That was my morning on Friday. We had thrown 3 boys out by then and I just had to carry on teaching everyone else, just as though nothing had happened. If OFSTED had come around they wouldnt have found much learning going on as I was a bit of a wreck, to be honest. One of the girls had to go home (had to walk her down past the shops as the boys were still hanging about outside and she was too frightened to go out) and one of the others spent the afternoon re-potting all the plants that had got smashed all over the floor. I dont know what the others were doing - I vaguely remember saying "just LOOK busy and we'll go with that".
Speaking of OFSTED, we had a mock inspection of our facility last week and I came in for some special (and very unexpected) praise. The inspector described me as WonderWoman, which I hope was a reflection on my teaching skills and not that I was wearing satin tights and a leotard that day. So, yeh, wonderwoman.
Obviously didnt get much chance to bask in glory as what Ive laughingly been calling The Strangeways Riots came hot on the heels of the inspection and the ink was barely dry on the Recommendations Document.
There weren�t as many recommendations as Id expected, since I generally feel like I don�t really know what Im doing, apart from trying to teach a whole bunch of kids a whole bunch of stuff they have no interest in learning, but there were recommendations nonetheless. My boss was told that the Altern@tive Learning facility was an expensive experiment and that she wasn�t really doing the job she�d been employed to do. I like my boss, but Id have to agree that whatever it is she�s supposed to do, she�s not doing it (I am, usually). The long and the short of that is that she doesn�t have a job after the end of August as the department is being restructured. My other co-worker is OK as she deals with the Nurture side of things and there will always be fucked-up kids in that school who need cuddles; verbal, virtual AND real.
The headteacher (principal) chose the moment just after the police had gone and the mess had been cleared up and we�d all looked at each other and said �Bloody Hell! That was scary! Were you scared? Yeh, me too, I was SHITTING myself� to tell me that she doesn�t know if there will be a job for me(at the pay grade Im currently on) in the restructured department.
Joy.
I nearly get my head kicked in, the inspector (AND the principal) both tell me to my face that I am really good at my job (�the best�, the principal said), but there might not be a job for me to have, come August.
There�s an SLT residential meeting this week and the principal and the Head of Curriculum and the Head of Special Education have all said that they will recommend that I remain in whatever facility they choose to provide next year so hopefully that will count for something, otherwise I will have to start looking for another job as I cant afford to take a paycut.
I�ll know more after this weekend, but at the moment Im in 2 minds about how I want it to go. I don�t really want to have to start looking for another job � I don�t think I would want to work in another school, so Id probably have to go back into industry. If you�ve been with me a long time, dear reader, since the days of Twat Inc and my career as a corporate whore, you�ll doubtless remember how I could only make it through the day then by being permanently hungover, channelling Paula Yates and having Slaveboy serve me endless cups of weapons-grade coffee while I screamed and yelled and was a complete bitch (albeit a well-dressed one. With a sports car).
But Im also really fed up with the abuse I get at school. I took a class in the main school today, covering for someone who had come up to my unit to help with a science project with one of my pupils. It was so lovely to be back amongst �normal� kids for a while � good-natured cheekiness, getting on with their work, a bit of banter but nothing nasty, doing what they were asked etc etc. Id kind of forgotten that not all kids at that school shout �for Fuck�s Sake� in your face everytime you ask them to open a book, and that you don�t always have to count the scissors back in at the end of the lesson. One boy ran away this morning and I had to chase him. Its January and I didn�t have time to put a coat on. I chased him around the outside of the school for 45 minutes before he went into the boys toilets (where I couldn�t go after him) and then I had to stand outside until another member of staff came along so I could ask for someone to go get the (male) student support worker. When the boy came out, he called me a fucking bitch. My crime? Telling him he needed to do a Maths test.
Don�t get me wrong, its not all doom and gloom. I get called �epic� quite often, too, or �a legend�. But its hard, REALLY hard to keep going sometimes.
Two weeks til half term