Having been lent this yonks ago, I’ve been feeling guilty about not reading it but, I’ll be honest, I find it hard to read fiction written for adults during term time. YA or novels I’ve read before, yes. Those I let myself read because I know that I can either finish them quickly or put […]
Tag: #theidealisticteacher
Round Three: Magisterium
For the entirety of this year, one of my year seven students has been telling me to read the Magisterium series. It started with her own excitement and a brief, “You should read this book I’m reading!” and became, as the year went on, much more insistent and much more disappointed as I failed in […]
Round Two: Skullduggery Pleasant
Recently, a colleague stopped me in the corridor. His face was a mixture of concern and outrage. Without knowing what was wrong or, indeed, what I had done wrong, I ploughed in with the question: “Is everything ok? Are you ok?” “Well,” he replied, “I thought that you were an English teacher.” “I am!” “But […]
Welcome to Book Review Season! Round One: Mortal Engines
With school a long forgotten memory behind us (having started week two of the holidays), it seems only natural that the Summer of an English teacher is dedicated to reading and what could be better than the dedicate the blog to the god of reading? As I’ve said in previous blogs, my love of reading […]
Loving Literature for Life…
I’ve always loved reading. Before I could even read you can spot me in childhood photos with a book on my lap. It might be one of my own picture books or I might have snatched a book from the adult holding me but it will be there. As soon as I could read, it was […]
How Can We Make Teaching Fun and Why Should We Bother?
It’s a dreary day, the rain’s pouring outside, the students are damp and mud-stained from playing football on the cesspool of a field, the classroom is a murky shade of what used to be white with displays half peeled from the walls by year seven fiddlers. Never an ideal location for fun. Or a lesson […]
What’s The Point Of Assessment?
At times is can feel like our piles of marking grow and grow like weeds in the Summer. It’s easy to feel powerless against the tide or to even fall into the trap of thinking that it’s pointless. The truth is that assessment is essential. But it’s only effective if it’s done well. What’s the […]
Why Do We Even Do This Job?
It’s nearing the end of the school year and, exhausted as we are, I bet that most of us are actually feeling pretty nostalgic about it already. Why? Because this is the point in the year where some of our students say, “Thank you!” It might be that they randomly drop by our classroom or […]
Our Attitude Is Everything.
We’ve all faced difficult students. It was only last Friday that I dealt with one of the most difficult behaviour challenges of my career, facing a non-compliant, defiant, aggressive student. And yet, I still think that it is fair to say that it is our attitude which determines how effective our teaching is. We could […]
Teacher Mental Health Is At An All Time Low: The Current Management Focus On It Is, At Best, Patronising And, At Worst, Actively Damaging. Discuss.
At lunch today, with a group of colleagues, we were discussing the impact of teaching on our mental health. Unanimously the verdict came in: devastating. Yet, I think that, without exception, we all love teaching. With so much pressure, regular observations, extreme workloads, is it possible for us to protect ourselves and our mental health […]