Parents, Poetry and Snow

Yesterday, I was forced to call a parent. Now, I don't enjoy calling parents, mostly because you never know what kind of reception you're likely to receive. I mean, if you call a Customer Service centre, for example, at least you know you're unlikely to be sworn at, or if you call a friend, you are sure to receive a warm welcome...well, that's the idea anyway.

But parents of the children you teach? You have to gird your loins (or grid your lions as I first typed) and remember you have the right to say, 'I am going to hang up if you continue to be rude/ aggressive/ mad as a box of frogs,' should the conversation take a turn for the worse.

Phone calls to parents generally fall into one of the following categories:

1) You are calling to discuss their child's poor behaviour and ask them, as a parent, what they intend to do about it. This will be met with one of several responses. Parent will be either shocked or appalled or embarrassed or defensive. They will promise you it will never happen again (unlikely), that they will discuss the offence with their child as soon as they return home, they will deny their child has ever been naughty in their ENTIRE life but in case they do it again they want me to phone them IMMEDIATELY and tell them, or they will say it's nothing to do with me and to eff off and mind my own bl**din' business.

2) You are calling to congratulate a parent on their child's outstanding effort/ quality of work/ community spirit/ random act of kindness. Parents are generally surprised by this kind of phone call, especially the ones to whom you've spoken before vis a vis their child being the horned Gremlin from the Devil's soup bowl. Often the response is one of initial disbelief, followed by suspicion, then pleasant surprise and then grateful thanks. Actually, it's fun making this kind of phone call. It nearly always causing the parent to feel wrong-footed.

3) You are calling with a progress report and you catch a parent at 'an awkward moment'. Examples have included : changing their baby's nappy, going through a supermarket checkout, watching Jeremy Kyle, watching a tyre being changed at a very loud garage, and relaxing on a beach in Corfu (this was at the beginning of September - parents had decided to keep their Year 11 child off school for another month so they could have a cheap holiday. Never mind the fact it was his GCSE year and he needed all the teaching he could get to scrape a 'C' grade).

4) You are calling about any one of the above matters and no matter how many times you call on whichever of the sixteen numbers on the computer system you have recorded for that child, the parents NEVER respond. Generally, these are the parents of the worst child in your class, so I suppose I can understand why they never answer their phones. Probably too busy changing the locks before their treasure arrives home.

Or, as yesterday, you can call the parent of a sixth former to explain why you are very reluctant to enter their child for the A level exam - because they are lazy and lacking in the useful brain cell department - and something bizarre happens by a process of subliminal osmosis.

'I think,' I said to our Head of Sixth Form as I reported back re: the phone call, 'that I have just agreed to help Dan's father arrange a poetry slam at a pub.'
'What?' she said, but already she was laughing.
'I phoned to say I wasn't going to enter Dan for the exam,' I said, 'and I explained why and his father went into a massive sob story about how Dan is being a difficult, shouty and emotional 17 year old, and that he was really a very talented artist and did I like art, and did I like poetry and he was hoping to arrange a poetry slam at The Bull at East Farleigh, and I could help him, couldn't I, if I was interested because I'd know all about poets and writers, being a Literature teacher and he'd write to me with all the details and we'll take it from there, shall we?'

By this time, Head of Sixth was in fits. 'I did warn you he was a charming Canadian artist,' she said.
'Yes you did,' I said, 'but when you said 'artist', I thought you meant painter artist, not con artist.'
'Well, good luck,' she said, 'and if it happens, I'll come along and support you.'
'Too right you will,' I said. 'And buy me a stiff orange juice and endless bags of cheese and onion crisps.'

Of course, I am hoping that Dan's art-crazed father will do as all the other parents generally do which is express a flurry on enthusiasm then forget all about his wild and crazy plan. Part of his reason for the whole poetry slam (what IS a poetry slam, anyway??) is that he wants to bring together different generations because, 'teenagers only get to socialise with their grandparents at funerals.'

I can only say that they must have a peculiar way of arranging cross-generational gatherings in Canada, because I saw my grand-daughter this very morning and there ne'er was a coffin in sight.

Anyway, it's the weekend and I shouldn't be talking shop. It's very cold here. We are promised a heavy dollop of snow tonight. I sent Mrs P and Mrs S to do a panic buy at Sainsbugs and they came back with cream crackers, a jar of pesto, a can of furniture polish and some of those sandsheets one uses for lining a budgie cage with if one has a budgie.

'You are useless,' I say. 'When snow is forecast you need milk, cheese, baking potatoes, baked beans, strong white flour for the baking of the bread, and toilet rolls. Got it?'

'Not cream crackers?' says Mrs Pumphrey.
'Definitely not cream crackers,' I say. 'Ridiculous bird.'

My New Jumper

I have a new jumper. It has many exciting features. Well, exciting for me, given all my previous jumpers have been of the plain knitted, two arms attached to a body with a hole for the head variety.

The exciting features of my new jumper are as follows:

1) it has angora mix. This means that I am constantly followed by a cloud of jumper fluff, as it sheds at the hint of the slightest movement. I find bits of jumper fluff in my eyelashes, between my toes, in my cereal and stuck in the hinges of my spectacles. The furniture gets covered in jumper fluff, so do the cats. In fact, given how much jumper fluff I shed, I am surprised I still have a jumper left, and not something more akin to a string vest which would be a very unattractive look for a woman of my age and physical proportions.

2) the jumper has a hood. It means I am now officially 'a hoodie' and my plan is to walk around town, hood-up, so as many of my students see me as possible and realise that wearing a hoodie is 'uncool' if grannies are wearing them, and then they will stop wearing their own hoodies and hopefully get a haircut and pull up their trousers to the correct height, too. Unfortunately, wearing the hood up means I transfer jumper fluff to my hair which a) makes me look like I have a woolly halo and b) confuses my hairdresser. However, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make in order to smarten up the youth of Kent. Especially Ben in 11Y2 who wears a bright green hoodie when he thinks he can get away with it, and who yesterday announced he'd had an epiphany re: stop messing about in class and start concentrating for his exam, but it transpires his epiphany lasted only as far as the end of yesterday's Parents' Evening when he was afeared I was going to nab his mother as she did the rounds and tell her what a horrid and lazy child she had.

3) pompoms. My jumper has two pompoms hanging from the hood which I like to twirl in moments of random staring-into-spaceness. I have learned, however, the folly of twirling one's pompoms and staring into space especially in the presence of a cat, namely Pandora Kitten, because of course cats love nothing better than to launch themselves at a twirling woolly ball on a string regardless of how close it happens to be swinging to, for example, a person's face. On many occasions have I stopped twirling just in the nick of time when I have suddenly become aware of Pandora concentrating on the twirling with a wild look in her eye. It's like playing a game of Extreme Danger Pompom Cats.

4) a Nordic pattern. So if I ever find myself in, er, Nord, I shall blend in beautifully. But only if I'm wearing my new jumper at the time. If I am wearing my burgundy velour trousers and purple linen top I shall stick out like a sore thumb and get eaten by a wolf. Or adopted by a bear. Or something.

And this blog, dear reader, is an example of what happens when someone is on Day Six of No TV For Me. It is the result of an over-excited imagination, an imagination that hasn't been drained by telly drivel and desperately craves a creative outlet.

It can only get worse. You have been warned.

Day Three of No TV For Me

My decision to avoid television this year has, as you might imagine, been met with much derision by other inhabitants of the Manor.

'You'll never last!' they said when I announced my intention. (I'm not going to name names, Heather, but you know who you are.) 'Something to do with Hugh F-W, or cooking or gardening or dancing will appear and you'll cave in!'

Andy said this morning, 'I see Aleisha Dixon has quit as a judge on 'Strictly Come Dancing.'
'Oh really?' I said. 'That news is of no concern to me because I have forsaken televsion for this year.'

Andy has also tried to sell the benefits of what he calls 'good' television. 'What about wild life documentaries and educational programmes?' he said. 'What about using BBC i-plyayer, so you can record the 'good' programmes and watch them instead of scanning free-view in desperate 'must watch TV' moments where you end up watching 'bad' TV?'

'Bad TV,' is Andy's definition for TV I quite enjoy watching sometimes because it takes no brain power to watch and is just the ticket for after bad days at work. Things like 'Don't Tell the Bride', and 'Celebrity Fat Club,' and Jeremy Kyle car crash stuff.

My definition of 'bad TV' could extend to programmes that Andy likes to watch, because bad TV is all a matter of personal taste, but I'm not going to start TV mud-slinging and mentioning things like, er, Doctor Who and anything presented by Dr Brian Cox.

Long-term resident of Much Malarkey Manor, Olly, has assured me that watching DVDs is NOT the same as watching TV. I am pleased about this; it means I can now watch the second disc of 'Monty Don's Italian Gardens' to progress my knowledge of Italy in preparation for the Italian holiday 2015. My plan is to save the disc for moments of TV weakness which I am realistic enough to accept will happen, probably tomorrow when I go back to work.

But until then, it is now nearly three whole days since I watched telly. Andy has watched telly, but not as much as he would normally watch. He is being selective. However, he has been pretty much glued to the i-pad I got him for Christmas.

So far, I have read a Stella Gibbons novel, done some writing, completed masses of work for school, been on several walks and kept up with the housework. I have listened to several interesting programmes on the radio and given the writing room a good sort-out. I have yet to start my 'Easy Learning Italian in a Click' programme but that's on the agenda for later this week.

There has been no shouting at the TV (there has been a little bit of shouting at the radio, but old habits die hard), no sighing at endless stupid advertising breaks, no mindless flicking up and down the free-view channels and watching some repeat of a film I've seen a hundred times before. I have found it useful to avoid the TV guide pages in the newspaper because if I don't know what's on, I won't miss it, will I? Ha! A cunning plan, you see, is all you need.

Right, back to work. I'm close-reading 'Pride and Prejudice', 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and a selection of poetry at the moment, which I'm hoping is exactly what my sixth formers have been doing this holiday. I'm at the advantage of having read them all several times before. I've told the students we won't have time to read everything together in class. I suspect there might be some excuses of 'not having had any time to read stuff properly at home.'

I might suggest, for the health of their education, that they give up watching TV.

Suits Me

The return to school brought a new uniform for the students, because we are a la Academy status now and as such everyone is required to look like they are working in an office.

Including, it seems, the staff.

Now, I didn't know this, because certain information that was handed out at the end of last term didn't reach me because I wasn't there. And that information included the notice that all staff were expected to wear a jacket 'when moving around the Academy.'

'When moving around the Academy?' I thought. But I always move when I'm teaching. It pays to scare the students sometimes by invading their space and looming over them. Keeps 'em on their toes. Am I expected to wear a jacket ALL THE TIME regardless of my hot flush moments and the fact my classroom sometimes likes to play 'Sauna' and roast me to a delicate pinkness even if I open ALL the windows and the skylights?

It transpires I am not. Jacket only to be worn when moving between buildings.

Now, I don't actually own a jacket because I am a cardi and coat person. Well, tell a lie, I have a little red velvety crop jacket which I bought from Monsoon about ten years ago. It has a rather snazzy floral lining and I bought it because a) it was red b) it was fuzzy and c) it doesn't really look like a jacket. Oh, and d) it was in the sale.

So I've been swanning around in this jacket all week and because it's red it's been clashing with some of my outfits something chronic. I've always gone for smart-casual at school because it's comfortable and colourful and the older you get the more comfort and colour you like. Also, as a one-time drama teacher you can get away with wearing odd combinations of clothes, in fact, it's almost expected of the arty type. You are forgiven fashion faux pas by the students because you have a brain that works in an odd way and can't be expected to be a la mode aware. I think 'eccentric' is the word. Well, I do have three cats...

But, to my chagrin I have noticed that almost ALL the staff are now dressed in suits. In various shades of black and grey and er....black. Occasionally brown. Or taupe. Cheerful, eh?

I DON'T DO SUITS!!!! I wore a suit in my first teaching job and it felt like trying to teach with a set of skis threaded up one sleeve, across the shoulders and down the other sleeve. It proved a very brief suit flirtation. I was soon onto the co-ordinated casual combination and when I got a drama studio I found I could even get away with no shoes. Heck, there were days when I didn't see another member of staff from morning 'til night and I could have worn jim-jams and fluffy socks for the ultimate in teaching comfort.

But now I feel I've got to go out this weekend and buy a suit because I feel like the Academy bag-lady. Do I go jacket 'n trouser or jacket 'n' skirt? Do I find a jacket that has both a matching trouser 'n' skirt in the range so I can ring the changes? And, oh, decisions about the colour...black or brown or grey or black or grey or beige or black or black? It'll have to be washable, of course, which means some horrid polyester blend monstrosity which will make me boil even more and probably meld to my skin in the Winter and cause static electric shocks in the Summer.

And I'll have to go to Canterbury if I want a decent choice because the shops in our home town are woefully inadequate on the work-suit front, and I know this because I checked out the possibilities last weekend and got very depressed, hence the digging out of the red crop jacket.

Never has the prospect of retail therapy filled me with more gloom.

It's all very stressful.

Out of My Tiny Tree

I must be MAD! It's been chaos at school - well, I say chaos, but what I really mean is there are not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. Like today. Up at 6, out the door at 7.30, arrive at work at 7.45, prepping lessons until 8.40. And wrestling with a computer system that still refuses to play ball.

Then registration, then assembly, then tutor time...I mean, mentor time, which is fast becoming known as 'mental' time.

Then lessons one and two, a double (2 hours) with 30 year nine students, half of whom have special needs, four of whom can barely speak English (Question from me - 'So, we're studying the Gothic novel this term - what do you know about the Gothic genre?' Response from EAL student - blank stare...), one of which who goes hormonally peculiar with a full moon, one who can't sit still for toffee and six who can't stop talking about boys, shopping, Facebook, boys, soap operas, boys and boys.

Then break - on duty in the playground dodging two footballs and being mown down by a group of Year 8s playing a game of British Bulldog.

Then lesson prepping for an hour, most of which was spent assisting an unqualified-straight-from-university teacher who has no idea what she is doing but can talk for England, and despite asking my advice chooses to ignore it and do her own thing anyway.

Then a snotty bunch of Year 11 who arrived noisy and smelly and ten minutes late from PE.

Then half an hour for lunch which involved five minutes clearing up after snotty Year 11, ten minutes prepping for after lunch Year 10, five minutes trekking across the school to visit the loo, and ten minutes trying to bolt down a bagel and a mixed salad and failing abysmally.

Then Year 10. Three quarters of whom have special needs. And the inability to stop talking for more than 30 seconds.

Then after school duty on the road, trying to stop students getting run over because they still think they're invincible in a car 'n' student fight.

Then more listening to unqualified teacher witter on and reject more of my advice...and so finally leaving work at 5 haibg looked at the remains of my lunch and thinking I couldn't really be bothered.

And an hour and a half later, I find myself searching the internet for a clip of Vincent Price or Christopher Lee reading something Gothicky in a spooky way, and a visual plot summary of Romeo and Juliet for the snotty Year 11 because I can't access anything at school from You Tube(which is an excellent resource for teachers) because You Tube has been blocked by the super-duper-doesn't-work-properly IT system!

Oh, and planning a blog for my sixth-formers to use as an on-line forum for their studies, but I don't mind that because 1) I like my sixth-formers and 2) I like blogging!

Oddly, four of my sixth formers came from my old school! I last taught them when they were in Year 8.

'Mrs Hunt!!' they all squealed happily when they found 'twas me delivering their course. Ah, it's nice to be wanted...

So I'm giving up on the school stuff today. I've had enough. The branches of my tiny tree of sanity are bending 'neath the strain. And if I had a doughnut, I'd eat it in two bites, but I don't, which is lucky because I don't think I could keep up with the sugar rush.

Thursday tomorrow. Which is one day before Friday which is one day before the weekend. Which I have allocated to sleep. And maybe some retail therapy.

And a doughnut...

School's In!

Word Verification of the Day - 'subleab' - the level below 'leab'.

Well, it's proper Autumnal here. Lots of mist being burned off by the sun to reveal heatwave. Not this morning of course, because it's Saturday, I'm at home, and there are three lots of washing on the line attempting to dry. (And talking of washing - can you hear that? No? Well, that is the new washing machine, all plumbed in and doing its washing-machine thing. It's a hummer, not a shouter. A calmer, not a frazzler. We like the new washing machine.)

But the last two days, because I've been back to work, have been incredibly hot and gorgeous and summery. Never mind - it's only nine thirty. Plenty of time for heatwave to return and sizzle the pants.

I love the beginning of the new school year. So full of bright-eyed enthusiasm and shiny-faced optimism. And new stationery. And visions of well-ordered classrooms filled with eager, hard-working and smiley students all determined to get those A grades and set themselves up for a fulfilling career.

And then you arrive at Reception.

A new state-of-the-art super-duper-fast-as-you-like computer system has been installed at the cost of a decent-sized 3-bedroom semi in this neck of the woods. According to the IT staff it has high-res bibble snigwitz, a rapid boil acme wizit pog-bit, 1000 Gandodz of mikklegram and a hoofpot. Well, that's what I understood from the IT briefing, anyway. Apparently, this means that we will receive e-mail before it's been sent, we can access the Interwebbly before it's connected and we can store enough shoes in the hard-drive to last Imelda Marcos and all her little goblins three hundred years and then some.

Pity it has 'issues' and doesn't work. And that the English Department appears to be in a 'transmission bubble' which means the only thing the new laptops are worth using for are propping open the store cupboard whilst you arrange your text books.

The builders have been in, too. They have taken down walls and rebuilt them in different places. They have removed doors and put them in different places. They have added switches which, when pressed, appear to do nothing. They have put up new signs which are luminous green and therefore offensive to mine eye. But good for navigation in a power-cut I suppose.

Little pockets of dissent are starting to develop hither and thither because someone has got a new filing cabinet, someone has got someone else's nice class from last year and they've got a horrid class in return which seems VERY unfair, and some one has lost a door and a bit of a wall from their classroom thus making it 'open-plan' (a favourite academy trick to cram as many students in a class as possible) and they want their door 'n' wall back NOW! Preferably with a lock to keep the students out.

And me? Well, you remember when I had my photo taken for my new school badge, and I got caught by surprise with wild hair and a pink face? Well, the photo makes me look like a complete crazy woman who's escaped from a sauna through a thick hedge whilst running from a wolf/ bear/ Mrs Slocombe on an off day. Luckily, I have managed to twist the lanyard so the photo face inwards against my tummy, rather than outwards towards the world.

Ah, it's good to be back!

Big School

Yesterday, I led the English taster sessions for the Year 6s who are coming to the school in September. This involved coralling over 100 students through activities with exciting names like 'Attention!' and 'Frankenstein's Monster' and 'Desert Island Dinners' and 'One At a Time', in boiling hot weather, whilst trying to balance a smiley 'welcome-to-the-school' demeanour with an ever-so-slightly-kind-but-stands- no-nonsense glint in my eye.

Oh, and trying not to scratch the vicious insect bite I sustained on my thigh at the allotment the previous evening which grew from the size of a gooseberry to the size of a grapefruit in the space of 3 hours. (I kid you not - it's a whopper! In fact, I don't think it was an insect that bit me at all - more like a vampire bat, or killer frog).

And what struck me during the day was that as the years come and go, they bring with them children that may have different faces, but who all fall into the same sort of categories.

Without fail, every year you see:

1) Tuggers - these are students who have no awareness of personal body space and will attract your attention by bopping you on the arm or yanking at your sleeve. You have to resist the urge to leap backwards shouting 'Don't touch me!' when they do this.

2) Class clowns - generally boys with hair that dangles on their shoulders in wavy, blonde locks, or is styled hedgehog-fashion. Think they can get away with shouting comments, making fart noises and telling extremely bad jokes as long as they accompany them with a beaming dimpled smile. Note them down as potentials for the drama club and do not be sucked into their apparent charm. Class clowns ALWAYS need chasing for coursework. They're not so funny, then.

3) Keeny-beanies - usually girls erring on the slightly plumpish size and with hair/clothes/ shoes rigidly chosen by their mums. They stare at you intently whilst you are talking to them, and smile wildly, and complete everything you ask them to do in VERY neat handwriting with VERY detailed drawings. They can always be relied upon to tidy up everything that they use, and everything everyone else uses for that matter. And they will hang around after the session to tell you all about the latest book they are reading. Usually Jacqueline Wilson or Harry Potter.

4) Oooh-oohs! - the students who are there, at the front of the class, their arms shooting rigidly into the air, and almost up your nose, in response to questions, accompanied by a loud 'OOOOOOH!' and often a spot of subsidiary grunting with the effort of it all. You learn to divert their attention by giving them other 'important' jobs to do, like writing ideas on the whiteboard, or giving out exercise books.

5) Jack 'n' Jills the lads 'n' girls - thankfully few on the ground, but these are the students who are too cool for school and have been for the last 4 years. These are the ones you just know are going to resist you every step of the way for the next 5 years of their English education. They look at you dismissively from 'neath scowly brows. They grunt and shrug. They think they look hard; what they don't realise is that they are nothing new, nothing original. They just make us teachers sigh wearily.

6) The Needies - worry permanently etched on their brows. Most likely to burst into tears at the slighest suggestion of criticism. I saw the saddest example of a Needy yesterday - a little boy, sobbing non-stop - and his mother clinging to him and sobbing non-stop, too. You kind of expect it at the start of primary school, but secondary????

7) The Avoid Eye Contacts - students who have blended into the wallpaper for their entire school life so far and are determined to continue so at their next school. They will force a smile, they will shrug in response to questions, they will look like rabbits caught in the headlights, they will not say boo to a goose. They're nice children, but oooooh, sometimes you just want to shake a bit of energy and enthusiasm into 'em!

8) The Born Forties - although only eleven years old, they will tut at the silliness of their peers and take life very seriously. However, they will ALWAYS do their homework, ALWAYS remember their pencil cases and planners and ALWAYS do their best. On the downside, they can be overly honest e.g 'Are you SURE that skirt suits you, Miss? Isn't it a bit 'young' for you?'

9) Tell-tales - very keen to snitch on classmates. Good sources of information if you are trying to get to the bottom of who punched who in the corridor, but experience has shown that tell-tales never really grow out of their habit and thus make many enemies along the way and never get invited to work dos when they're adults.

Yesterday's bunch were just the same. But then, when they went home at the end of the day, and their parents said, 'So, how was the new school? What were the teachers like?' they probably said, 'Well, there was one who was funny, one who smelled of coffee and cigarettes, one who shouted a lot and one who kept looking at us over the top of her glasses in a smiley firm-but-will - stand- no-nonsense kind of way...'

Oh, What To Do?

So, the school I tutor in is being made into an Academy in September. It has been taken over by an independent education group, and there is a new headteacher, who pops up periodically to have intense meetings and say 'hello' to people. He hasn't yet said 'hello' to me, because I hide upstairs in a little office, do my job and go home. I drift about the place like some kind of phantom - people know I work in the school, yet they always seem surprised to see me.

Anyway, one of the teaching assistants asked if I was coming back in September. In fact, she was insistent I did. 'Well,' I said. 'I don't know if there will be any work for me.'
'Of course there will be work for you,' she said. 'There is always work for good teachers.'
'Maybe,' I said, 'but I have slipped under the Academy net. My role is, as such, undefined.' (It's what comes of behaving like a phantom, I guess.)
'The new headteacher is looking for someone to develop a drama department,' said the teaching assistant. She clearly has her finger on the pulse of all things Academy. 'You should e-mail him and make him aware of your existence.'

Okay. So I thought about this for a couple of days. I like teaching drama. It is Much Malarkey on a grand scale. I have built a drama department before. I can do this job. So I contructed a carefully worded e-mail to the new Headteacher outlining my teaching talents. I also told him that because of my commitments outside of school - writing, allotment, hens, bees, staying sane - I was VERY reluctant to work full time. Four days a week suits me fine. I pressed 'send'.

Less than an hour later, a reply came back. Could I 'touch base' with him on Friday? (I guessed this meant 'meet up' and wasn't some euphemism for a sinister Academy activity whereby once I'm in I'll never get out alive.)

So Friday arrived. I loitered in Reception. The new Headteacher appeared. He shook my hand, and asked about my allotment and said he hoped I was taking care of my hands. He said that Senior Management spoke very highly of me. And that if Senior Management regarded me with high esteem, why would he want me to leave? Nay, he needed and wanted good teachers. He said he did, indeed, want to develop drama in the school. He said he couldn't make any promises though, and he said something about not having a bottomless pit of funds. He said he heard I taught English.

At this point I started thinking 'Oh-oh, I know what's coming here.'

He said that it was highly likely a post in the English department would be coming up in September and would I consider that? Could I e-mail him with what I saw myself doing regarding A level, GCSE, KS3, Nuture Group? (Nuture Group is very needy Year 7s arriving from primary school barely able to string two words together corectly so that they make sense. They generally have behaviour issues, too.)

So, here I am. Umming and ahhing. I have made a list of pros and cons of going back into classroom teaching. So far the pros are outweighing the cons by 8 points to 6. It's a close shot. But only if I stick to my guns and do no more than 4 days a week. I am composing an e-mail, laying down my 'ideas' and trying to sound agreeable and flexible, but not like I am going to be walked over.

My friend, Jean, sent an e-mail today with some sage advice for such occasions. She said, 'Handle every stressful situation like a dog. If you can't eat it or play with it, just pee on it and walk away.'

Not totally appropriate, the weeing thing, so I did the human equivalent which was go to the allotment for 3 hours. I sulphate and potashed the soft fruit. I watered the polytunnel and coo-ed over the rapidly growing seedlings. Some of the strawberries have flowers already. I sowed parsnip seed and planted a rosemary bush. I netted the gooseberry that is on the far side of the allotment out of reach of the fruit cage, because it has started to develop buds and the birdies will be after it. I weeded the last area to be weeded and decided here was a perfect place to grow some flowers. I poked the compost bin, having been very good and remembered to bring the waste food caddy from home to add to the mix.

I came home and set about greenhouse planting. In went the courgettes (green and yellow), the cucumbers, and three varieties of runner bean. And some basil.

And I think what my decision boils down to is that I really want a smallholding. Just a small one. An acre will suffice. So I can have more days like this - planting, weeding, growing, conversing with chickens and bees, anticipating harvest and flowers, and living the cycle all over again forever. And if I want a smallholding, I have to work so we can save up and buy a smallholding. And that's about it. I think.

September Song

There's something about the beginning of September that makes the spirit soar in a special way. I don't know exactly what it is - after all, September 1st signals the end of Summer and the onset of Autumn, and my didn't it feel autumnal this morning? Although the sun is now shining, at dawn there was a gasp of chill in the air. What my Gran used to call ' a proper hopping morning.'

As Heather said, 'It's one of those mornings where it's nice to wake up and feel cosily snug under the duvet rather than having to fling it off with a 'Phew, I'm too hot.' '

I have hops to harvest this year. I keep going into the garden and looking at the scrambled mass of them all over the fence, thinking, how do I go about untwining these? I had to arrange them in an artistic way along and around the fence because they ran out of upwards fence height back in June. But now I have to do some gentle untangling to keep the bines in lengths long enough to drape across the kitchen beam in order to achieve an 'authentic country kitchen experience.' Oh, I know by Christmas they will have dried out enough to start dropping on the floor and into any cooking I happen to be doing atop the stove thereby causing me to mutter, but I have a beam and by golly I am determined to swathe it with our own Malarkey hops.

I've already harvested masses of lavender which is hanging hither and thither in bunches to dry, and today I shall be taking the dried flowers from their stalks, looking at the ensuing bucket full of product and thinking, 'Blimey, there's a lot of lavender bags to be had from that lot.' But I have plans to use some of it to make scented reflexology powder.

What is it about the start of September? Is it memories of 'back to school' and being taken into town to buy shiny new shoes and shiny new stationery that you feel loathe to use because you don't want to spoil their perfectness? Is it the new season, the anticipation of the colours, the harvest, the easing off of sun lotion and bug repellent application? Is it the fact the first Christmas catalogue arrived in the post yesterday? (That got put in the recycle bin pretty darn quick, I can tell you!)

I think September offers the promise of new beginnings. A bit like New Year, but with more sunshine and lighter evenings and less post- Christmas excess and Winter gloom to deal with. Although Nature is slowing down in September, there is still that feeling of newness - children starting new schools, new classes, adults picking up new hobbies and training at Adult Education.
People going back to work after holidays, the familiar rhythm and pace of life picking up and moving on.

And so I celebrated the start of a new September beginning by giving my feet a jolly good buffing this morning. Well, I start my reflexology course in 3 weeks; I feel inclined to have my tootsies in tip-top order for then. I've tidied the account books and sorted out some new vegetarian recipes to try. The decorators are galloping on apace in the hall, stairs and landing. The smell of fresh paint lingers er...interestingly with the aroma of the rice and lentil pilau we had for dinner last night. Blimey, I've even made my own garam masala mix from scratch using the pestle and mortar and a lot of elbow grease.

And now I need to crack on with sorting out Nearly King Jimbo. I've had a tentative enquiry about the purchase of a few copies from someone who has an idea to give them as Christmas presents. The birth of Andy and Denise Publications Inc maybe?? Who knows...

Goodbye Existing, Hello Living

As I walked away from school today for the last time, a little voice said, 'Now the really hard work begins,' and I thought, 'Oh, oh,' and had to stop on the way home in a little tea shop in town to have a pot of tea, a slice of cranberry and orange cake and a bit of a think. And to dry off, because, for the first time in over a week, at the very moment I started to walk home, it chucked it down with rain. (I like to think I was getting a symbolic washing away of what was the past and a welcome into a new aspect of my life. It was bloomin' cold, anyway.)

I toted a large garden plant with me, from the school, as a 'thank you and good-bye' present. Variously during the week I have also received a bottle of wine, a pot of honey, some honey flavoured handcream, a few well wishing cards, and a hand-made notebook from my now ex-Head of Department. 'My sister hand-makes them,' she said, 'and I told her about you and she made one especially to suit.'

And it did. Its design included cats and flowers and musical notes. Old-fashioned writing and a Victorian photograph. The musical notes and old-fashioned writing reminded me that I need to get 'Indigo Antfarm, Violet and Blue' finished and sent off to some agents. In fact, last weekend, I made a list of around 30 agents to whom I can send the script for perusal.

The card that came with the notebook was also hand-made - a sort of padded, embroidered postcard creation, with bees and a bee-hive on it. It's really beautiful, and reminded me that I need to finish the embroidery I started to mark the birth of Kayleigh. And to finish turning a pair of old, but favourite curtains into cushion covers for the cushions on the chairs at the kitchen table. They have chickens on them. The curtains, not the kitchen chairs, although, dear readers, you know what liberties my hens sometimes take when it comes to dropping in for cocoa and a chocolate chip shortbread.

It has been a difficult few months. There have been tears and frustrations, along with some laughs and the occasional glimmer that I had made a difference to someone's life, if only for a day (God Bless Grace!). But, as with all difficult passages in a life worth living, positive momentum comes along and nudges the drifting soul in the right direction. By going back to teaching, I discovered I did not want to teach any more. Not in the traditional, mainstream secondary education sense of the word anyway. There are other means of teaching, other routes to explore.

I also discovered I missed writing - a lot. I have writing projects to tackle; I understand now that it's important to have the time to do these things properly. Teaching is time-hungry. Writing is time-hungry, too, but writing, unlike teaching, does much to satisfy the appetite of creativity.

Last year I was lucky enough to have a Tarot reading from a very gifted psychic whom I met almost by accident (if you believe that accidents happen and are not actually Fate wrapped up in a surprise). He told me that my life is lived in circles, but after each circle I complete I move off at a slightly different tangent onto another circle. I was concerned this meant that I'd never learn, that I'd keep going round and round and get nowhere, making the same errors over and over. No, he said. What you do is jump off the circle before you start making the same mistakes again. You travel full circle to cover all aspects of what you need to learn. And then you take your learning with you onto the next circle, expanding your life as you go. And this is good, he said.

And typing that rememberance has given me an idea for a design for a business card. Which I must go and put in the book of ideas I've started to help me as I work towards becoming a Holistic Health Practitioner.

A girl in my tutor group asked me today if I was retiring.
'No,' I replied. 'That's something I think I shall never do.'

Am I in the Way?

RANT ALERT!! RANT ALERT!! PLEASE REMAIN BEHIND THE SAFETY BARRIERS; CRASH HELMETS AND EARPLUGS HAVE BEEN PROVIDED FOR YOUR COMFORT AND HEALTH!!!

Excuse me, but am I in the way? I ask this only because whilst I was in the MIDDLE of teaching a Year 7 lesson this morning, a caretaker burst into my classroom wielding a sack barrow, onto which he proceeded to load a filing cabinet, before dragging it noisily from the vicinity, leaving a gaping hole, an old biro, a crisp packet and two dead spiders in its wake.

I stared, the children stared, our books poised mid-air. Casey, who was reading out loud at the time, paused. The caretaker disappeared. I looked at the children, they looked at me. I marched across the classroom, SLAMMED the door. Casey took this as her cue to continue reading.

This has been happening since last Friday. Last Friday, being the day OFSTED were officially off our backs for another three years, all sense of professional decorum flew from the window. I was informed I needed to clear my classroom by THIS Friday, as Modern Foreign Languages were moving onto my territory. 'Empty your cupboards, filing cabinets, shelves and walls,' I was told. 'And your desk. Here are some bin-bags.'

'Where will I be based for the last three days of term?' I asked.

Shrugged shoulders met my question. And, with three days to eviction, I still don't know.

I mean, I know I'm leaving the school. I know I've been there only two terms. But I do have standards, and I intended to maintain them until the last minute. But now I feel like saying 'Sod you all; if I'm in your way, I'll leave NOW shall I?'

I won't, though, because I am practising being Reiki about it all. ('Ha!' says Andy, who has been living with the fall-out for the last few days.) And, to be fair, the two MFL teachers are very embarrassed about the whole thing, feeling that the whole shift around could have waited until the afternoon of the last day when all the kiddiwinks had left for the summer.

RANT ALERT OVER! RANT ALERT OVER!!

I had a haircut at the weekend. A radical haircut. This was following on from Friday, when I got home from work, looked at myself in the mirror and was appalled to discover I had actually walked through town looking like a deranged and sweaty spaniel.
'Chop it all off!' I declared to my hairdresser the next morning, who lives for moments when I say things like that because there is nothing he likes better than giving someone a good cropping.

So Monday, I was met with comments like,' Oooooh, Tinkerbell!!' and 'Love the pixie look!' and 'Very elfin. Nice do!' If I had a pound for every time a child said, 'Have you had a haircut, ma'am?' (talk about stating the obvious), I would have £58. And once I had got over the shock of seeing my cropped reflection every time I passed a mirror/ shop window/ back of a spoon, and convinced myself my head didn't really look like a pea on a drum, I quite like it, too.

Of course, it's done nothing but rain every since. Trust me to miss the heatwave zeitgeist.

We have two pumpkins expanding in the garden. One is the size of a marble. One is the size of a fifty pence piece. On Saturday, the one that is the size of a fifty pence piece was only the size of a marble. I reckon that's doubling its size in 3 days. So by October, when we are destitute because I am not earning and Andy is still part time, at least we shall be able to camp in a pumpkin when the house is repossessed! Heather can have the slightly smaller one.

That's all for today. I am off to cultivate my elfin Tinkerbell look by attempting to shrink by five feet and loose 95% of my total bodyweight.

And please, whatever you do, keep on believing in fairies...

The Lavender Hill Mob

We are officially 'good with outstanding features'. Well, hurrah for that, is all I can say. Having spent most of this week in a state of either manic hyperactivity or overwhelming tiredness thanks to the presence of OFSTED Inspectors lurking hither and thither, jumping out of corners and asking awkward questions about community co-hesion and differentiation, and assessment for learning and assessment for pupil progress (YAAAAAAAAAAAAWN - sorry, don't know quite how that one slipped out), I struggled home from work through the heat of Friday, had a shower, and lay on the bed, motionless, unless I felt less frazzled and fried and more human, and then I went into the front garden with my little camera and took photos of the Malarkey bees playing on the Malarkey lavendar.
Oh, I know they were working, but they looked like they were having fun in their work.

'Beatrice! Beatrice! Look at this gorgeous spot of lavender! Isn't it just marvellous, darling? Do come and have a forage!'
'Oh, but the choice is soooooo great in this garden, Beelinda! I fancy a bit of penstemon myself. The colours are divine. This red one tastes just like a strawberry daquiri. Or what about those poppies? Or the hollyhocks?'
'I've heard tell there's iris in the back garden...'
'Who's she?
'Shut up, Beatrice...'
Bees, I have discovered, are tricky things to photograph. And my little digital camera, whilst good at taking photos in general, is a bit slow off the mark when it comes to shutter speed. At least, it is slower than a bee. There was I, spread-eagled on the driveway, crawling commando-style through the borders, framing bees beautifully in the view-finder, and thinking, now there's a lovely photo. And clicking the take-a-picture-button. But by the time the camera had taken its time to think about it, the bee had flown out of frame and I ended up with various shots of the back end of a bee's bum.
Working with my camera is a bit like working with a particularly 'special' child at school.
'So, Stacey, what is it called when we FREEZE a character in drama so we can find out what that character is thinking?'
'Er...stopping?'
'No...listen carefully. We've done this lots of times before. If we have a FRAME of action, and we FREEZE that action, so all the characters stop moving, what's it called?'
'Stop the moving?'
'Well, yes, that's what happens. But there's a special word for it in drama, isn't there?'
'Is there?'
'Yes...we FREEZE the FRAME, so it's called a....?'
'Er...well...er...I DON'T KNOW, DO I? GOD, YOU NEVER TELL US NUFFIN'. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?'
'Please don't shout, Stacey. You're making my head hurt.'

Anyway, I have discovered the best way to photograph bees is to do away with any pretentions that involve setting up a frame, getting the lighting just right, waiting for the moment etc, and just click, click, click away in a truly random fashion because the law of averages and the God of Good Fortune both dictate you'll catch something worthwhile eventually.

And what I caught has, as you can see, been scattered liberally about this post, like the Malarkey bees amongst the Malarkey lavender on Friday evening.
(But the zooming and cropping was ALL my own work!! And a couple of bumbles got in on the act too - now that IS what I call community cohesion!)

Misunderstood

Grace came bursting into my classroom at lunchtime today, in floods of tears. I'd already had a lot of lunchtimes interruptions, mainly Year 10's wanting to dump their bags and mobile phones with me to look after whilst they went to one of their GCSE Science module exams. Oh yes, and to borrow pens/pencils/rulers etc.

A thousand times I said, 'So you knew you had an exam today and it didn't occur to you to bring a pen/pencil/ruler into school with you?'
And a thousand times I was met with a blank stare, a shrug and a 'So have you got a biro I could borrow, or what?'

And 'borrow' is a word that is used in the loosest possible sense of the word, because of all the writing implements I've lent out, not one has been returned. WH Smiths is making a fortune out of me.

Hey ho, back to Grace.

'Grab a chair, and come and tell me what's happened,' I said.
'NO ONE BELIEVES ME,' wailed Grace. She clutched her bag to her chest and slumped into the chair.
'Tell me what happened,' I said.

'WELLIWASINPEANDWEWASDOINGATIMEDRELAYTHINGANDIWASWITHMYFRIENDSADIEWELL SHESNOTMYFRIENDNOW...'

'Hang on,' I said. 'Slow up and take the volume down a notch.'

Grace took a deep breath and wiped her nose up her sleeve.

'We were in PE and we were doing a timed relay thing,' she said. I nodded, because I know exactly what a timed relay thing is, don't I?
'And I was timing my friend Sadie, only she's not my friend any more. And I said 'GO!' and then I noticed that my stopwatch wasn't working, so I shouted 'STOP!STOP! but she didn't stop, she kept running, so I shouted after her, 'Are you f**king deaf or something, and now she's slagging me off to everyone saying I was horrid to her.'

I took a deep breath. I know Sadie. She is in my form.
'Grace,' I began, 'you know that Sadie does have a hearing problem, don't you? And that she's waiting for an operation on her ear.'
'Yeah, course I do. She's my friend,' said Grace. 'And I was right, wasn't I? She is f**king deaf.'

What could I do? What could I say? There were merits to both sides of this story, and besides, I know full well that Year 8 girls who fall out with each other one day, are best buddies the next.

'Okay,' I said, deciding on damage limitation. 'Tell me something good that's happened this week.'

Grace, tears still trickling down her face, thought for a moment and then said, 'I took a dog for a walk.'

Not exactly the response I was expecting.

'That's nice,' I said. 'Is it your dog or someone else's?'
'It's a neighbours. I'm walking it for her because she's on holiday,' said Grace.
'For extra pocket money?' I said, because I am becoming increasingly aware that many young people will only do something for someone else if there is something in it for them i.e cold hard cash.
'No,' said Grace, 'I'm doing it because I want to. I don't want the money.'

With my heart feeling slightly warmer, I said, 'So what kind of dog is it?'
'One of those labradors,' said Grace. 'You know, the black and white spotty ones.'
'I think you'll find that's a dalmation,' I said.
'Yes,' said Grace.

So I gave Grace two stars on her star chart, for being a kind person, and she left my classroom feeling a lot happier than when she entered.

A gang of Year 10 girls appeared. 'Can we leave our bags in your room whilst we do our exam?' they said. Feeling the warm glow of benevolence I said they could.
As the last girl left, and I wished her luck, she paused at the doorway.

'Have you got a pen I could borrow?' she said.

Blagging

There's a certain amount of blagging that goes on during Parents' Evenings. Take today, for example. Time to tell the Year 7 mums and dads what I thought of their various off-spring and the progress they are making in English.

Big smiles! Chirpy cheerful demeanour. Handshakes! How are you? Lovely to meet you!

Etc, etc...

And part of the blagging involves, unfortunately, the bending of the truth. In the case of this evening...

'Will you be teaching Carly/Jake/ Molly/ Katie/Tamara/ Ben next year?' asked many parents. 'Only they like you. They think you are a good teacher. They are making progress with you.'

Ah, I'm thinking. Because I haven't told my students I am leaving. It pays not to, because then they stop bothering about their work because they feel you can't be bothered with them. And trying to explain to them that it isn't them you can't be bothered with, it's the stupid red-tape, bureaucracy, educational advisors who know nothing about today's students in the classroom, senior management who chip away at your confidence - well, it just doesn't work. Best just to slip away in the summer and let them pick up a fresh start in the fresh year with a fresh teacher, no tears.

So I said, 'Oh, the timetable hasn't been settled yet.' Which is true, because it hasn't. No lies.

And thus I survived the evening - two and a half hours of non-stop chat, ploughing my way through 21 sets of parents. And just as I was about to leave, another parent stopped me.

'It is you!' she said. And it was, because I am.

The parent was the mother of a boy whom I taught at my last school, a boy who had been in my tutor group for 5 years, so I knew the parent pretty well. And her youngest son goes to my current school.

'So, you work here now!' she continued. 'That's encouraging!'

So I blagged a bit more, asked after my ex-student, who, by all accounts, still needs a rocket up his backside to get him motivated to do anything.

And then I came home. Pooped. But happy that, despite what my Headteacher says, and despite what the witch queen of a so-called education advisor says in their random lessons observations, I am a good teacher because my students say so, and their parents are happy with the service I am providing. And they are the ones who really matter.

And now I'm going to have a hot shower to wash away the day, and come back and tell you about the struggle I had yesterday with a naan bread.

Which will be far more entertaining.

Nick Names and Sellotape

Today, a child tried to convince me he would prefer to be called 'Cow Pat' rather than his given name which neither looked nor sounded like Cow Pat.

I declined his request. I said, 'I shall call everyone in this class by the names I have in my register until I know you well enough to call you anything else.' And I suspect I shall never know this small child well enough to feel comfortable calling him Cow Pat.

Of course, if a student called Joshua, or Joseph, or Benjamin for example, asks to be called Josh, Joe or Ben, then I'll do that. Mostly because I think it is effective to re-lengthen the name in order to show disapproval about something. My son, Chris, certainly knew when he was younger that if I called him 'Christopher' he'd probably committed some kind of misdemeanour.

My nick-name when I was a child was kindly bestowed upon me by my fairy god-mothers aka my aunties Pollie and Nece, who called me 'Sneezy.' I don't know why. I suppose it rhymes vaguely with Denise; I don't remember being a particularly sneezy child.

At primary school. Jeremy Saunders called me 'Pink Elephant.' Only once, though. A dead arm was called for and duly delivered. I wasn't very practiced in self-control at that age.

And then I was nick-nameless until I got married for the first time and my then husband's family took it upon themselves to call me 'Den.' I didn't like it. No-one had shortened my already short name before then, and no-one has shortened it since. 'Den' indeed. Ha!

Odd request of the day goes to a Year 11 girl who bounced into my classroom Period 2 and asked if I had any sellotape.
'My tights are covered in bobbles and fluff,' she said.
I duly provided her with some sellotape and watched as she tore reams of it from the roll, and used it a la leg-wax style to de-bobble and de-fluff her 40 derniers.

It's odd, some of things youngsters worry about these days, isn't it?

Meanwhile, the snow here is now Pandora and a half deep. I have been requested, because I am within walking distance of the school, to be ready to go in tomorrow as one of 8 skeleton staff to teach Year 11. Now, walking distance is 45 minutes at a brisk trot on clean and dry pavements. Factor in eight inches of snow covered in ice, and with a nasty gale blowing, I'm thinking I may need to set off at 6 am to arrive by 8.30. This is one instance where a bunch of 15 year olds may prove to be more sensible than us adults.

Wish me luck, then, as I struggle to work in the morning. I may be gone some time...

Old Hens and New Tricks

'We need you take us shopping,' said the girls. 'We'd go ourselves only you're the one with the credit card.'
'Unless WHSmiths has started bartering in eggs,' said Mrs Miggins.
'Not as far as I am aware,' I said. 'What are we shopping for?'
'Well,' said Mrs Slocombe, 'it's back to school week, isn't it?'
'And part of the excitement of going back to school is buying new stationery,' added Mrs Pumphrey. 'Like folders and pencils and cute notebooks with bunnies on the front.'

I thought back to when I was a school girl and yes, every September one of my quiet joys was to stock up on brand new bits and bobs for the new school year. It was always a shame that they had to be used, I thought. Especially for waste of time or boring subjects like Maths and German.

And then I thought back to the times I was teaching and the start of a new school year instilled less of a thrill and more a sense of impending doom. Well, not immediately because the first couple of days back were always staff development days and it was good to catch up with colleagues who looked happy and refreshed after the long summer. Hopes and ambitions were high for the new term because, of course, ALL the students who'd given us grief the previous year would have undergone a miraculous growth in maturity over the summer. But when they returned, they'd behave for about four days until they'd re-established the lay of the land and got their feet under (or more likely on top of) the table and then you'd find yourself counting the days until the October half term. And no amount of shiny new pencil cases and untouched by human hand erasers was going to lessen the horror.

'This may have escaped your notice,' I said, 'but you don't go and have never been to school.'

'Well, we're going this year,' said Miggins. 'We have enrolled in the Aristotle Plato Hencademy.'
'They teach the classics, you know,' said Mrs Pumphrey.
'You don't say,' I said.
'I do think you can't beat a classical education,' said Mrs Miggins. 'None of these new fangled diplomas and beak-techs for us.'
'It's BTEC,' I said.
'How do you spell that?' said Slocombe.
'B for bee, T for tea, E for Egg and C for cat,' I said.
'Shouldn't it be C for sea?' said Mrs Slocombe.
'Given the state of the National Literacy Strategy I wouldn't be surprised,' I said.

So I took the girls shopping in town. We made a morning of it, stopping for elevenses at our favourite olde-worlde tea shoppe. Mrs Miggins examined her purchases.
'Aren't new note books lovely,' she said, inhaling the heady scent of virgin paper.
I agreed they were.
'And what do you think of my new pencil case?' she asked. 'Not too pretentious?'
'No,' I said. 'I think a pencil case in the shape of Einstein's head with 'I AM A GENIUS' printed across his moustache is perfectly acceptable for a hen of your obvious academic calibre.'
'Thought so,' said Miggins, wiping a blob of hot chocolate and cream from her beak.