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.