Opportunity Knocks

Well, I have been spending a very happy few weeks doing one of the things I like doing best which is tutoring. I have been doing: English (of course), Maths (cor blimey), Health and Social Care ( also known as 'elf an' soshul care, innit tho?), Geography (or maybe History, but let's not change the subject aha!), and Resistant Materials which means dealing with wood and metal and occasionally a student's head when they aren't quite getting the finer points of sentence structure or turning fractions into percentages, or finding the area of a triangle and using it to discover the perimeter of a square (ooooh, get me!).

And, as I say, I have been enjoying it very much. The hour long sessions fly by, and it is very smile-inducing and heart-satisfying when a student looks at you and says, 'I never got that before, but I understand now.' This is known in the trade as a 'lightbulb moment'; they occur more frequently in a one-to-one or small group situation mainly, I think, because students have to concentrate as they have someone's undivided attention, and it makes them think and use their time wisely, and not for balancing their mobile phones in their laps and trying to text their mates all the time with the latest piece of (non) scandal. Phone balancing in laps always entertains me because it means I get to say, 'Robert...I sincerely hope it's Joshua's phone that you are finding so interesting about his groin, and nothing else.' Teenage boy blushes ensue!

I also get treated as a confidante. It is surprising how quickly the students in your charge come to trust you. I've heard about attempts to give up smoking, horrid siblings, impending house moves, boyfriend/girlfriend troubles, family illnesses, close encounters with the police, night time escapades, favourite foods/music/films/ways of getting out of homework, exam worries, college worries, what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life worries, everyone-hates-me-I-hate-everyone moods, and all the latest fights, gossip and scandals in the local teen community.

This morning was good, too. And when I got home, I checked my e-mail, and there I found a communication from a school in Herefordshire. It is a new school opening in September. I found the advert for it last August when we were holidaying in the county, in a local newspaper and I thought, well, I'll register my interest as an English teacher. Might be the touch of Fate that gets us moving.

The e-mail was, indeed, about a job at the school. There was an attached application form for me if I was still interested in applying for the job.

And the job?

Head teacher!!!