nancy

Part Timer | nancy

teachingbattleground

Oh dear. I’ve done it again. I’ve read something in the newspaper and it has made me cross. It seems that Our Great Educational Leaders have come up with the solution to the teacher retention crisis. Go part time! This is it, experienced ladies, this is the solution to our employment woes! Use a sort of part time teacher dating site to find your perfect partner and wit woo! Retention crisis solved!

Because working part time is the solution, isn’t it? It’s got nothing to do with class sizes at all, has it? Nothing to do with marking 30-odd sets of books for each subject every day, just to…

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Happy Birthday Darling | nancy

teachingbattleground

The day I was 18 it was overcast. I’d like to say I remembered the day vividly, but I don’t. Snatches jump into my memory; cards and presents at the start of English, my tutor, Roger, smiling and rolling his eyes, a pizza lunch with my mum and my friend Liz. Alcohol was probably involved somewhere, but I really don’t recall. Right before my A levels, I was in a frenzy of excitement and anticipation. This week, my firstborn, my S, was 18 too. Equally frenzied, like me, he went out with friends, not interested in staying home.

I feel chuffed when I look at the young man he is become. When he…

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Happy Birthday Darling | nancy

teachingbattleground

The day I was 18 it was overcast. I’d like to say I remembered the day vividly, but I don’t. Snatches jump into my memory; cards and presents at the start of English, my tutor, Roger, smiling and rolling his eyes, a pizza lunch with my mum and my friend Liz. Alcohol was probably involved somewhere, but I really don’t recall. Right before my A levels, I was in a frenzy of excitement and anticipation. This week, my firstborn, my S, was 18 too. Equally frenzied, like me, he went out with friends, not interested in staying home.

I feel chuffed when I look at the young man he is become. When he…

Continue reading at:

http://bit.ly/2WnqqhM

The winds of change | nancy

teachingbattleground

Ahh, it seems that Ofsted have been busy bees and produced a new guide as to what they are looking for when they come calling at English schools to tell us which schools are good and which are bad (on a four point scale). Whether it is hoops or goalposts that they have been moving, who can tell; what we do know is that there has been a Change of Focus.

Now, I’d like to make something clear: I have not read the latest iteration of the Inspection Framework, and neither do I intend to (I am on holiday until the end of the week, after all, and, after an intense Autumn Term where I finished ,…

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Count Your Blessings | nancy

teachingbattleground

I’ve made it. We’ve made it. We’ve made it to the End of Term, we’ve dragged ourselves out of bed and into work and school before the sun was properly awake and returned home, picked our way through the fairy-lit dark, long after it had gone to bed for what feels like weeks. Everything about us was increasingly reluctant the further we advanced into December and the closer we got to the End Date and finally it is here. The children, exhausted by the effort of an eight-week term, have taken themselves off to bed early.

In a short few weeks, I don’t suppose I should refer to them as children…

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The Funnel | nancy

teachingbattleground

I was doing some sorting out the other day. We have been decorating the sitting room (NOT the lounge; lounges are for people who live in a constant state of 1970s and have things like dark green shag pile carpets and pine-orange furniture), and part of this process has been the temporary removal of the book case (Argos) to the garage and the serious reconsideration of every book that had been shoved onto it when we first moved in, over a year ago now, upon its return. Two sets appeared: those that made it back onto the shelf, and those that have been transported back into the garage, en route…

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