good enough to have picked up on what was said.

“I don’t think that’s terribly fair”, I said.

“Is he real?” said Holly.

A short conversation starts up quietly in the back of the room about whether dragons exist. Somebody claims they have them in China, but then looks embarrassed.

“We’re not sure if he existed, but obviously he didn’t really fight a dragon” I said.

“This is all nine thousand years ago” shouted Ryan. “This is boring”.

“It’s not nine thousand years ago” yelled Jade, “That would be before Christ”

“What I don’t understand” said Julie, “is how there can be people before Christ”.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well if God made the world, how come there were people and dinosaurs before Christ?”

“There’s a difference between the birth of Christ and the creation of the world.”

“Yeah” interrupted Jade, “But how come there were dinosaurs before Christ?”

“Like I said, the birth of Christ isn’t when the world began. The world had already been around for a while.”

“But how come there were dinosaurs millions of years before?”

“Sorry, what are you asking? I don’t see why there can’t be dinosaurs before Jesus. Christians believe Jesus was born a long time after people first appeared”

“No, you’re not listening” said Jade rudely, “how come there were dinosaurs before there were people?”

“I’m not sure what you are asking. Why shouldn’t there be dinosaurs before there were people?”

“I mean if God created the world, how come the world and dinosaurs existed before there were people?” asked Jade.

“I’m still not sure what you mean. Are you asking about the story of Adam and Eve and asking how, if God created people at the start of the universe then how could dinosaurs have existed for thousands of years beforehand?”

“Who’s Adam and Eve?” said Ryan.

“You know, from the book of Genesis”, I said.

“What’s the Book Of Genesis”, said Ryan.

“The first book of the Bible” I said.

“The Bible’s boring” said Ryan.

“Sir, sir” interrupted Jade. “I’m not talking about that. I just don’t see how God can have created the Earth if there weren’t people until millions of years after the Earth was created.

“Hang on”, I said as the penny dropped. “Do you think God is a person?”

“God’s boring” said Ryan. “I hate God”.

“Yes.” Said Jade,

“I think you’ll find people don’t think God is a person like that.”

Ibrahim and Mohsin are now rolling their eyes.

“Then why do you see pictures of him” said Julie.

“What pictures?” I said.

“You know. He has a big white beard.”

“Oh” I said. “I don’t think that’s how Christians, or other people who believe in God, actually think of God”.

“This is boring” said Ryan.

Then I paused.

“You are in year eight. You have been doing RE for a year and a half, just at this school. Why are you are asking me this? Why not your RE teacher?”

“We don’t learn anything in RE” complained Julie.

“The teacher’s boring” said Ryan “I hate him”.

“We just did one religion for ages.” This was Connor’s first contribution to the discussion.

“What religion?” I asked.

“The Muslim one” said Julie.

“No we didn’t” said Ibrahim. “We only did it for a week”.

“Wait.” instructed Jade. “What about Adam and Eve then? How come there were dinosaurs?”

“Well I said, not every Christian thinks the story of Adam and Eve is literally true. For instance the biggest Christian denomination is Roman Catholicism, and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope…”

“The Pope’s boring” interrupted Ryan

“…has said that evolution is more than a theory”

“I think Buddhism is the true religion” said Julie.

“Do you know anything about Buddhism?” I asked.

“No” said Julie.