That first half term...

After six weeks of boredom and thumb twiddling and household chores and reading and daytime TV and late mornings and lounging around in the sun in your PJs, you'd think any teacher would be ready and willing for the academic year to kick off.

Ha.

What does the first half term herald? Colds and manflu epidemics. Yup, your immune system is forgetful; 6 weeks off and it fails to recall how to battle snotty-teenage-greasy-hair-I-don't-know-what-soap-is germs and bacteria. Leaving the average teacher with any combination of the following:

1. Tennis ball tonsils


2. Pneumatic drill headaches


3. English weather temperature (up, down and always damp)


4. Drain nose (blocked)


5. Volcanic nose (gushing)


6. Dirty-perv phone voice

At the moment, I have a delightful concoction of 1, 2, 3 and 6. Yummy.

If you're lucky enough to teach Year 11 English, the new academic term also brings with it the advent of coursework: cramming in the teaching of the last piece of coursework, including drafting and marking; chasing the little darlings for any missing pieces of coursework which slipped through the gargantuan net you were wielding back in June and July; remarking and remarking and remarking the redrafts which the keen-to-do-wells hand in; running weekly coursework club sessions so that students can finish the last piece / complete any missing pieces / redraft any pieces which are under target grade (delete as appropriate).

My dining room is not a place for eating meals or even for doing the ironing; instead, it is some sort of a coursework conveyor belt. Original pieces. Redrafts. Re-redrafts. Re-re-redrafts. It will take me all of the half term holiday to figure out which are the best pieces for each student and to remark them all.

And teachers work for the holidays.

Ha.

Hmmm. What else does the joyous first half term bring us? Oh yeah, pre-Ofs... twitterings and twinges. (I can't say the name aloud - it works like the Candyman: utter the name, spin around three times and it will appear).

The first half term also brings the urge to go and do something sensible with your life, like working in a supermarket or being a call centre operator or enlisting in the army. Something where you don't have to deal with petty bureaucracy (writing a report because you want to order some paperclips); something where you don't have to deal with ill-educated and irate parents ("What do you mean you want Johnny to do a detention? I don't understand why turning up late, not having a pen, hitting the boy on his table and doing no work means he has to do a detention?!"); something where you don't feel so guilty about missing work that you drag yourself in even when you're ill (1, 2, 3 and 6).

Teaching: pah!

GCSEs are getting easier.

According to the Daily Hatemail.

I know, I know... what on Earth was I doing reading that trash? I accidentally stumbled upon it by following a (seemingly harmless) link from Google. Seriously, I need to hone my surfing skills. It's taken me a week to write the blog because it's taken me that long to cool my blood down and to glue my objet d'art back together.

Well, what proof does the Hatemail provide? a) That a 5 year old took GCSE maths and passed with a C grade; b) that a 9 year old took the same GCSE and passed with an A*; and c) that the pass rates for A*-C grades are getting better, year on year.

Well, the youngsters clearly passed as they were well-coached geniuses (or is that geniii?) who had the luxury of taking just one GCSE. If you coached me for a year on any one subject, I'm sure I could pass. Both children said that they felt that maths was a game - clearly it came naturally to them and they will be building a space station on the moon before I'm a head teacher.

As for the rising GCSE outcomes - well, of course that means the exams are getting easier. Nothing else could surely account for the improvements. Like, for instance, improved teaching? Or the fact that we now test these children at every interval with SATs and officially reported teacher assessments? Or the fact that teachers are expected to monitor the slightest alteration in a child's progress and intervene the second anything declines? Or the examinations culture in which we live, where teachers and students fear failure and strive to achieve the golden C grade (or higher) at all costs. Giving up breaks, before school, after school, weekends and holidays to cram in additional revision sessions. Or the fact that us teachers are governed to ensure that students 'pass' from the moment they arrive in our secondary school classrooms?

For goodness' sake.

You've seen the cartoons, when the money grabbing character looks at an object/animal/item/victim and above each one is a dollar sign and its value? Well, when I look at a class of 30 Year 7 children (all shiny and new and over-keen to impress me to the point of irritation), I see little GCSE targets floating above their heads. There's a C grade. There's an A grade. There's an E grade. There's an A* (no pressure then).

I'm not lying. We are given their GCSE target grades - that's the grade they're expected to achieve at the end of their 5 year journey with us - within the first term of entering the school. Ta da. That child's future is then set in stone. The precious target grade will dictate his/her class set (and as a result, his/her friendship group); it will also dictate the amount of money and resources lavished upon the child.

Every child targeted a C or above should achieve their target because, come Year 11, they will have received 5 years' worth of investment. Some of those with D grade targets will have had the same treatment - convert those Ds to Cs and points means prizes.

In 1960, Armin Hary of West Germany completed the 100m race in exactly 10.0 seconds, creating a new World Record. In 2008, Usain Bolt (Jamaica) completed the race in just 9.72 seconds. I haven't heard anyone complaining that the race must have been shorter; it's just accepted that the athletes are faster and that they have better knowledge and technology at their fingertips (nutritionists, specialist trainers etc.) The 100m race isn't easier: the athletes are better.

Students have more information and technology at their fingertips. They have target driven teachers, who consider what they do to be a profession (gone are the days of the adage, those who can't...) Add to that a growing fear of the current economic situation (understood and translated by sixteen year olds as the dwindling number of places at university and opportunities for jobs) and you have a generation of students who are motivated - positively or negatively - to work hard and do well.

GCSEs are not getting easier but some aspects of the game have changed.

That sicky feeling. Again.

Remember being 16? Remember taking your GCSEs (or O Levels for those of you who are a little riper than others)? Remember that feeling you got the night before your results?

Sicky. Panicky. Fidgety.

There are always the Hermione Grangers... they work their butts off, any moment not revising is a moment wasted. They spend the night before results day fretting that they won't get the best grades (anything below an A* is a fail). And, of course, they get the best grades.

Then there are the Harry Potters... they have moments of guilt which result in short bursts of focus and revision. Emphasis on short - they're easily distracted. They spend the night before results day knowing that they won't get the best grades but hoping they've done enough to make people proud. Then they walk out with A*s anyway because they always get the luck - and annoy...

...the Neville Longbottoms... who spend their whole time putting in 110% (they wouldn't know what tautology was, Hermione would) to their work. They spend the night before results day having nightmares about what their family will think if they don't do exceptionally well. And then, of course, they don't. They get average results because they didn't get to be Harry.

And then there are the Ron Weasleys... high hopes without the motivation to go with it. Champagne dreams with a lemonade work ethic. Revision - what's that? They spend the night before results day forgetting that the next day is results day.

And then you have the saddos, like me. Apparently, going through this trauma once wasn't enough. Oh no. I have chosen a career that means I'll go through it year after year after year. Hoping that my cohort has made its target. Hoping that my individual classes have exceeded their predictions. Hoping that my mentees have heeded our sessions and got the grades they need. It feels like I'm trapped in a ground hog day with ten caffeine patches. Ten on each arm.

As a teacher, I would like to think that I'm Hermione but I couldn't say until tomorrow's results are in. Perhaps, I'll turn out to be a Neville Longbottom. Oh Hufflepuff, here come the palpitations again.

And I'm not telling you if I was Hermione, Harry, Neville or Ron as a student.

Pyjamas. Sofa. TV.

Nothing, on a Friday evening, can prevent me from partaking in these three delights, in the order described above. I say Friday evening, to be honest, Stage One (out-of-work-clothes-and-into-my-paint-splattered-garishly-patterned-decade-old-PJs) is achieved no later than 4:52 p.m.

The time is crucial. Stage Two – domination of the 6 foot sofa – must be accomplished by 5:00 p.m. It takes eight minutes to pull off the pussies (now, now, purely for alliterative effect), who cling to the cushions like Velcro; to decamp the dog, who pretends to sleep – eyes open and snoring like a pot-bellied middle-aged bachelor; and, finally, to persuade my perfect partner to perch on our crappy bean bag so I can stretch out. 5:00 p.m. is always my coronation time – I’m talking monarch of the sofa, not ITV soap opera.

Which brings me, seamlessly, onto Stage Three: TV at 5:00 p.m. The holy grail. My Mecca. The highlight of my tedious week.

It’s a brief reign. By 5:11 p.m., I’m asleep and when I wake up (ridiculous o'clock on Saturday morning) my ‘subjects’ have somehow dethroned me. I’ve been crowbarred onto the crappy bean bag. Again.

Until next Friday...

School's out for summer...

...only it seems that summer has failed to answer "Here!" for the register. Again. Bloody rain, bloody wind, bloody black clouds.

Holidays seem to polarise the teacher and the non-teacher. The non-teacher blindly believes that teachers get 13 weeks of leave a year, which translates to 91 days off - not including bank holidays or weekends. Moreover, it's a widely held idea (perpetuated by the BBC's Waterloo Road and C4's Teachers) that teachers stroll in at 9 a.m. and sprint out at 3.00 p.m. every day. A full time salary on part time hours: utopia.

Teachers, of course, know better. But there's little point in arguing with the hairdressers and cabbies of this world ("You're a teacher, are y', love? Nice holidays you lot get") about each of the hurdles you've jumped or stumbled over in order to enter the profession. Hurdle one: the undergraduate degree. Hurdle two: the postgraduate certificate. Hurdle three: the debts which make a life of crime seem like a reasonable solution. Hurdle four: the competitive job market. I know - it sounds like lots of other real jobs; that is my point.

And as for the utopian hours, I am sure there are some teachers who keep the same working hours as a Year 11 boy - in on the first bell, out on the last bell , no working in the evenings or weekends. In fact, these are the teachers who are hidden away in lockers, store cupboards or on school trips with the vocational classes when the big O comes knocking. The majority of teachers start work at 8 a.m. and leave at 4 p.m.; they forgo breaks because there simply isn't time to eat, drink or pee when they have playground duty / detentions / meetings (delete as applicable); they spend their evenings planning lessons - trying to reinvent and adapt the wheel so that they can trick their students into not realising it is a wheel at all or, very often, into not realising it's the same wheel they've been studying for the last 6 weeks; and they work one day at the weekend - in between the shopping, cleaning and obligatory family commitments - to keep up with their marking (marking which is like baby puke; it just keeps coming and coming and you can't see where from or how so much could possibly be generated by something so small).

And if the 60 hour weeks (more like 110 hours a week in exam season) aren't draining enough, teachers then work through their holidays.

• October half term: time to catch up on coursework marking and to plan for the half term ahead.
• Christmas holiday: 12 days entertaining family, decorating the house, undecorating the house, buying presents, wrapping presents, delivering presents, shopping, cooking and cleaning with 2 days to work flat out on all the marking, planning and report writing which has piled up behind the Christmas tree.
• February half term: assessment marking and planning ahead.
• Easter holiday: 2 weeks to finish all coursework folders and exam cover sheets in preparation for moderation (in English, each child has 5 pieces of coursework and 4 forms to complete - I teach 60 children). GCSE revision classes will also take place in this holiday - just because jeans are permissible doesn't mean it isn't work.
• June half term: middle of exam season, so it's full of revision sessions and marking and planning ahead and writing reports.
  

So, the rub of the matter is that teachers all know that the only true holiday we get is the summer holidays. 30 days of wasp and bug and flying ant attacks. 30 days of crippling, satanic, elitist travel and accommodation costs. And 30 days of "back to school" adverts.

I'M ON THE PHONE...

"Damn girl...
Damn you're a sexy chick...
Damn girl..."

You don't recognise it? I'm now informed, courtesy of my sick, phat Year 9 tutor group (honestly, these are accolades now) that these are the lyrics to David Guetta's current tune. Eloquent chap, that David. I hope he doesn't mind that I changed yous to you're; if he'd been in my English class as a child...

Anyway, I digress. How was "sexy chick" an unexpected feature of a GCSE lesson today?

During a 30 minute lesson on the poem "Vultures" by Chinua Achebe, written and presented by a small group of students in the class, I heard the distinctive vibrations of an illicit mobile phone - still switched on in someone's pocket. Three buzzes later and I identified the sinner; he had turned a beautiful autumnal russet.

With just one twitch of my eyebrow, I convinced the culprit to hand me the phone and the lesson ensued. Yoda would be delighted.

No less than three minutes later, the ruddy unit was vibrating again... only this time, yes, that's right: "Damn girl... Damn you're a sexy chick... Damn girl." The culprit is a boy - I thought it an interesting choice of ringtone.

Looking at the phonescreen brought me much delight as it indicated that his friend, in the room next door, was the one calling him. Also a boy. Quick as a flash, I darted next door - phone still squealing out lyrics - and asked the bloke in question what he was doing ringing X in my room, declaring that he was a "sexy chick."

Suffice to say, after a ribbing from more than fifty of their peers, I don't think they'll be using their phones in class again.

Reading: like giving a baby a dummy...

What is it about reading that pacifies even the most demonic, hyperactive, impatient, chatty, immature, e-numbered class?

You spend the first fifteen minutes of the hour getting the darlings into your room: reminding them that they should be sat in their chairs; encouraging them to remove their jackets; lending out cheap, Tesco biros to the sweeties who don't have their own (despite the fact it is the first lesson of the day); getting them to put their gum in the bin - and watching them spit, miss and moan as they pick it off the carpet; and then standing there, patience waning, as you wait for them to stop chatting...

... and that part reminds me of seaside pier games. You know the ones: you have a rubber hammer and you hit the frogs or hamsters or moles as they pop up like Year Sevens who have downed three cans of Redbull at lunchtime - with a couple of bags of Skittles for good measure. Each time you thump one back into its hole, another two bounce up to take its place...

Anyway, fifteen minutes in. The one astute child (who shines out like a teacher's pet in a detention hall) reminds you of the page you got to last lesson and the reading begins.

Calmness descends.

Whatever happens (firebell, a drop in from the head teacher, the arrival of Ofsted),

don't
stop
reading.

Your life - and your sanity - depends on it.