Back to Sweating the Small Stuff...

I'll start with Thursday. Good old hectic Thursday.

Thursday found me arriving at St. Peter's at 6:45 in the morning. A new record, I think. I spent an hour setting work for the day before walking to the train station to catch the 8:21 London-bound train.

Unfortunately, I was not going to London. I changed at Wickford and headed back East to Rayleigh. I was to visit the Deanes School and Tony, the AST (Advanced Skills Teacher) for Music in Essex county.

I spent a good few hours with Tony, going over some of the GCSE coursework that had been turned in. Tony, as ever, was helpful and encouraging. Even told me he'd like to recommend me to a school in Colchester that is looking for a music teacher. I was tempted for all of 15 minutes, but it sounded like a fixer-upper to me, and Lord knows, I'm looking for something more established this time around.

I got back to school during lunchtime and found that my fifth lesson was covered, so I could get some serious work done. Yay! I spent fifth period with a classful of noisy year 7s to my back, headphones on, listening to the rest of the exam CD.

Freak-out Friday

Friday was the deadline for my music kids to finish GCSE coursework. Before first lesson, I had already locked myself in the ladies twice to "calm down" and clean myself up. My eye makeup was demolished before I did any teaching at all.

My fellow year 12 mentors, Stuart and Louisa, have their kids come to my room every Monday and Friday for registration, so we can go over General Studies. I saw Stuart in the hallway and received from him the usual smile and, "Hiya Meg, how are you?" He received in turn a not-so-usual, *long pause* *deep breath* "I'm fine, Stuart, how are you?" He just laughed, gave me a knowing look and told me something along the lines of "hang in there."

I was given second and third lessons off timetable to go to the studio with my kids and finish recording coursework. First lesson found me stewing and stressing in a room full of hyperactive, low-ability 13-year-olds.

I was minding my own business, having passed out the year 9 assessment I gave last week, when in walks Gary, one of the deputy heads, asking about the progress with my GCSE coursework.

Let me insert right here that the other deputy head, David, is the one in charge of curriculum, and I have not once spoken to Gary about my GCSE group.

"Oh, they're okay. I'll be in the studio with them 2nd and 3rd lesson today, and possibly after school."

"Good, good."

The above exchange was all in undertones, as Gary could see that I had students taking a test. He turned to go. As he reached the door, he turned around and said loudly enough for the whole class to hear, "Because you know, if you don't finish this today, they will all fail GCSE music."

"Yes. I know this." Tight smile.

And off went Captain Obvious on his merry way, leaving me to fume quietly over his massive display of unprofessionalism.

Fortunately, it was all uphill from there. We got everything recorded, filled out, signed, sealed and ready for marking. Hallelujah!

The Weekend

I spent Saturday marking coursework. Each student had to turn in two compositions and do three performances. One performance has to be of one of their compositions. I have to mark for accuracy, interpretation, creativity, etc. It's hard! But I feel confident that I got it pretty right.

My kids did very well on the performance part, but they were weaker on the composition part. It is to be expected, seeing as how they have now completed a two-year course in eight months.

All thanks to the hard work, dedication and near panic-attack of their devoted teacher, Miss Cooper.

Sunday was gorgeous so I found myself walking in Burnham, along the river and through the riverside park. Later on I found myself enjoying Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Of course, since then, I have had the news of Bruce and the always-important reminder that life is too precious to sweat the small stuff.

This week will be a bit nutty because the school has finally put the year 9s on the Behaviour For Learning policy. The year 7s and 8s have been on it since January and it seems to work pretty well. We expect huge battles with the year 9s, but they are a particularly horrid group. Probably the worst year group in the school. It happens everywhere. Most year groups are good, with 1 or 2 major instigators who quickly get squashed when they realize they are alone in wanting to create chaos. Then you get a year that has about twenty or thirty of the little buggers, and there's not much you can do except to push them through school and get them out of your hair as quickly as possible. I saw this phenomenon in my student teaching, and in Elverta.

So here I find myself on Tuesday morning, with an extra free period because my year 10s are out for two weeks on something called Extended Work Experience. They basically go to work every day for two weeks. And we teachers get 3 extra free periods for two weeks.

Lovely!