A Big Job

Firstly, I have a job for September! It is a teaching job, which is okay, and it is a teaching job with 'responsibilities' which is also okay but with extra money! The school I am at now asked if I'd be interested in staying on to cover a year of maternity leave, and that it was very likely that this time next year, when Maternity Leaver returns (providing she doesn't give birth to quadruplets, because no-one in their right mind should even think about going back to teaching if they've just had quadruplets unless they are considering starting their own free-school catering from nursery to 6th form) there would be a permanent position for me to stay as long as I liked.

Well, I am oddly thrilled about this opportunity because...

1) it means that I know the school and the children, they know me and I shan't have to go through the stressy faff of getting to know a whole new set of people and buildings (which is a bonus given my appalling sense of direction and tendency to turn right out of every door which generally leads to the PE department which is bad because of the Lynx effect)

2) I'll be earning a darn good salary, which means either a) the mortgage can be paid off more quickly in keeping with the new Grand Plan or b) I can blow it all on fripperies if I've had a particularly challenging day/week/ term/ experience with recalcitrant Year 8s.

3) I am going to be teaching more 6th form, which is something that has passed me by, save a brief encounter teaching the Jacobean revenge tragedy 'Tis Pity She's a Whore' to some oddly shy and speechless Year 12s about 5 years ago. Teaching 6th form is good. The groups are smaller and generally speaking the tantrums and idleness are over and you're actually working with students who want to learn.

4) I get to gather evidence to go through what is called 'Threshold' which will put me on an upper pay scale which means extra money which will fund my 'Doing a Masters' plan. Actually, the school have hinted there may be some money in the budget to assist me with this as part of my continued professional development, but they were more interested in my ideas to take a TEFL course, which is Teaching English as a Foreign Language and not, as Mrs Slocombe would have it, Tossing Eggs For Laughs. The TEFL course idea is because, being in Kent, we are getting more and more immigrant children in our schools, and I thought it might help me help them to learn English better.

So, I am all in excitement about September. The school is becoming an Academy faith school, and a chaplain who wears Doc Martens has been employed. I like this also. There are going to be Chapters, like in a university. They are going to be called Faith, Hope and Charity. I think the English Department is in Faith. Each Chapter has its own colour of tie - purple, turquoise or lime green. The older girls are worried about the lime green option. Something about it clashing with their foundation, or their hair or sumfing or nuffing or sumfing. (And those of you who work with teenage girls, and know the method with which they apply their foundation, will be laughing like drains at this point. Thick 'n' orange for those of you who remain mystified.)

'Will we have to pray?' said a Year Nine, when we got chatting about the imminent changes.
'You think that as a teacher I don't do that already?' I said.
She didn't quite get what I was saying.
'I like the new uniform,' she said, by way of distracting me from any potential religious talk.
'It's very smart, isn't it?' I said.
'Especially the dress jacket with the bright pink lining...'

Yes, indeed. Dress jackets. Like proper business suit jobbies. No boxy, polyester static-inducing blazers here. It's a very sleek and smart looking combination. And it's not often you find a group of students who are actually looking forward to wearing a uniform. I almost feel I need to revamp my own image, so I don't let the side down. In fact, I think I shall. (Change my image, not let the side down, I mean).

This weekend looks set for rain. I don't mind. I'm settling down with the Duchess of Malfi, The Great Gatsby, Antony and Cleopatra and A Brave New World (which, oddly enough, I have just re-read and been suitably appalled by).

And somewhere in the background, Captain Corelli will be playing his Mandolin.