First week back

It was a long week! Let's do this by numbers.

1: snapping at children ('Don't whine, Ali!' to a year 7 bottom set child)
1: putting my head in my hands and telling my TA 'That was the worst lesson in the history of ever' (this 
     happens quite often)
2: times I made a new year 7 cry
2: balls of string used in lessons and now hopelessly tangled
3: hopelessly miss-set children (2 have now been moved...)
3: 'Miss Roots' Magical Homework Pass's given out, to much admiration and joy

4: detentions given to 13 year-olds for calling out in class
4: times a student who had me last year told a student who is new to me this year 'Yeah, she really will do
    that'
5: detentions given (a year 8 girl forgot her homework. Yes, I'm mean.)

And finally...
12: times being called 'Mrs'. Nope, not married!

More Mistakes

I don't know how to deal with a student making a mistake. I mean, really, I don't. My current strategy goes something like this:

If it's in front of the whole class, say, 'Hmm, that's not quite right, can somebody help X out?'

If it's one-on-one with a usually capable and confident student, say 'Nope, that's not quite true' or 'You've made a mistake in this problem. Can you spot it?' - and then wait.

If it's one-on-one with a less confident student, say 'This one here isn't quite right. You do it like this:.... What do you think the answer is now?'

It's fairly disastrous. The first two are more-or-less ok, mostly because the students are fine with making mistakes anyway. Another teacher in my department always says 'Bad luck!' when someone makes a mistake in front of the class, which I like, but in a way I'm not sure it matters what words you use - they know what it means. It's the third scenario where there are huge problems. Fluffy, my smallest and spunkiest year 10, is always kitted out in fluffy bed socks (Why? She's fifteen!). She's the kid in my bottom set who is failing everything. When she's told a problem is wrong, she will totally shut down. Head on the desk, snatches the book away, and grumbles.
'Leave me alone! I'm doing it! Just let me work!'
'I'm pleased you're working, Fluffy, but I think you've made a small mistake in one place. Let me look and we can sort it out, then you can carry on.'
'I know what I'm doing! Stop picking on me! You can look at the end!'
'I don't want you to make the same mistake again, so I need to look now.'
'God! I'm just trying to work! Go away - I'm ok! I know what I'm doing!'
'I'm really sorry, Fluffy, but I'm not sure you 100% know what you're doing, because you've made a small mistake. So we need to go over it.'
'It's fine! It's not a problem! Leave me alone and go and hassle someone else!'

She's crying, I'm frustrated, and we don't get anywhere with the maths. Sometimes she will continue working during the conversation, whilst covering her book up and refusing to stop writing. More often, she won't pick up a pen again for the rest of the lesson. I always feel awful for pushing her, and I can't see it as naughtiness - she's upset and defensive, because she can't deal with being wrong, again.

The only possible solution I've thought of so far is really small problem sets, where each one needs to be checked before going on to the next. That way at least she knows it's coming, so she's not always worrying about me coming over, and I'm not 'picking' on her. I'm sure she won't like that idea, though. There's got to be a way that's less hurtful for both of us!

At the bottom

I've just found out that I'm getting bottom set 11-year-olds next year. It's pretty exciting, because I've never taught that level before - I've taught higher level 11-year-olds, and bottom set 13+. Bottom sets at that age are a bit of a mystery to me, and from the frantic research I've been doing, to a lot of people. Before they enter the world of GCSE target grades (usually 'Get a grade! You're upsetting our A* to G %!') nobody really minds what you do with them. In fact, it's terrifyingly unsupervised and unsupported. And here's the shocker.

Most children in bottom sets in the UK make no progress in maths between the ages of 11 and 14.

None, in over 3 years. That's the sort of stat nobody wants to own up to, and it's the sort that nobody even tries to address, because it looks pretty impossible.

There was an ugly facebook argument last week that I saw, where someone suggested that education isn't good at producing clever, useful people because, well, teachers aren't clever, useful people - if they were, they wouldn't be teaching, would they? They'd be writing software, or working in finance or consultancy, or the civil service, or something a whole lot better than teaching.

It got quite a response, which I shan't bother repeating - if you're reading this, chance are we don't disagree about this anyway. However, it got me thinking of a parallel argument:

Maybe education is so terrible at catering to the needs of the bottom 5% of the (mainstream) school population, because none of the teachers were ever in the bottom 5% of their school populations. In a conversation recently, it turned out that none of the people present had ever been in anything lower than set 2 in school. Bottom sets are a mystery to teachers, and to education advisers in local or national capacities.

A bottom set year 10 kid had me in tears a few weeks ago when she apologised for her shocking behaviour, and explained that she'd just found out she was failing Drama GCSE. As in, she was predicted to get a U, and the teacher couldn't see a way for that to change. She said 'Drama's my best subject! It was the only subject I thought I might get a grade in. Now I'll have nothing at the end of next year - no grades at all. What's the point?'

When she arrived age 11, she met with a host of teachers who had never been in her position, and had little idea how to teach her. She's stuck in a system that really doesn't cater to her, because it was designed by people who had never been in her position. It's probably too late for her to get much out of secondary school, but I want a different experience for my new 11-year-olds, fresh-faced from primary school. How?

Hunt

Year 9 arrive at the classroom. It's the last lesson of the year, and excitement is running pretty high about what they'll be doing. There's a notice taped to the door:
'Wait til everyone is here, then come on in'

At 1.30, they enter and find the room empty, with a large note on the table - in code. They grab some whiteboards and start arguing (love this class!). They decode it to 'Come to the canteen quickly', and they run down.

Taped to the canteen door is a notice reading:
'Grab a clipboard from below, and your first clue is over there >'
There are questions all around the grounds, with answers above them. They answer one question and find the answer on the top of another sheet of paper, answer the question underneath and so on, until they come back to the canteen door. I snuck back and replaced the notice, so now there's another code there. They decode it (this takes them a while - it's a substitution cypher and they go the wrong way, but then realise their mistake) and it reads 'If you are a cookie monster, go to N15' Where there are, naturally, cookies.

I'm sure there are better ways to increase class independence than literally not being there to help when they're desperate to solve something, but I don't think there are as funny for me, watching from various windows!

Novelty in Equation Solving

I tried a new method for getting kids to rearrange equations this week. Astonishingly, given the amount of stuff out there, I haven't been able to find it anywhere on the web, but I'm sure I can't be the first to think of it.

It was stunningly easy. The majority of the class could already do basic rearranging, such as 3a + 4 = 2a + 6 . I gave them that question then, after they demonstrated the method and answer, asked them to divide themselves into 2 roughly equal groups, based on confidence. Now, I hear what everyone seems to be saying about grouping by ability, but I had a real reason for this. Also, it was the kids' own choice which group they went in. Some of them surprised me. Most got it right. The ones that didn't quickly realised and moved.

Each group then got given a bunch of equations on slips of paper, and each student taped one to the top of their whiteboards (held portrait). The more confident group got fiendish, nasty, horrible equations. The others got ones of the sort above. They sat in a circle. Each student had to write the first step of rearranging the equation under the taped paper, then pass the whiteboard to their left. They would get handed a whiteboard from their other side, read what was on it and write the next step for that equation.

It was fantastic. The amount of brilliant maths talk, productive arguing and explaining was huge. Students were teaching each other and figuring out what worked and what didn't. A sample exchange:

Kid 1 'This step isn't right' *passes board back*
Kid 2 'Yes it is, see, I multiplied by 3p'
Kid 1 'Huh, yeah, I guess you did'

pause

 Kid 1 'But I can't see what to do next, after that step. I don't think we can solve it starting like that. Can you do a different step?'
Kid 2 'Oh, I guess not, ok, sure'*

I sat with the less confident group to start with, and when they'd got on the the second set of equations I moved over. The others were really struggling, but making lots of progress. At the end, I did the litmus test.
'So, who learned something today?'
'Who was challenged today'
A resounding success. So much so, that next lesson I got them to split into 4 smaller circles, and we did some more.


*For interest, this equation had a quadratic on the top of a fraction, which they needed to cancel - if they didn't, they ended up needing to factorise a quadratic with a non-1 value of x squared.

Manage Me

I got assaulted by a student this week. That's a powerful word, 'assaulted'. I wasn't the one to use it first, but I heard it when, upon telling the head of year, he grabbed the deputy head and said '*Name*, Miss Roots has just been assaulted by a student.' That's when I knew it was going to be ok.

It wasn't major, as assaults go, and I'm not seriously hurt. The assault was a little complicated - I was standing in front of a door that was partly open towards me, and Trouser Boy (remember him?) reached past me and yanked the door into me, as hard as he could. He was trying to leave the room. He had a detention, but wanted his cigarette. He was in an awful mood and had had an unsuccessful lesson, in an area where his confidence is rock bottom. These are not excuses, but they are reasons. My Head of Department came through, having heard the commotion, and I told him. We went and found the head of year, who grabbed the deputy head, and used the word 'assault'.

Last year, at a different school, I was assaulted more seriously by a student. The school did not deal with it - I was told the student would be sent home, but saw him later the same day. I received no offers of support and no help with sanctioning the student or teaching him next lesson. After many, many tears of frustration, I asked my mentor how to make the school take it seriously. She said, and I quote: 'Start using the word 'assault'. It'll scare the shit out of them.' It did. I think it conjures up the spectre of unions and legal responsibilities and contracts and duty of care and all the stuff that we shouldn't need to be protected from assaults, but we do.

When the head of year said 'assault', then, I knew the school would take this hugely seriously. You can ignore an 'incident', but you can't not deal with an assault. I was right. After sending people off to pick up Trouser Boy, find forms and notify people, the head of year turned to me.
 'Are you all right?'
 'I, uh...yeah, I...think...'
 'No.'
 'No.'
That was when I burst into tears. My head of department, the head of year and the deputy head turned to each other and immediately began organising cover for my next lesson, so I wouldn't have to teach. I was sat down, made a cup of tea, then Matron was sent for (I was fine). After 20 minutes, the deputy head came and sat with me. He chatted with me, then asked what I had to do the rest of the day. He asked if I would like to go home, and said it would be fine for him to cover me. That is so unusual, I was blown away.

After another 15 minutes, I was feeling much better, and my Head of Department said I could go and take over my lesson whenever I wanted, although I shouldn't feel I ought to. I headed up and everything was going smoothly, so I took over for a very relaxed last 20 minutes of the lesson.

I am feeling so lucky in my school this week, and in the people we have in charge. The contrast to my last school's management is stark, and it's the things like this that make all the difference, that make or break teachers and can drive them out of inner city or deprived schools, out of the state system, or out of education.

Making Conversation

In the inclusion centre, for kids who can't cope so well with mainstream, or who can cope but not for 5 lessons a day. I am teaching a sewing class, which I volunteered to do in my gained time now the year 13s (upper 6th) have left, to 3 girls, Big Hair (13), Scottie (14) and Beehive (15). The atmosphere is a lot more relaxed than in the rest of the school! All 3 girls have had multiple exclusions from multiple schools.

Beehive: 'So, how old are you, Miss?'
Me: 'I'm sorry, love, but I can't really tell you that, you know?'
Beehive: 'Oh, OK, year, fair dos'
Me: 'Thanks'
Big Hair: 'But you're, like, young, right?'
Scottie: 'Yeah, she's definitely young'
Beehive: 'Can we have an estimate, Miss? Like, around about?'
Me: 'Um...'
Beehive: 'Like, you're in your 20s, right?'
Me: (safe territory) 'Right, I'm in my 20s'
Beehive: 'Cool, thanks Miss.'
Big Hair: 'You're really mature for 20, Miss. Aren't 20-year olds always, like, clubbing and drinking?'
Beehive: 'She's in her 20s, idiot, not 20!'
Big Hair: 'OH! I thought she looked old for 20!'