Blog: Ramblings of a stressed NQT
For those who don't speak the lingo of the British teacher, that means 'Newly Qualified Teacher'. Amazingly, qualifying as a teacher takes just nine months. Admittedly the most stressful nine months of your life, but it is a ridiculously short period of time. It was just long enough for me to realise I know nothing about teaching.
I spent my PGCE (Post-Graduate Certificate in Education) year in Torchwood-land, in sleepy rural schools where the kids either didn't care about school, but would quietly sit reading tractor magazines tucked inside their textbooks (no, this genuinely happened), or education was their ticket out of there, and they strove to do the best they could so they could go to Cardiff Uni.
So, I ended up in London this year. Quite frankly, it was the first place that actually offered me a job, and I was getting desperate. It was so late in the year, they didn't even see me teach a class. If they had, they might have realised sooner rather than later that my ability to manage a classroom is below par for the area. Sleepy Wales this is not. It's something I am now getting help with.
Today has been an INSET day. In days gone by, this used to be for staff training (indeed, that's what the 'T' stands for). Nowadays it is for 'performance management', an exercise which, as far as I can tell, involves a meeting that basically goes along the lines of "Can you still teach?" "Yes." "Great." As an NQT, I am not involved in this procedure (I get 'performance managed' throughout the year), so I can't actually verify this, but it's what it sounds like to me.
The point of this tale is that there were no kids around today. Bliss. Not being involved in the PM, I thought I would spend today marking, and then doing a little bit of prep for our Open Evening, which basically involved pimping out an already over-subscribed school to the parents of local ten-year-olds in order to get them to apply for a place that apparently already doesn't exist. What fun.
My plan failed. The first half-hour was spent in a staff briefing during which no-one actually said anything important, and the school secretary scolded me for not doing my register period 4 yesterday. I haven't had access to the register system at all this week, which IT and the office are fully aware of, but this didn't seem to put her off. I was apparently supposed to email her the names of the students who were absent. There weren't any...
I then had half an hour of being gently irradiated in an actual training meeting which didn't apply to me in the slightest. Escaping to my lab after this (to start planning my lessons for next week, rather than mark), I was ridiculously excited to discover that the lab stool at my desk has been replaced by a long-legged lab chair; something that acutually possesses lumbar support to some degree and has been bliss for my aching back. I sat down, enjoying my brand new chair, pulled up Radio 2 online, and set off. There was a brief distraction as I realised that no-one had told me exactly how our new e-booking system for lab equipment would work, and I spent quite some time tracking down someone who could tell me. The head lab technician didn't know, and it took me until lunchtime to track down the guy who did.
At twelve, Radio 2 got exchanged for my youTube playlist. I was in a good mood, and I wasn't having Jeremy Vine's normal idiots drag me down.
Took a break at 12:30 for my free lunch. It wasn't so much the advertised roast beef as roast turkey, but hey, it was free.
Returned to the lab and realised that the walls were a bit bare, and given that it was the Open Evening, I should probably do something about that. My intention had been to put up the posters my Year 10s were supposed to have been working on for four weeks, but since none of them bothered to hand them in, I broke out the poster paper, scissors and glue, and set to work constructing myself some cell diagrams instead.
Midway through the first one, my head of department wanders in, looks entertained by what I'm doing, and then freezes. I realise he's clicked onto what my music is: while it started off being quite respectable, it had reached the selection of the best Disney songs. I confess it's a guilty pleasure and we leave it at that. Until my phone goes off, anyway.
"Your phone is the TARDIS?"
"Um... yes.
I continue with my cells and labels, and I joke with him about throwing in some spelling mistakes on the labels, just to make it seem like the kids have done it instead of me - I'd even lend him a red pen so that he could correct it to make it look more authentic (we were in my classroom, it's only polite). I seem to regain some of my previous footing regarding my suitability to be alone in a Science lab, in charge of 27 children. Right up until a) I breach about ten Health and Safety at Work regulations by standing on the bench at the side of the room, over a sink in order to put my plant cell on the wall, and b) I dye my fingers (and a splodge of my left boob) black trying to dye some string in order to attach the labels to the cells. I do this by sacrificing some of my ink cartridges, sharpening the ends off of them, old-school style.
The rest of the day is relatively calm. I don't break too many more regulations, I acquit myself by putting Radio 2 back on at 2, not only by knowing who Steve Wright is, but also singing along to the Boomtown Rats and I don't put black fingerprints all over the wall when I attach my newly black string.
I get home earlier than normal to suss out the clothing situation for the evening festivities: I put the washing on last night in the hope it would be dry for me to wear something clean. Complete failure, everything still damp. Go to plan B and pull out an interview outfit. It didn't look too formal once my lab coat was over it. Spent two hours entertaining small children with hydrogen pops and carpet fibres under a microscope, and fielding eager parents. Completely forgot about the coffee I poured at 6:40 and wondered why I was thirsty.
So, all in all a mixed bag of a day. I might have lost any credibility I had, but at least I had fun doing it. One parent even said it was obvious I really enjoy teaching. I hope that enthusiasm doesn't fade away, because she's right: I really do love it. I might spend most of my time stressed about what I'm doing the next day, or whether I'll get all my marking done on time (no chance now), or if I actually have time to cook tonight, but what other profession would let me explode things on a regular basis, short of joining the military or the bomb squad?