Fairly busy day today. Have still got a few Year 8 reports left to do but should be done before Monday's deadline. This is the third lot of reports in quick succession and for those people in smaller departments it must be awful as they tend several classes for any particular year group, That could equate to 120 reports to be done in just over a week!! At least as I work in a large department I only have the one set to do although when it gets to Year 7 there will be more as I am a form tutor as well.
Started with year 8 today. What a mixed bunch they are. There are some lovely kids in there who always try really hard but there are 2 or 3 key characters who just want to mess about and chat plus another few who are quite simply lazy. The usual suspects arrived half-way through the lesson as they are frequently late for school. Thus they miss the setting up, the instructions for what they need to do and consequently cannot get started quickly so mess about instead until I can get to them and sort it out. One of them is more amenable but the other one is not a nice character. She can be rude, argumentative and then it's all my fault. I simply don't get where some of these kids get the idea that nothing is their fault. Taking responsibility is a big no no for too many of them. They are in for a shock when they get out into the real world.
My year 10 group are lovely. They are bottom of the pile in terms of brains but most of the time most of them try really hard. They struggle and are incredibly vulnerable and I fear for them when they leave the stability of school. One boy should really have gone to a special school but I believe his parents wanted him to stay in main stream. He is obsessed by violence, cannot even really write his own name and spends his spare time shooting things on his PS3. Who knows what the future holds for them.
My year 11 class are also not entirely with it in the brains department but have a lot more going for them than my year 10s. Some of them I have now taught for 5 years and it is amazing watching them grow up. There are some characters in there but so far they have behaved for me although I know the potential for trouble is never far away. A sense of humour is definitely an essential in this job and goes a long way to diffuse tricky situations.
My year 7s are a lively bunch but great fun. Again concentration is not their strong point - kids today really cannot focus for more than a few minutes. They are the result of the techno generation - Facebook and their Blackberry (a Blackberry at 11!) are their life and never mind reading a book or writing in detail. No time for that anymore - too many games to play or people to text!!
So a school day is usually noisy, a series of firefights, endless emails that need to be kept track of and being a surrogate parent to a large family. Usually there is little praise but if you fall short they are on you in no time - no balance there then. Once in a while it would just be nice if a senior member of staff bothered to say you're doing a great job or ask you how you are and how things are going!!
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