I HATE MONDAYS :–(

Today was my first day teaching at my complimentary placement. I had two lessons, both year 9s, in first and second period. I had all my resources prepared and sent off to the print room. My first school was only small so all the teachers photocopied their own resources; at this school, with it being nearly three times the size, everything needs to go through the print room otherwise the departments get charged. However, the school system was down over the weekend so when I couldn't access my school email account to send my resources off to the print room, therefore I also couldn't find the print room email address. Luckily, I had written down..... somewhere......on one of the many sheets of paper I had collected during the first week......somewhere.....I just wasn't quite sure where. Luckily I found it scribbled down on a scrap piece of paper which was floating round the bottom of my GIANT teacher bag. I wasn't entirely sure it was for the woman in the print room because I had simply written the email address and no other relevant information, but I like to live life on the edge so I thought I would risk it. Us teachers are a wild bunch. So I emailed my resources off to the print room from my home account. I was told that if you emailed the print room the night before with a pleading message they would be able to get your order ready for the next day and pop it in your piegonhole. I don't have a pigeonhole. Much like I don't have a staff badge or a SIMS login as I'm only on my complimentary placement for 6 weeks. The lack of a staff badge makes it quite clear to all the students that I am a trainee teacher. They might aswell put a flashing beacon on my head with a sign saying "Feel free to test her behaviour management skills, Lord knows she needs it!". Lacking a staff badge is the equivalent to walking out the loo with your skirt tucked into your knickers. As I don't have a SIMS login I am also unable to print out the data for each of my classes. It has taken me a week to collect SEN data, IEPs, target grades, current grades, seating plans, Gifted and Talented lists and EAL lists and three hours today to collate into a useful teaching file. But it's done now so that moan ends there. But the Monday moan continues.....

I finally got to bed last night about 1am after having such a nightmare trying to get onto the school network and emailing off my resources. I decided that I would get into school early the next day to make sure all my worksheets were printed correctly. I left 15 minutes early this morning, which is close to a miracle for me. I got to the bottom of my apartment block stairs and came face to wheel with two giant fire engines. Sigh. I was blocked into my road for 25 minutes. This then meant that I left at rush hour and what would normally be a 5 minute journey to work took 25 minutes. I got into school 3 minutes before the registration bell to find that the woman in charge of the print room had got in 2 minutes earlier and hadn't so much as switched her computer on yet so none of my resources were printed. Sigh. Luckily, with some first class ass-kissing, I got my worksheets bumped to the top of the priority pile and was able to send a student to collect them 15 minutes into the first lesson. The Gods redeemed themselves in the second lesson because the normal teacher hadn't finished the previous topic yet and needed one more lesson to finish it. So I got an extra night to tweak my lesson plan with the suggestions that the teacher had sent to me by...... you guessed it..... EMAIL! An email which I couldn't access at the weekend because of the STUPID COMPUTER SYSTEM!!!! So, I started the day late and was stuck in a seemingly endless game of catch-up all day. Thankfully the day did finally end and I got home and had some toast and jam. Now all is good in the world.

One quick note, what is with all the weird names kids have these days?! There are two famous names in two of my classes, and by famous I mean A-list celebrity actors' full names. Forename AND surname! And if the kid hasn't got a weird name s/he has a normal name with a crazy spelling! Please tell me, is it fashionable or just bad spelling?!

: 09 Jan 2012 18:27 |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem