12MEC

Formerly known as 12ST, this group is now known as 12MEC. The 12 is for year 12, the MEC is, you guessed it, my initials.

They are a great bunch of kids--the best and brightest St. Peter's has to offer. Not all kids in England opt to do Sixth Form. A majority go to college, or into the work force. The top students often opt for Sixth Form to help prep for university.

The Sixth Form at St. Peter's is relatively small--about 130 kids, I think. We have two groups of year 13 (13MP and 13PL) and three groups of year 12 (12MEC, 12SJB, and 12LFK). Each group is approximately 20 kids--mine just dropped to 18 after exams, because three girls are not moving on to year 13.

I've been with this group since October or November. I was previously sharing 13MP with Marie, but 12ST needed a new tutor when Suzanne took the head of year 12 post. Ruth (Head of Sixth Form) asked me to take the year 12 group "until Christmas." I agreed.

At first I regarded it as sort of a babysitting job--I would look after this group until Suzanne returned to them and I could go back to my year 13s. I didn't really attempt to get to know them at first because of this. In fact, I almost resented their presence in my music room each morning. Before long, however, I realized that I would be a more permanent tutor to these year 12s I barely knew.

So I started really learning names, and trying harder to tell Richard from Matt (who look nothing alike to me now) and to differentiate Sophie from Zoe (who also, now, do not look a thing alike to me). I made an effort to find out things about them, and to chat with them in the mornings, when I wasn't shouting at them to turn in their General Studies, for heaven's sake!

And wouldn't you know it, pretty soon I came to the stunning realization that I was really starting to like these kids.

Every time something needed to be done, it seems that my kids were there, doing it. It seemed every committee I saw gathered in the Sixth Form study room had a large number of students from 12ST. I became more and more proud of these kids. They are hard-working, talented, and just plain nice 16-year-olds. They put up with my odd sense of humor and my cluelessness about how they are to go about applying for university. They get along well with each other, and if occasionally I have to tell them off for playing cards in morning registration (a big no-no) or for not doing their General Studies work, well, that's life when you're a teacher. And it happens only rarely with these kids.

Sometime in the spring term one of the computer guys at school got into the system and changed 12ST to 12MEC. I made a big deal about it one morning in registration, how proud I was to finally have my initials on the register sheet. I got a lot of raised eyebrows and amused smiles that morning. I couldn't really explain it to them, but I was so happy to finally have some proof that they were my group, not someone else's. That is how proud of these kids I am.

Recently we held a series of school-wide elections to whittle a group of 19 year 12s down to 6 (3 boys, 3 girls) to make up the Head Boy and Head Girl Team. Of the six who made the team, a Head Boy and Head Girl would be chosen. From the three year 12 groups came the final six--and I am always pleased to point out (even when not asked) that 50% of the final six on the team are from 12MEC. One, Tobias, even made Head Boy.

The Sixth Formers have been knee-deep in exams for the past few weeks. Today is the first day they've been back in my room for registration each morning. I had a 2-page list of things to go over with them, and one item of business that Ruth had not asked me to share--my leaving.

A few kids have already approached me to say they heard I'm leaving. I figured, even if I'm not telling the younger kids, the Sixth Form kids have the right to know. So I announced it this morning and told them, "If I had decided to stay, one of the biggest reasons would have been working with Sixth Form."

And my eyes teared up!

I heard a few kids say, "Oh, Miss..." It was pretty sweet. So I said, "Right...this is how the next five weeks are going to be! I'll stop talking about it!"

And I will, for now.