Last week of term

I've made it to the Easter holidays and this week at schools has been horrendous. Most of the prep and private schools closed last week for a three week break so I knew I was going to end up in state schools. Let's just say the last week of term is not a good time to be a supply teacher in new schools with teenagers!

Monday and Tuesday I was at a faith-based school way out of London (I had to buy a train ticket to get there!). They are rated 'Outstanding" by OFSTED (kind of like ERO in NZ) which is the highest a school can be rated. I thought that would mean the students were good but it was a hard couple of days. One of the biggest fears as a teacher is standing in front of a class, calling for silence, and having the room ignore you. This happened a number of times and really tested my patience as well as strategies for dealing with that. I also had a couple of quite rude students who flat out refused to do what they were asked but thankfully the school had a good system for removing those students from class. On Tuesday school finished at 2:30 which was a blessing to get out of there quickly but it then took me three hours to get home (should have only been an hour). Someone had committed suicide on the train tracks earlier in the day and the trains were no longer running. It is distressing how often this happens. I waited an hour at the train station as they said the trains would resume service "shortly" before giving up and taking the bus!

So I thought those two days were rough but it was nothing compared to Wednesday. Normally I know where I am going at least the night before but most of this week has meant getting up as normal, calling the agency at 7am, and then seeing if there is any work for that day. Wednesday, the only job going was at an academy in a poorer part of London. The agency warned me that behaviour might be an issue but that the support was really good so I went. Big mistake. Worst day I have ever had at school. Being male, older, and black would probably have made things easier but not by much. These kids were awful. Would not be quiet, would not do the work, screamed in my face, threw things around the classroom, gave fake names, pretended not to speak English, called me names, randomly left the classroom etc. Yes, a teacher would come when I emailed for help but they couldn't remove all students and the class would go back to being terrible the moment they left the room. The worst was last period of the day when two year 8 boys had a full-on punching fight and I had to step in between them to break it up. I sent students to get other teachers to help and they just came back with their friends to watch. The only positives from the day were; nobody died, I got paid, I never have to go back, and I didn't cry till after the students left at the end of the day.

Thankfully Thursday was a much easier day at an all boys Catholic school though I still had to be no nonsense the entire day and not take my eyes off the class for a second. They were at least mostly polite though keeping quiet was still a major struggle. Today, there is no work as it is the last day of term and while I miss the pay, at least I don't have to see any teenagers! I now have two weeks of break and am going to see some friends in a couple of different places and will do some prep for the new job.