This week I have been to a different school everyday. Although on Monday I didn't work, but got a phonecall asking me to interpret over the phone, which I did- for all of ten minutes. It works quite well.

Wednesday saw me in Bromsgrove, which is miles away, South of Birmingham, in Worcestershire. I was lead to believe it was going to be a 'trial day', in which I would be watched for the purpose of possibly appointing me as a history teacher, in fact, it was nothing of the sort. It was just 'general cover' and I had to teach geography, music, some history; which went very well as it was about Stalingrad, some maths and, finally, with a group of three we just sat in the library and discussed society's ills! I also had to take one class to the hall for an assembly all about 'dads'. It was cringeworthily, 'let's feel good about dads'. Some of the kids smothered laughs.

It was a good school, not dissimilar to Vandyke, with a definite middle class element- there was that sort of slightly mocking, haughtiness about some of the kids. In the rougher schools, you don't get that- you just get in-your-face abuse and kids demanding attention. I was at a rough primary school in Smethwick on Thursday and I had to tell this black girl in Year 6 to stop grabbing things from me. One boy lifted up a chair to hurl at someone, but, luckily didn't and I had to send him out. During the lunch-hour I spent a pleasant time in the company of one NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher), who was exactly like female, white, student teachers were like when I was an NQT, i.e. full of talk, bubbling over with a gushing waterfall of stories, opinions, nothing nasty, you understand, but just slightly naive, unexperienced. But that, of course, makes for fun and she was fun. She wasn't old and dry and cynical and tired. She wasn't good-looking, either, you way you kind of expect student, female, white teachers-in-the-making to be. Oh, ain't it all a great big shame! I came back from that school- funnily enough, named, 'Devonshire'- in a somewhat foul mood having dished out some anger back to the kids, myself. Smethwick, if you're thinking of going there (I know it's one of mum's would-be destinations) is a kind of bricks and mortar place, with that solid, reliable, but crumbling red brick which exists everywhere in Birmingham. There was a pub, which I saw when we had heavy snow, about a month earlier, when I first arrived there and it was called, The Crown & Anchor and it was closed. It reminded me of some of those photographs from that book, The East End, that you've got, which featured, before the redevelopment of London's Docks, crumbling, disintegrating, weed-riven pubs, but, nevertheless, you could kind of feel the sense that, once, not all that long ago, they were alive and kicking, with tarts and sailors and dockers, 'I don't care 'ow late it is, I'm not goin' 'ome, I'm not goin' 'ome, not goin' 'ome/I'm 'avin a wonderful time!' and 'Oh, my, what a rotten song, what a rotten song, what a rotten song/what a rotten singer, too-oo-oo!' Anyway, the evidence of this pub, in ruins, but, clearly, handsome in its time, filled me with a kind of wistfulness that I'm particulary partial to. Opposite the train station, which is an odd building in itself- it fits, at an angle, atop the railway line, with a set of stairs and a ticket office which lead down to platform 1, while a seperate stair-case, accessible only from the street is how you reach the other platform. Life seems to be, quite often, spent in these desolate, windy, cold places staring at the leafless, barren trees, and the spots of paper-bag, or plastic that lie amongst the leaves. I once saw a rat, moving through the detritus. I hoped it wasn't, but it was. Opposite the train station is a Gurdwarha. You don't know what that means, because you're not a supply teacher. A Gurdwarha is a Sikh temple. It is big and ugly. Brash, even. It has zero taste. It is made of shiny metal and has red flags adorning it, poining upwards and a kind of cupola or two at the top. At the rear of the building, I noticed, were even more of the red brick, but a lot newer- and this supplier of said brick must've been delighted by these Asians who built this temple, because the whole of the back of the building was a kind of hymn of praise to this red brick which is hideous enough without having to fill every available space with it. I was looling for the eye-balm, let alone the eye-sore, of which I had plenty (Dave talks about looking for the piece of wood. He can only see niggers). There is an entrance to the Gurdwarha, like a kind of alley, and, here, you can see where the Sikhs place their shoes before going further in. I must say, though, that I've been quite impressed by Sikhs- the few that I've met. Although, one sold me a dodgy CD at the market, today...

Tuesday. Tuesday!, is so far away it's no longer of this week- I was at another primary school. This time much closer to home. It was in Erdington. Another one of mum's hot favourite places on earth. Erdington, or this, particular part, not far from the Bingo hall, which might as well be a kind of English ladies' Gurdwarha it's so huge and ugly, is another desolate, bleak place, with houses, upon houses. You can tell you're in a rough neighbourhood when people start parking their cars on the grass verges outside the houses and so these grass verges become muddy, ugly-looking things with deep car tyre tread marks riven into them. It's a bit like what orcs might do to the elves' kingdom (Lorian) if they had half-a-chance. I was at this primary school in Erdington. I had to get this dreadful bus which Okcana always moans about- the 28. It was ram-packed to the ceiling almost with school kids and passes through some delightful areas of North Birmingham, but also passes not far away from us. When I got off the bus, I noticed a previous student of mine also get off, but I don't think he recognised me, or wouldn't have expected to encounter me there and so didn't look to recognise me. I/we found ourselves in this grey, misty urban place with a park veiled in the morning mist, still. I decided to walk through the park to try and reach my destination, because parks, even at that time are preferable to streets and houses and cars. It was one of those 'urban parks' with the compulsory lake with swans on it that just depresses me. Somewhere, someone thinks a lake with swans on it will redeem everything, but it somehow seems to underline the awfulness of places.

Anyway, thankfully, that school- 'Marsh Hill', it was called- was O.K. and the teachers there were great. Quite a surprise. I found them friendly and cooperative and I was half-expecting to be there for quite sometime. I was introduced as such, 'thi

Supply teaching in a primary school and at a college

This week was more of the same, although I had one success at a primary school in a place called, Kitts Green. A dire area, looks-wise- just a sea of second-rate housing for the poor- a snooker hall, a GREGS, a chippy ('Open All Day'). Very depressing, but inside the primary school a delightful black woman who was taking the children through a series of 'tests'- literacy, and numeracy, even, some 'science', well, it was food technology, really. She did it like in a Bingo hall, and, the school hall was used, and the kids sat at round tables armed with pencils. I'd seen a similar thing done in Ryazan at the 'Free Litse' (a private school I taught at). After that, I had to teach the children how to write poems- which was easy, and it played to my strengths, and I had to talk to them about the story of Noah's Arc, and, I had to read to them a short extract and ask them to identify the adjectives, verbs in it. Finally, I had to get them to write up their poems on computers in the ICT suite. The kids were really good at this and listened and were, remarkably good. I have to admit I did have the help of a powerful, 'TA' (teaching assistant) to back me up. She had bleached hair that was short and shaved, and wore black nail varnish....but she had a laugh and a smile. The black woman who did the 'Bingo' with the pupils I was very impressed by, too. Instead of saying to them, 'No, that's wrong', she would say, 'Hold that thought there!' So it sounded like a compliment. Very impressive lady, although, I don't think she, even, knew how good she was. She had a contagious, hearty laugh which sounded mad, but I thought, really assisted her.

Anyway, that was Thursday. They cancelled by job at N. College re-directed me to one primary school, and then another, all in the space of about 20 minutes. And I had no A-Z and had to, in the end, ring up Okcana- disturb her 'beauty sleep'- and get her to look at the A-Z and tell me left or right, over the phone. The only way.

Friday, I was at a less effective primary school in Handsworth. Handsworth, is infamous as a 'ghetto' area with a high ethnic population and...problems. The school reflected that, despite some good efforts on the part of the council to house the school in very handsome accomodation with a large playground and one or two good teachers. There was even a visit from a 'mad scientist' who tried to interest the kids in science by burning different substances in front of them, using a hair-dryer to propel a ping-pong ball in mid-air, and a dustbin with a hole in the bottom, with stretching elastic over the top, he pulled the elastic and was able to show how air moved, at quite a distance with girls with long hair....

I had to teach the kids numeracy for the first hour and it was clear that their numeracy was very backward. They didn't even, clearly, understand what +, -, divide and multiply meant.....I did a lively lesson with them with the use of a triangle. They each had a personal whiteboard and marker pen. I had to say that if the bottom two numbers, added together were the top number, on the triangle, what would it be? They had to then calculate it and show me, without calling out. This was very effective and quick, which they, and I, liked. But, trying to get them to understand that if a + b = c, then c-b=a was impossible.

After that, I had to 'hold the fort', by just administering them a test of their literacy skills- just- no fun- rewriting sentences, putting capital letters in, or commas. They were O.K. for about 45 minutes, then they began to get fractious... Later on I had them out in the playground doing 'tennis'. This was successful for a while, but they began to muck about, even out there. The teacher, who was their permanent teacher, was there, but she said she was leaving at Easter and she warned me they were a difficult class. The man down the corridor, who had obviously been teaching since the year dot, a brummie, and obviously, nearly reached the end.

I got a tram back from there, which I never really knew existed before. Expensive, but a good service. On the way to work I had to get a taxi.

Monday, I was ill and had the day off and applied for two jobs. Tuesday, Wednesday I worked at N_______ College with a like-mind, Nigel. I managed to infuriate one group of college students, though, by critically marking their work and trying to get them to change seats, to work in groups, to peer-mark their work. They were in uproar over this. One girl found it offensive that I’d not ‘properly marked’ her work and written, ‘a bit slow’ on it! She was full on in her wrath at my ‘unconstructive criticism’. I began to lose my cool, myself, and even lost it, a bit, with one girl (the other girl’s ‘best mate’). Earlier on in the day I had told a student that drinking in the lesson was forbidden and got a tirade of objection from one, it has to be said, black girl who seemed to take this as a personal attack and stormed at me in crusader style! I calmly told her that we were here to learn about Law, not the college rules! Victory to me, I think. Nevertheless, after that final lesson, with kids everywhere virtually refusing to do any work and only a few doing any, and other kids objecting, fiercely to my demands I felt like throwing in the towel. I came home and told Okcana (my wife) all about my feelings to which she replied that I was ‘spoilt’ and that I couldn’t endlessly moan about my life, my job, etc. because we were all in the same boat, etc. etc. Later on, I drank a gin & tonic and two glasses of wine to calm myself down. I was, in a way, relieved not to have to return to said college the next day. Despite this, that college haven’t, so far paid me for a single day. And I worked there five days in total.

A Day in the Life of a supply teacher

A Day in the Life of a Supply Teacher

Phone call at 7.15 telling me to go to a school in Solihull and, I admit, I’m still in bed. I’d never been there before but had been passed it on the bus. I haven’t worked for a while as a supply teacher, but I immediately agreed to the job and began to get ready. I only had time to make a cup of tea before my wife looked up on the internet the times of the buses. Her last words were, ‘You better go now, you’ve only got five minutes’. So, I brushed my teeth, gurgled with mouthwash (because the kids are quick to complain about any bad breath) and dived out of the door. I had no change for the bus and had to get £3.30 together for a ‘Day Saver’, otherwise you suffer paying over the odds for bus travel. I had to take two buses.

I missed the bus, but got the second. The bus wended its way towards Castle Bromwich, picking up various kids along the way. I didn’t read the paper, I studied the view out of the window- the mass of cars, the general ‘rush’ to work. I then swapped buses. My second bus was more full of school uniform-clad youngsters, some reading The Sun or The Metro. In the background- at the back of the bus- black girls were arguing, but generally the mood was sombre.

Eventually, after a flurry of texts from wife to me and back again, over my whereabouts (my wife is a kind of human SATNAV) I relaxed slightly and we arrived, despite the steamed up bus windows, at The School.

The school was brand new and resembled more of a fortress than a school. Circling the school is a tall, metal fence with spikes on it; I was quite surprised not to be greeted by a hail of arrows and boiling oil. I climbed up the ramp-like entrance to the school, while small groups of school children eddied around the outer fortifications.

The school, inside, was in immaculate condition and didn’t strike me as a school at all- it had carpeted floors and glass doors which offered to open automatically if you pressed the right button. Within was a wide arc, a semi-circular desk, behind which sat the school receptionist, who was friendly and I passed her my ‘photo ID’ and my ‘current CRB’. These were magicked away from me automatically and reappeared in the same way, having been photocopied. I signed my name in the book and the time I had arrived. Prior to my name was a long list of supply teachers with the same company name as mine scribbled down. However, I noticed the dates were not today’s and realised that I was alone today.

I was beginning to feel butterflies as I hadn’t worked with English school children since March, I just hoped that the old tricks would come back to me, like saying, ‘Thank you’ when someone answers their name on the register. And I wasn’t wrong.

I made my way up to the staff room after briefly run through the whereabouts of my classroom for the day and where the dining area was and the staffroom. The lady who did this underlined the times as though assuming I wouldn’t. There was no advice or remarks about the classes I was to teach, so I asked, ‘Where can I get help if I need it?’ She answered that Mr. X was in the room next door so I could go to him if necessary. I hoped that would be satisfactory.

The staffroom was another odd shape: kind of circular, although it was pleasant and not in a terrible mess like some staff rooms I’ve seen. There were the tell-tale signs of teachers nearby, like a carrier bag on a chair stuffed with files, the familiar notice board with COVER on one section, a series of photographs of children in school uniform who required medicine on a regular basis and were to be let out of the classroom if they required such. In front of me, on a table, were the usual assemblage of staff-room reading matter- a Catholic Schools pamphlet which offered various posts, a magazine for children, or ‘youth’ with the promise, ‘Fact is stranger than fiction’ written along the top.

The bell went and I made my way down to Period 1, Year 11 RE- not my subject, but then you never get your subject on day cover. At least I had a Roman Catholic upbringing, so I could draw on that if necessary. Once I had to cover a lesson of Urdu in a school in Ilford, East London.

The first lesson went quite well, happily, because the worksheet was pitched at just the right level for this class and included a task which just about everyone could do- like ‘Christmas’ :what does it mean? It was a multiple choice task and all the pupils had to do was match up one side with another. They were able to do this because I had managed to introduce the worksheet to the class and I managed to get quiet for this (About the only occasion all day that I did). I also managed to write what was required on the board and I DIDN’T attempt to take the register straight away. (Always better to do it later once they’ve started working) Not only that but I managed not to lose my temper with girls who immediately began brandishing mirrors and eye-lash curlers and I was able to use humour to deal with this, ‘this isn’t a beauty parlour, you know’. Plus I said ‘thank you’ to students who answered me when I called their names. This always goes down well.

Why this lesson went well was all down to the worksheet and my ability to field questions pertaining to Amnesty International, CAFOD, what is a pulpit? Altar? And so on. The kids seemed interested and I repeated several times, ‘This is a Catholic school’, ‘You should know these terms’ and it seemed a fair few of them had been into a church although many more complained that they ‘hadn’t been taught any of this’?! This is a thing that school children frequently say. I was also able to ‘build bridges’, that is strike up rapports with a couple of the students, especially the boys, who always, always ask me two questions: ‘What football team do you support?’ and ‘Where are you from?’, or ‘Are you from London?’, ‘Are you a Cockney?!’ They don’t seem disappointed when I reply that I’m not interested in football. When I asked one, today, he replied, as though it was a stupid question, ‘The Blues, man’.

The second lesson came round with me really getting a baptism because I raised my voice and threw a pupil out for getting out of his seat repeatedly. I was heartened that my next door neighbour assisted me on this and threatened to phone the kid’s parents. It was clear that the particular teacher knew the child in question and the said child’s behaviour and attitude improved immediately. After I got the child back in he was fine and sat in silence near the door, doing the work! The work was- surprise, surprise! - to make a poster for display ‘describing the problems of evil’! According to the textbook there were two kinds of evil- natural and moral. Again, in analysis, this lesson worked quite well, too, because they could understand what the difference was and I began by saying, ‘I am evil’- ‘What does that mean?’

Next, a swift break and up to the staffroom after the teacher I was covering for came in and said what a good job I was doing holding the fort and getting the last class to work for me at all! I felt heartened and thanked her.

Next lesson was the middle lesson of the day and lunch followed. It was Year 9 and it was to make an ‘Information Leaflet’ on the subject of Lent. What is Lent? This class was wild and unruly and their behaviour was very poor from the off and I couldn’t get quiet to ask questions and, importantly, ‘set the lesson up’. If you don’t do this you end up with having to wander around the classroom explaining to each pair of students what you want them to do. This takes a long time and the trick with teaching in secondary school is you must get the kids working as quickly as possible to minimise disruption. This is why teachers give supply teachers lots of poster-making lessons as cover work because all children enjoy art and enjoy creating posters. It’s less hard than writing a paragraph. It’s not very educational, but it keeps them in their seats and gives you room to manoeuvre. The worst thing you can do is to talk for too long or field question-and-answer for too long. This is when it unravels very quickly.

One boy climbed out of the window and back in. I went out at this point to try and find help. He was later removed by a woman who showed up who generally ‘bollocked’ the class. Two others left of their own accord to work on the computers based out in the wide corridor. I don’t think my lapsing into sarcasm helped. I get sick and tired of children ‘gobbing off’ or acting in such a way that they put the maximum amount of volume they can into body language that says, ‘This is really trying and I hate this and hate you for making me do this’.

I tried to include a brief question and answer session on Lent in the last five minutes of the lesson, after all the work had been collected in, but it was too noisy.

Lunch followed and I made it to the dining room where kids stood in queues and a teacher held the door with his arm across it. He was very civil to me as I approached and let me through. I bought a baguette and a drink because it was easiest. I didn’t want more battles and wanted to get away from here as quickly as possible. I had had enough of noise after Period 3.

I came back to the quiet and relative civilisation of the staffroom and saw one teacher happily scoffing some kind of nachos with, what looked like, hummus. I couldn’t do anything except eat my baguette and drink my orange and didn’t want to just gawp at the other teachers, although their, relatively banal conversations, in which they repeated what kids had said in classrooms, filled my ears. A lot of teachers look worn down by the job. The men wear baggy, creased suits and look past their prime. The women are unattractive and often over-weight. I assume that they’re in the job for their mortgages rather than any over-riding concern with imparting knowledge or inspiring people. Many of the conversations were about food. It’s rare you meet interesting people, but there are a few. I usually find the English departments are the best. Sometimes you get good-looking, shapely women teachers, which makes sitting in the staffroom pleasant and an alternative to the rest of the day. I then read the paper, or studied it. Before I knew it, it was 1’O’Clock already.

Just before the big hand swung onto the 12 the teachers dutifully trooped out and we were on our way. Like soldiers going over the top our faces change. Blood flows away from the stomach, to the muscles. There’s an intake of breath. A tension.

Next lesson, Period 4- only two more lessons to go, but still TWO LESSONS!

The next lesson was a disaster with Year 8’s being unruly and difficult. It began with one girl burping in front of my face before walking away laughing. Not a good sign. I tried to get quiet to introduce the topic, which was Bullying, it was a SEAL lesson (don’t know what that stands for). I think the children just believed that these lessons were a waste of time and didn’t bother. It was very hard to get their serious attention to the topic although a few were putting their arms in the air- I was impressed. The first raised hands I’d seen of the day. I managed to get the work written down on the board and nearly all attempted something, but it was far too noisy and the atmosphere was NOT a working one. The same teacher who had helped earlier on in the day- from next door- rallied to my cause. Bless him. I had at least 5 reports to fill in before the lesson ended. The kids seemed uninterested that they would get poor reports from me. These reports are a pain because they take up valuable time in between one lesson finishing and another starting and you have to have your wits about you if you’re to cope with class change-over and getting the next class on task ASAP.

Finally, they were out and the next lot were already making an appearance- HELP! It didn’t begin well with me deciding this time to opt for standing by the door and greeting them as they arrived over getting the task written up on the board. I couldn’t do both. Outside, in the corridor, it was a mêlée: kids kept on appearing and reappearing, one moment deciding they were in the class, the next, vanishing. I was clueless, of course, being THE SUPPLY TEACHER who is on a hiding to nothing without knowledge of names. This was the worst lesson of the day. Constant noise, screams, outrage from black girls; ‘Was it me, though?!’, after I challenged them over throwing pencils. ‘I don’t know what you’re chatting’, another one of their phrases. It was a difficult topic- Produce a display that describes a moral problem with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Mr. X, who had nobly assisted me all day, came to my aid on more than one occasion, as did another ‘Sir’ who left without getting quiet!

It was a very difficult class and made me question the whole fabric of the system: secondary education. Is this working?, No. I envied the people who worked in offices; I envied the people on the bus on the way home- who were probably all unemployed. They were asleep on the bus! - but I know that I couldn’t work in an office and I know that I can be a good teacher, an inspiring teacher, but the nature of the system conspires to prevent this.