Open Day

Today was open day at the school that I work. When the head originally annouced in briefing that the school was hosting an open day for prospective year 7 students, I had visions of parents coming in to grill each member of the staff on how they perform. The reality? Quite different.

Down in one of the English classrooms with one other teacher and the head of the department we had a group of current little year 7 students. The aim was to display to visiting parents and their offspring was to display the type of activities their kids could expect to be involved in if they came to the school. So what did we do? We set the kids the task of creating an impromptu play.

Asking the kids what story they wanted to act, they chose Peter Pan. Ok, fine, fair enough. first they had to brainstorm all the characters and the locations and then they had to write 4 scenes to perform. The next thing I know there is a tiny year 7 girl under a table with a sheet of paper on her head. When asked what she was doing ? She happily informed that she was playing Nana and that the table was the kennel!!!

Then the little lad playing Peter, decided he wanted a hat and that it had to be green. So I looked inside the cupboard in the classroom and spotted a large green sheet of paper. PerfectI thought!
Taking the piece of paper out I olded it up and turned it into a hat for little Peter Pan, who was extremely proud of his attire.

The department head looking closely at the hat, noticed some writing. Then asked "Is that my SATs Poster?" To my horror and embarrassment I realised it was - Oooops! I thought she was going to kill me, but thankfully she didn't!

Meanwhile parents were wandering around the building going in and out of classrooms. Those brave enough to entre the chaos that was the English room were greeted by the farcical scene of 1 child pretending to be a dog and another pretending to fly by lying half on a table! God knows what they actually thought and what the connection to English was!!

Saying that some of the kids that came, you could just take one look at them and you knew exactly what kind of kid he/she was. The type you knew were going to be proper little nightmares!!! Myself and the other teachers would just look at each other and pray that the parents would opt for the school down the road!

To be honest, while I love my job and I don't mind living in England. Working in an English school makes you more aware of how English society works. You got the ordinary decent people that you would find in any country and then you got those that I could only as a foreigner describe as quintessentially English. That smug self-satisfied, we are vastly superior to all others attitude that only the English really seem to have! It's hard to explain exactly - I guess the only way I can explain these kind of people to others is to explain about the English obsession with queing. Your in a store and their is a que for the checkout. Everybody ques in a nice orderly patient manner - that is until they are almost at the counter - than the polite waiting is fecked out the window and the idea of waiting even the 30 seconds it takes you to put your stuff in your bag is completely chucked out the window! Oh no! They couldn't possibly wait another moment, they are pushing you aside, leaning over, shouting over your shoulder their haste for attention. It has to be the most maddening thing and completely sums up the total disregard that people have for others. - arghhhhhhh.

Why can the council Never get your pay right??

Is it a little too much to ask, that the council actually pay you correctly? I mean what exactly is the story with this? I have never met anyone who has not had trouble when being paid by the council!

You know how it is! You've been studying for the last year, so you have existed on feck all cash and then you start your new job. The first really important question you ask is...... When do we get paid? As soon as you know when you are getting paid, you get out the diary and in BIG RED LETTERS you write YIPPEE PAY DAY!!!!!!

So everyday, you mark the day off the calender bringing you closer to that day when you will actually have money, dreaming of all the things you can buy when you get it.

The day finally arrives, you excitedly run to the computer and switch it on. You wait about a 3o min (if it's mean and your computer is so overloaded it takes forever to boot) and log on to Internet banking to see how much you got!

SCORE!!! Their is money in my account, but hey wait just a sec something looks decidedly wrong! GOD DAMN IT, half my money is missing!!

So I rang the pay department and spoke to some idiot in the council and asked him to check what had happened, he comes back and not only tells me that everything is correct, but he actually has the affront to say 'Oh, you know the tax free allowance has gone up, so you should be better off this month'.

Like what the f**k???????? Hanging up completely depressed I stupidly took his word for it and rang a fellow newbie to commiserate. Talking to her I realised the idiot was wrong and everything was not OK on my account.

So instead of ringing the council again I rang the tax office directly, to check what was happening on their side and surprise surprise - the idiots hadn't processed my P45 (declaration of income that you get from previous employer and give to new employer) so I was still on emergency tax!

What is the point of handing in a P45, which is supposed to prevent you from being emergency taxed, when you end up being emergency taxed already????

I dunno. Are all councils useless all over the world or is their some really scary Stepford wives imitation of a council office out there????

Have I been drugged with looney pills or have I actually gone insane? THAT is the question!

OK, so I finally made it. It's official I am a qualified secondary school teacher! I actually survived a year as a student teacher and by god did those kids put me through hell sometimes!

Unfortunately or fortunately that has yet to be decided, I have not let the kids scare me off just yet and so I have embarked on what will probably be a very interesting, hair pulling (almost get arrested for wanting to batter kids - just joking :) ) year.

I mean how the hell did that happen? What have I done? Have I gone completely insane or has someone slipped me some kind of drug a couple of years ago that has yet to wear off, but will suddenly wear off at that really inopportune moment just as I'm bollocking some kid for what ever stupidity they have decided to commit that day and realise that I have actually turned in to my mother and go screaming from the building!!!

But hey we can all dream, fortunately for me I actually think its the former - I have gone completely insane :).

The first month hasn't been too bad. The first week apparently was typical - aka the honeymoon period. Which is when the kids weigh you up and decide if you are an easy target or if they will actually have to work in this lesson and therefore attempt to lure you into a false sense of security. It's a little like a pack of wolves who decide to roll over and play with their tales instead of attacking, but are secretly just waiting AND hoping for you to make one small tiny mistake and then they will jump on you like the killers they really are and devour you!!! No seriously I am so not exaggerating!!

Thankfully, they haven't attacked me outright, yet! There have been several moments of squaring up where the kids have tried to push me to their limits, but have decided to retreat for safety while they plan their next form of attack. So as you can guess from this the honeymoon is well and truly over! But I won't go down without a fight!!!