Ok guys, so sorry for the wait (and thank you to all those people that are reading this and responding and commenting and saying 'hurry up and write another entry Allie!' It means a lot to me, even if you're only reading find out what battle scars I received from another day teaching in London! Well, ok, so the big news which many of you have already gathered is that I have changed teaching jobs! Yay! New (hopefully less frightening) school and shiny new teaching position for me to tackle. OK, so for those not in the know, teaching in London schools is pretty challenging across the board. The education system seems to be in the recovery stages after years of mismanagement and mentalness. I don't know all and I know that others have had totally different experiences teaching here to me, but what I do know is that British schools have to compete for credibility and by competing, i mean through kids' scores, exam results and general academic prowess, schools are watched and inspected and graded to check if they're up to scratch, there's a history of teachers picking teaching because of the freedom it offers, so teaching is not always up to scratch and multiculturalism leads to cultural tensions in classrooms, in many cases. All this I experienced the effects of first hand. There's also much more of a significant divide between the rich and the poor here than in Australia. It's much more explicit here than back home, at least in the city. If you can afford it, you send your kids to a private school, if not then they're in the publis system. There doesn't seem to be much of the affordable middle ground stuff we get back home. In London, which is a big old city with lots of pockets of less wealthy people living in housing commission flats or down and out areas, there are lots of rough schools. By rough, I mean loads of fighting but also tons of verbal abuse at teachers (and often physical violence too), swear words thrown around casually that I've, in some cases, never even heard of, constant talking, running around the classroom, ignoring the teacher and even ignoring the head of the school, and threats of violence towards people ('when I'm not in my school uniform you watch out man, cos I'm gonna bang you' - a phrase that I was pretty shocked by, first because I was like 'bang me...you're gonna sleep with me?' then more frightened when I realised bang means to hold a gun to someone's head and shoot them. The main ways the kids attack you is initially through completely ignoring you, then through hurling verbal abuse at you, walking right up to you and taking stuff off your desk, throwing it round the room, etc. The kids at my school had multiple ways of making you feel threatened and totally out of control. A policeman on campus seemed odd to me at first, but then it became a relief... Now, not all London schools are like this. Certainly, most (if not all) London schools have rough kids and tons of mixed ethnicity which contributes to tensions (or did at my school) but my school seemed kind of exceptionally mental, partly because of constant staff turnover (which contributed massively to kids disrespecting us, cos in theory we weren't going to last there - I did notice that staff that had been there longer were much better respected because of their constancy, and there were some GREAT teachers there) and partly because of it's status as an 'academy'. Academy is such a lovely sounding word - your first image is of something uniform and orderly and proper. But no, in London, academies started opening in the late 90s after REALLY dodgy schools were shut down due to chronic failures, teacher walkouts, serious violence and in some cases, gang warfare, etc. My academy USED to be a worse school than now- a frightening prospect - and was shut down, then financed by a wealthy benefactor who put his name to it and 8 other schools in the South of London and began running the school like a big business. Students earn money in their school bank accounts when they get good grades of gold slips, assemblies resemble business meetings or Amway launches where kids are revved up to achieve, posters everywhere have Big Brotheresque messages on them like 'Achievement is success', all lessons are taught with classroom dorrs wide open and you can be observed and graded on your lesson at anytime, teachers get paid more if they sign a contract to work at an academy and they get similar benefits and systems to working in professional sectors. The look of the school is sleek and modern and the expectations of staff to 'meet targets' and 'grow the capital' of students is incredible (and incredibly draining). The main issue I had, from early on, is that a school like this is micro managed and teachers are rarely drawn to teaching if they're business minded. The main principle of people working at that school was simply to be a 'yes man' or 'yes woman' and do exactly as they're told, odd considering the usual self directedness of teaching. Even in meetings, people would broach a concern using businesslike language eg: 'I'm understanding what you're putting forth here, but I must inform you that I find that information very de-motivating for me as an educator'. My feeling was that while other departments seemed pretty fine, English didn't run well. There was frequent staff turnover and far too many staff being overworked to fill gaps left by leaving teachers. In some cases, I was the fifth teacher to have my classes since September. Fifth! I started teaching the same day as two other lovely Aussie girls, who both ended up leaving the Friday before I resigned on the Monday. It definitely wasn't just the kids, 'kids are kids' all over the world and even kids that threaten to bang you (whatever they're meaning) can be managed and will respond (eventually) if they feel cared for and about, for me it was more about the mismanagement of my department, and just feeling totally taken advantage of. I think it was this conversation that finally sealed my fate at this school and lead me to resign the next morning: Me: 'Um, excuse me (insert department head's name here), I've just noticed my students' coursework seems to be missing...' Her: 'Oh yes. Well, now that you're their teacher, you can sort that out. It's good they'll finally have one teacher who can consolidate it all. Remember though, coursework needs to be submitted by Easter'. Now, I've paraphased but the essentials are there, and for those not in the know...these were Year 11 students. Their coursework is ALL MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS SINCE YEAR 9. All of it. Missing. Me. Responsible for teaching it, marking it, returning drafts, collecting again, helping with redrafting, marking again, collecting and submitting kids' work from the past two years. And the thing that really got me, after I flatly refused to do it and questioned how this had all happened, how these kids had been so grossly overlooked, was that I was simply told 'sometimes you just inherit a bad workload' and it was insisted that I do it. Suffice to say, I resigned the next day. For me, it was more about not being respected enough to be informed about this in the first place or assisted to tackle it. If they'd been more accomodating or upfront, they'd have realised I'm the kind of teacher who will solve these kinds of issues. But to care, you have to feel cared about. I told her (one of my finer moments, I feel) 'This is the Titanic. Nobody wants to be here. Everyone wants off.' It's true. Of the other teachers in the English department, two left before me, then I left, and three others are seeking other work. It'll end up being just the head on her own. Sad, for the kids. They're the ones that end up losing. So, after resigning on Monday I thought I'd take a couple of days off to relax, do a couple of days of supply work, then find something more permanent for after half term break (12-21st Feb) but as it turned out, a school needed someone for a meternity position effective immediately. I had resigned effective Friday, but luckily I never kept anything valuable at that school, cos I ended up interviewing on Thursday, getting my new job on Friday. Wednesday was my last ever day at there. I never have to go in again. I never have to call a mother again and say: 'Tequila, your son threatened me today.' Yes, I did have to call a mother whose name is Tequila. Often. My favourite conversation with her son? Me: Get out of my classroom' Him: 'No way man, no way. You're not my friend'. Me: 'I'm not your friend. I'm your teacher.' Him: 'I don't care what you are. I'm telling you, you're not my friend man.' Me: 'I know, I'm not your friend. I'm your teacher'. Him: 'I said i don't care what you are. You're not my friend'. And so on...until the policeman arrived and pulled him ranting and raving away. Is it any wonder that on my last day, in the midst of these kids rambling at me, i started saying: 'Losers says what?' under my breath, waiting gleefully like a five year old for them to say 'What?' Anyway , onwards and upwards, positive thinking, i say. So, on Friday i started at a lovely Church of England School in Ruslip Manor, a more "La Di Da' area just out of North West London. I wasn't looking for a perfect school, just somewhere more manageable. The school itself seems lovely, and there are squirrels outside my office window so all signs, at this stage, point to 'Yes please!' I'll keep you posted on what comes next. So, school madness aside, we have managed in the midst of all this to do some really fun stuff. I will say that this school stuff has absolutely consumed time here, and that coupled with the saddest news about Oscar, my darling cat passing, has meant that our early days here haven't been as much fun and games as we'd originally hoped, but now, with any luck, things will improve. In the last few weeks we have managed to do loads of little fun things here and there though. We've done lots of shopping, Ross has bought a guitar, we've caught up some more with Brad and Bek, who are finally revelling in their new home with no awful housemates to deal with, we've seen another show on West End ('Jersey Boys' again - such a fab show), dawdled around the toy section at Harrods, marvelling at life size jungle stuffed animals, watching magic tricks and having stickers hand made for me, done dinner in China Town, gone to Shakespeare's Globe for a theatre tour (incredible), walked the streets of Parliament and along the Thames (thank you Mum for that great walking guide card set - excellent Chrissy present!), gone to a local Farmer's Market and the famous Brixton Market on Electric Avenue and the fabulous Borough Market near London Bridge, bought treats to send home to Stef, posed awkwardly with guards, discovered a depressing street nearby that is (almost cruelly) Paradise Road and eaten great food - we've even started buying groceries and takeway Indian online. We've booked our mid term trip - to Prague and Budapest! Two weeks to go! On the home front, I have learnt how to make fool-proof poached eggs. Ross and I were total losers and joined other total losers at Platform 9 3/4 ala Harry Potter (you know you're jealous). I am also at six mice sightings in the tube, and counting. I have taken a real liking to subway vermon. There's something strangely comforting about their constancy. More photos on Facebook and more news soon. Love.
