Planning while my face melts

 I don’t know how I managed to do all that planning today. I have a horrible feeling that when I look at it tomorrow it will look like it was written by hook-handed retard, but hey, it’s ‘done’ at least so I feel like I’ve achieved something. The horrible task of finishing this stuffed dinosaur is left to do but I’m stalling by writing this. Shouldn’t stall too long though, I have an ace looking DVD to watch, it’s called ‘Undead’ I think, some Australian zomcom apparently, never heard of it but festering corpses is what I need with a hangover.

I was supposed to go to a party in town last night, but by the time I’d finished the work I desperately needed to do it was too late to set off so I ended up in some Irish pub nearer home. It’s ages since I went to a pub other than my local and I got arseholed. Was going to go but I came back from the bogs to find some bloke trying to chat up my girlfriend, he nearly shat himself and insisted on buying us lots of drink and then fucking off. Fair play. The only reason for this I can imagine is that I was in disguise and not dressed as a primary school teacher. If he’d seen me in my usual (and dapper) tank-top and slacks combo he probably would have just made another pass at Mrs.Chipz. Phew, hooray for mufti!

Anyway, work is nearly over. School tomorrow. Shit.

The spazmosaur is born.

 ”In what way is carving a flower into half a potato hard? A monkey – that’s right, a monkey – could do your job.”

That’s a comment left by one of my most loyal readers. I feel I should rebut his dreadful slur on my profession. At no point in my career have I carved a flower into half a potato. I’ve not worked in Foundation Stage. Although…my dear reader may have a bit of a point. Just a bit. Today I am making a cuddly dinosaur toy out of an old pillowcase. I have no idea how to do this so I’m working it out as I go along, it’s pretty simple so far. I’ve gone for a diplodocus as it’s clearly a dinosaur, whereas other dinosaur shapes could get so fucked up they’d start looking like something else. The reason for this childish activity is thus: I’m trying to get my children to write an explanation text, with diagrams. You see, the logic is, if I can get them to make a spazmosaur, take photos of the construction process (including special needs child sewing his own eyelids shut, probably) and make it into a little book with a glossary, I will have succeeded in my task. But since the only thing I can sew is a fucking button onto a shirt it’s all going a bit wrong at the moment. Still, one must persevere. Fine, so I admit it, I am making a cuddly toy for my wages, but it’s not quite as bad as making potato prints. I think.

Jesus I feel sick.

 I took register this afternoon. Half way through there was a sound like a sandbag being filled with slurry via a high-pressure hose and the room got flooded by the stink of shit. The lad was easy to spot, he was looking like a boy who’d just, well, shit his self. I told him he’d best go out (with my assistant in hot pursuit). All shit came out the bottom of his trousers and got mashed into the floor. I mean, Christ. Dear fucking God…it was one of the worst things I’ve ever smelled.

Rimbauer – part five

 Rimbauer had stayed at the safe house for two hours. Pritchard had returned exactly an hour after they had parted company, wearing a new outfit of a tweet sports jacket, grey flannels and walking sandals, Rimbauer suspected the old outfit had been destroyed along with the remains of the unfortunate PE and Maths teachers. Pritchard was known as the best Cleaner in the business, there would be nothing telling NASUWT that anything at all had happened in that room just hours before. It was unlikely that any questions would be asked, and both unions would deny any knowledge of any event which had taken place. Adults went missing every day in the UK, and with an OFSTED inspection on the cards for the secondary school in question, the two missing men would be officially chalked up as ‘overworked’ teachers who had fled under the pressure. News broke of the teachers’ pay settlement within minutes of Rimbauer arriving at the safe house. He had drunk a strong cup of tea and eaten Rich Tea biscuits as he and NUT operatives had listened in silence to the news being broadcast on the BBC. Brown had thrown them a pay rise at just over 2%, better than expected, but tied to a three year deal. This was more than anyone had expected, but as far as some of those present were concerned, it wasn’t enough.

“Fucking pigs!” exclaimed a tough looking PSHE teacher as he banged his fist on the corner of the table, rattling mugs and upsetting a figurine of a teddy bear clutching an apple bearing the immortal legend; ‘Best Teacher!’. “They’re taking the piss! We should act now!” He was a swarthy character, dressed in brogues, jeans and a black turtle-neck sweater. He had a Zapata moustache and a livid scar ran down his cheek.

He was silenced by a hiss from a middle aged woman who, by day, was the SENCO at Motsham Primary. She’d been in the union for 26 years and experience and toughness showed in every line of her brown jumper and glinted off her horn-rimmed glasses.

“Silence Ramon!” every head turned towards her. “You talk too much! Remember, he’s union affiliated but he’s not one of us!” she nodded in Rimbauer’s direction.

“Suits me” grunted Rimbauer. “I owe you lot my life for getting me out of the shit just now, it’s what I pay my subs for but I don’t want to know a damn thing about what you’re up to. Unions aren’t my game, you know that.”

Ramon glared at him suspiciously. “How do we know they didn’t turn him before Pritchard and his girl got to him, huh?” Rimbauer noticed that Ramon’s hand was hidden under the table, doubtless holding a piece. Rimbauer was unarmed, taking out six hardened members of the NUT would be difficult, maybe impossible. And fuck it, they were on the same fucking side. Always the same with militants, they got so buried in shit that they saw enemies everywhere.

“Back off Ramon”. It was the SENCO again. “He’s OK. I met him on a three day phonics course at the PDC last term, he’s a good man, just a shame he doesn’t feel like a pay rise below the rate of inflation is his problem. And Ramon, put the Beretta away, you know I’d blow your motherfucking face off the moment you even thought of using it.”

Ramon cursed and slammed the weapon down on the table, kicking his chair over and storming from the room.

The SENCO smiled at Rimbauer. “He’s OK you know. He’s just young. And he lost his brother, an art teacher, in the last pay dispute. He’ll calm down.”

Pritchard had taken a seat at the head of the table, slowly pouring himself a cup of tea and helping himself to a biscuit. “Bad business all round,” he said, absent mindedly brushing crumbs from the front of his jacket. “Word is the nurses and police are unhappy. Brown screwed them with pay rises way below the current rate of inflation, just because the fucker can.” Everyone knew this was true. The police couldn’t strike, and if the nurses did strike there were enough foreign nurses around to plug the gap. HMG knew you didn’t have to be a British nurse to clean shit off the walls and watch helplessly as a patient who’d come in with a in-growing toenail was eaten alive by a hospital bug. However, the NUT and NASUWT had manpower, muscle, votes and an arsenal which rivalled the Tamil Tigers (who were affiliated with the NUT, although government agents were still unaware of this).

Rimbauer had said his thanks and was relieved to find himself safely back at his desk, away from the company of hardened union activists. He didn’t like to hang around the NUT if he could avoid it, they were dangerous people to be with. This reminded him that he still had to fill in his NUT voting form and send it in. The NUT wanted to be able to fund political parties and agencies but Rimbauer wasn’t happy with that eventuality. While he respected the NUT as fighters, and there was no-one better to back you up if you felt you were facing Unfair Dismissal by your employer, he shuddered at the thought of his sub money being given to some piss-poor shower of leftie shit heads who squandered their funds on building ‘schools’ in backward countries in the arsehole of the world. Look what had happened when they’d sent one of their operatives to the Sudan to teach the children there. She’d been framed over a fucking cuddly toy, with allegations of blasphemy ringing around the world. Brown had merely wrung his hands again and teachers felt disgust as social commentators got themselves in a mess about a bear called ‘Mohammed’. Those in the know knew that she’d never even had a teddy bear in the classroom; she’d been busted installing listening devices in the Sudanese Head of School Governor’s office. The whole fucking thing was a set-up of course. The instructions to do so hadn’t come from the Minister for Education at all, but had been a false message from a double agent somewhere in Tora Bora. The world had held its breath as it watched two gallant British MPs head out to the Sudan to secure her release. What the public didn’t know was that no such negotiations had taken place. The teacher had been sprung by Rimbauer. Only a select few in the teaching fraternity knew that it was Rimbauer who had undertaken a HALO drop into the Sudan, neutralised the prison guards with cheese wire and freed the woman. It was one of his toughest missions yet.

Rimbauer looked at his desk. It was a fucking mess. He pulled the pile of English books towards him and sighed…he hated marking. Marking Year Two English was an exercise in code-breaking, he practically needed the Rosetta fucking Stone. He opened his drawer to reach for his marking pen. Green, of course. You couldn’t mark in red these days, apparently it was emotionally damaging to see your work covered in red crosses. How could a red pen be emotionally damaging? Rimbauer chuckled as a memory bubbled to the surface in his mind. Not long ago an estranged father had forced his way into the school to see his son, he was abusive to the reception staff so Rimbauer had neutralised him by thrusting a red biro into his ear. The man was now in a care home. He’d be drinking through a straw and shitting in a bag for the rest of his vacant life. Rimbauer laughed out loud, well at least the red pen hadn’t damaged him emotionally. Rimbauer looked into the drawer. Fuck. He had to stop confiscating things. He waded through a heap of conkers, elastic bags, walk-to-school badges and High School Musical 2 ephemera. Fucking kids. He found his green pen and turned his attention to the first book. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. At the top of the page was his own writing; ‘Learning Intention; write about your Christmas Holiday’. What followed made his head spin:

“My holdy was god I got wii benten wotch sonny plastashun we went to nans hows it rayn orl day I arsk dad if we can go to home and he sed you cunt yet that wos my crismas holdy”

Rimbauer sighed. Still, the initial letter sounds were all there and the spelling mistakes were, at least, phonetic. He was pretty sure what the kid had meant when he quoted his dad but hey, Rimbauer had also come close to calling the stupid little fucker that on several occasions so who knew? He reached across to the next book. He grimaced as he realised the book belonged to the kid at the bottom of the Lower Ability group. Gingerly he turned to the last page. His heart sank. Under his own written leaning intention was a single line of scrawl; “fmcholdldlhja owl” This was accompanied by a ‘drawing’ depicting what seemed to be a three wheeled car sporting a large penis. Christ on a bike.

Suddenly his classroom door crashed open. It was Ellen. “Rimbauer, Boss has a job for you. Now!”

Rimbauer sighed wearily. He closed the book. “What now Ellen?”

“It’s the Year Six boys again” as usual, not a flicker of emotion on her face. “They’re having a fight in the playground, the Midday Supervisors tried to break it up but it’s no go, he wants you to do it.”

“Jesus, not again Ellen…is there no-one in Key Stage Two who can do it?” Rimbauer was sick of picking up everyone else’s shit.

“No can do Rimbauer, Mrs Peterson’s off sick and the Supply Teacher’s doing break duty, Head says you’ve got to do it.”

Rimbauer shrugged, it was no problem really. After what he’d been through, breaking up a fight between two 11 year olds was small beer. He pulled his weapon from his shoulder holster and pulled back the cocking mechanism, sliding a round into the chamber. “OK Ellen, let’s go.” As he strode out into the Juniors’ playground he looked behind him, he could have been mistaken, but he was sure he’d seen Ellen smile at him. He chuckled to himself…so the Ice Queen is starting to melt…

To be continued…

Rimbauer – part four

 Rimbauer’s eyes began to focus. His head was pounding and he could feel dry blood on his ear…what had happened? He remembered walking out of the school gate, then…nothing. He cursed himself, he had neglected to go through his usual dry cleaning routines and had paid the price. Though groggy he knew he had to shape up fast. He was sitting in a chair, a hard, wooden chair. His hands were tied behind his back. He took in his surroundings. He was in a small room without windows, lit by a single naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Apart from his chair there was no other furniture in the room, and the door was inconveniently blocked by two men. Straight away he knew they were neither OFSTED or from the Education Office. The first man was slightly built, he wore a brown cardigan over a green and white checked shirt and a brown tie with thin orange stripes. He wore green moleskin trousers, worn out at the thigh from sitting at a desk for hours, days, years. He was about forty five years old, had thinning grey hair and National Health glasses. The other man was about twenty years younger. He wore a standard-issue PE teacher Adidas tracksuit (blue) with a whistle hanging around his neck. He had short cropped hair and a face that knew how to hate. He chain smoked hand rolled cigarettes.

“Ah, how nice of you to join us Mr Rimbauer!” The older man grinned broadly, displaying his coffee stained teeth.

“Who the fuck are you?” Rimbauer had no time for mock pleasantries. These two men had got the better of him in a dark alley and he was damned if they’d ever manage to better him again.

The younger man stepped forward. He massaged his knuckles and lent closer. “Sit up straight Rimbauer. I’ve got a question for you. What position did you play in your school rugby team?”

Rimbauer didn’t even blink. “I didn’t. I hate sport. Can’t stand it.” He smiled up at the man who started to grind his jaw and blink slowly, trying to comprehend what he’d just heard.

“You…you…you fucking homosexual!” spat the man. Rimbauer had guessed right, he really was a PE teacher. As he’d thought. Rimbauer laughed.

“Come, come Peter” said the older man, placing a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. “We mustn’t be rude to our guest, must we.” He stepped closer to Rimbauer while the PE teacher glowered in the corner and lit another cigarette.

“Tell me Mr Rimbauer, what do you know about the current pay dispute?” Rimbauer was surprised…he’d been guessing what all this was about, but he’d not considred the current pay dispute. What the hell had pay for public sector workers got to do with him?

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand…pay dispute? What’s that got to do with me? I’m not a Union Rep.”

“Ah!” The man feigned surprise. “But you are N.U.T, are you not?”

Rimbauer shrugged. “Aren’t you?” The man smiled again. “Oh Christ…not NASUWT?!” The man nodded, chuckling softly.

Rimbauer seethed. He’d never taken an interest in the workings of the teaching unions. It was a typical story of the Left, more interested in fighting each other than joining forces against a common enemy. They clearly thought he was more involved in the NUT than he was, the problem with having a reputation as a hard case like Rimbauer was that everyone assumed you hung out with all the other hard cases.

“Look,” Rimbauer knew he had to talk his way out of this one. Usually he’d just find a way of killing them both but he didn’t want to be drawn into the bloody secret war that was raging throughout the public sector. It never made the news, of course, but it was common knowledge that over the last month several members of the teaching and nursing unions had died in various hits up and down the country. Brown’s plan of divide and conquer was working a fucking treat. “I’m not a union man. I promise. I just pay my subs, ok? What do you want from me?”

“Oh dear oh dear Mr.Rimbauer…” The man tutted and polished his glasses on the hem of his cardigan. “Mr Kent, perhaps you should try?”

The man in the tracksuit laughed nastily and flicked his cigarette onto the floor, grinding it under foot as he advanced slowly on Rimbauer. Rimbauer had had enough.

“Oy! Fuck off paedo!” The PE teacher stepped back…Rimbauer laughed inwardly, PE teachers, all the fucking same. “Haven’t you got some Year Seven boys to watch in the showers or are you one of the ones who prefers the girls?” The PE teacher moved to strike Rimbauer but the older man waved him back.

“Now now Mr Rimbauer, there’s no need to be unpleasant.” He smiled, like a snake. Rimbauer noticed the man slowly take a pair of pliers from his trouser pocket.

“You can fuck off and all! What do you teach? Maths? You do don’t you…I can smell your shitty breath from here.” The older man screamed with rage and brought his fist up into Rimbauer’s face. Hard. Rimbauer’s head snapped back and he grunted, blood filling his mouth. Bastards. He looked up and prepared for the next blow which would follow.

Suddenly the door handle clicked, and all three men turned to look as slowly, it opened. Rimbauer couldn’t believe his eyes. In the doorway stood a thirteen year old girl in school uniform. There was silence for a moment. Rimbauer became aware of a low, deep groaning sound. It was the PE teacher. As if in a trance he started to stumble towards the girl, one hand outstretched, his eyes glazed and drool collecting on his lower lip.

“No, Peter! Don’t!” The older man lunged forward to grab his colleague but it was too late. In a heartbeat the silenced automatic was in the girl’s hand and two shots were fired in quick succession. The older man lay dead on the floor at Rimbauer’s feet, a neat hole between his startled eyes, the PE teacher rolled on the floor clutching his blood soaked groin. He whimpered like a baby. The girl stepped forward and kicked the man in the face, knocking him out.

“Jesus! Is that Sindee Pritchard?” Rimbauer had taught Sindee’s class extra Literacy, History and Knife-Play when she was at his school in Year Five. She wasn’t much cop as a poet, if he remembered, but she could put a throwing knife through a quoit at twenty paces. Her father was Mr Pritchard, the stout, unassuming head of Humanities at one of the local Primary Schools, a nice man, though a little quiet and boring.

Sindee grinned, showing a mouth full of metalwork. “Hello Mr Rimbauer! Don’t worry, I’ve come to get you out of here, Daddy’s with me!” Of course, now Rimbauer understood…John Pritchard was the borough’s NUT union rep. Never before had he been so glad he paid his monthly fee.

Mr Pritchard stepped into the room. He was a jolly looking man, middle height and middle aged. He dressed in the classic style; leather-patched sports jacket over a v-neck jumper and corduroy trousers. Mr Pritchard beamed at Rimbauer and kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “Hullo Toby!”

“Hello John, thanks for this. Thanks to both of you.” Rimbauer felt relief surge through him. He was safe.

“Right-ho, Toby,” John Pritchard was probably the only man in The Trade who could get away with calling Rimbauer by his first name. “Let’s get you out of this shall we? Sindee will take you to a NUT safe house and in the meantime I’ll dispose of these two…little problems. I’ll explain everything to you when I meet you there in one hour. Carry on Pumpkin.”

“Yes Daddy!” Sindee started to work on the knots that bound Rimbauer to the chair.

Behind him he could hear clanking and rustling as Pritchard started taking unseen items out of the heavy looking suitcase he had brought into the room with him. There was a slap. Rimbauer heard Pritchard’s voice again, still cheerful and friendly.

“Right then young Peter, let’s wake you up shall we?”

“So…Sindee, er…how’s life at big school?” Rimbauer felt a little awkward being freed by a former pupil so decided to fill the time it took for her to untie the knots with a little banter. It was difficult as the PE teacher was now clearly awake and pleading with Pritchard in agony and fear. He could hear Pritchard humming a jaunty tune as he removed some more tools from his case.

“S’ok I s’pose”

“Oh. Good. And your new teachers…are they, er…nice?”

“Yeah, they’re ok.”

“Oh good.” Rimbauer wished she’d get a move on, he wanted to be far away from this room. Wherever this room was.

Behind him the PE teacher’s voice rose to a crescendo of terror. He was quickly silenced by a sound like a hammer smashing into a bag of live crabs…Pritchard’s humming continued. Rimbauer could now hear sawing, and the sound of something heavy and wet being dropped into a large plastic bag.

“There you go Mr Rimbauer, all done!” Sindee smiled as she helped Rimbauer out of his chair, he felt a little unsteady on his sandals. “Shall I take Mr Rimbauer to the safe house now Daddy?”

Rimbauer looked round and rather wished he hadn’t. Pritchard was filling his third bin bag with a portion of the maths teacher.

“Right ho Pumpkin, see you soon. Don’t forget, don’t answer the door to anybody…stranger danger! See you soon Toby, help yourself to biscuits when you get there.”

Sindee dragged Rimbauer out of the room, down a dank corridor and out into a car park he recognised. It belonged to the local co-ed secondary school. As they walked out of the gate questions began to turn in Rimbauer’s mind. What did NASUWT want with him? How did the NUT know they had him? Why were the unions fighting each other when they should be joining forces against Gordon Brown and his nefarious schemes for fixed pay rates for three years across the Public Sector? Of one thing he had no doubt, someone, somewhere had set him up. The list of people in Education that he’d pissed off was far to long to narrow it down…what the fuck was going on?

To be continued…

Rather dull post

 The children are maintaining their positive, hard working attitude. It’s very strange from two of them in particular. It even looks like one of them will be Star of the Week tomorrow. To explain; Star of the Week is when a child from each class, from Year Six down to the smallest ankle-biters come up to the front in school assembly and get a certificate with a big star on it, what says ‘Star of the Week’. They love it. Sadly I think if he does keep it up tomorrow and get the certificate it will frazzle his little mind and he’ll have to revert to doing none work just to get over the shock. We’ll see. He might throttle a child in morning break (it happens with him sometimes) and then he won’t have to go through it.

I get my student on Monday. This is good. However, it means that I will have to spend a lot of time this weekend making sure I’ve got a ‘show week’ lined up…every lesson out of the textbook. This is so she can watch, learn, and then spend the next seven weeks showing me how to do it better, probably. She seems very capable. Actually, she’s only 21 or 22 years old, but looks as if she was made in the teacher factory. Pear shaped, solid, booming voice…you know the type. An earlier model taught you at some point.

Spent a great deal of yesterday updating the IEPs of rather a lot of children in my class. An IEP is an Individual Education Plan. Basically it’s for children who struggle in one or two areas…or quite a lot of areas. I’ve got a lot in my class. At one end there’s the lad who has real problems reading and writing, yet is verbally bright. We’re going to cut him up and see if he’s dyslexic. At the other end is my mental nutjob (mentioned in earlier posts) who has an IEP several sheets of A4 long. Most are only one sheet. Anyway, it was boring. Essential and useful…but fucking boring.

A bit like this post…no news really, just thought I’d put something up so people keep on their toes. By the way, there’s a terrible, terrible man called Napoleon who keeps campaigning on here for teachers to be paid less. Shun him. I tell you, when the NUT lead the revolution to its glorious conclusion he will be made to wear sports jackets with leather patches to find out how it feels and then shot. Shot I tell you.

Yay…throw technology at the proles!

 I love the news at the moment. The Guvvermunt are just throwing those ideas out there! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7176741.stm

‘Real time’ reporting on a child’s progress at school eh? God, what a new concept. Oh no, hang on…parents can see their children’s teachers at short notice (in a school as small as mine, with no notice) and teachers are more than happy to keep them informed. Verbally. Face to face. Fuck it, over the phone if you must. And then there’s parent-teacher evenings. And those really fucking slow reports on paper that arrive within 48 hours of posting or, more often, get carried home with the child.

Don’t want to sound all ‘union man’ on you but this pack of jokers really need to focus on the issues in education, and give up that dreadful New Labour idea that if something is like, send on a computer, everyone will think it’s all shiny and new…and (therefore in New Labour thinking) BETTER.

However, this could be done. We all write our reports on a computer anyway so I suppose we could just post a copy on the internet. Doesn’t bother me at all. I can’t see my Secondary colleagues being very happy though if they have to sit down and write a report at short notice because some half-arsed parent wants to combine showing a vague interest in their child’s education and surfing for porn. Still, not my problem…this looks like a Secondary gimmick, not Primary. Yet.

I can just imagine the meetings they must be having in the Education offices in Whitehall at the moment…

“How’s the state of education at the moment?”

“Fucked. There are some areas where children can’t read or write. At all.”

“Shit. How are we going to fix that?”

“Well, we could put a literacy strategy in place which we don’t fucking TOUCH for a few moments so that children get some consistency in their education. We then have to educate a few thousand parents so that they, in turn, can support their children. We then have to throw money at schools for decent equipment and well trained and motivated staff.”

“How much money?”

“Ooooh, Christ, that’s a tricky one. Lots really. I mean, a LOT of money. Oh, and we’ve got to somehow make people value education as a whole, you know, so that it’s seen as a good thing across the social spectrum to be well educated. That’s going to cost quite a bit as PR campaigns go.”

“Wow. That’s quite a lot to take in isn’t it? How long will all this take? A year? Two?”

“Golly no! We’re talking about a couple of decades I’d imagine, it’s really going to be the main thing for a few generations. If we want to improve education we’re going to have to really stick at it, it’s not a quick-fix scenario.”

“Fuck that. Tell you what, tell the proles that they can see ‘real-time’ reports on-line. That usually wows them. If some of the poor ones claim they can’t afford it just chuck them a free fucking mobile, it’s a vote winner…bound to piss off the middle classes but fuck ‘em, they can educate their kids privately can’t they? I know I do…wouldn’t have my kids sharing a desk with council estate scum…”

“Right-ho, that’s that then, I’ll put the press release out.”

Arseholes….

New term

 Well, that’s the new term started. Two days back and then the weekend…that’s the way to do it. Next week will feel very long I suspect. The kids completely took me by surprise and unlike the previous (older) classes I have taught returned from their Christmas holiday refreshed, alert, keen and enthusiastic. Two of my laziest children turned in better work in two days than they did in the whole of last term. It was weird. Great though! Slightly worried that when Monday comes most of the class will have burnt out early and I’ll be back to square one with some of them…but I really really hope not. In a moment of madness (last night of the holidays, it’s then that stupid things happen), I went to a pet shop to buy a hamster. My girlfriend gave me a spare cage, and never having had my own pet before I thought it would be a good ‘starter’ animal. I mean, they only live for two years, I had all the kit from my girlfriend and cost would be minimal. And if it snuffed it, well, honestly…who cares? Got to the pet shop and guess what…no hamsters. So £50 later I left with a magnificent new cage, bedding, food etc…and a rat. As rats go she’s very erm…pretty. Lively too. Anyway, my family are disgusted (how was I to know that when it comes to rats they’re complete and utter poofs?) and even angry…even though they don’t fucking live here, which I think is a bit of a cheek. Anyway, I can’t really think of a name for her (wanted to call her Bubo but she’s not that kind of rat) so I asked the children to write suggestions on bits of paper and put them in an envelope. I really can’t use any of their suggestions, my rat is not a chav. The most popular suggestions were ‘Macey-Kay’, ‘Sharpay’ and ‘Leesa’. I just can’t do that to a rodent. Any suggestions are welcome.

Things what are happening this term:

• I get a student in one week’s time. A third year I think. She specialises in music which is ace because frankly, I’m shit at it. Also, as it’s her last placement she will be doing most of the teaching over the next 8 weeks, which will allow me to make some focus groups and hopefully manage to give some really intensive teaching to my kids and get all their standards up. Hopefully. (I say ‘hopefully’ because a good plan never survives the first contact with children).
• For a couple of days a week (I think) I will also have two sixth form type girls coming in to help with my class. I will have at times six adults in the room including myself. Fucking great! That’s a ratio of one adult to five kids sometimes…I just hope the two girls don’t actually need too much training to do the simpler things, otherwise they’ll go from being a bonus to an burden. We’ll see.
• We may strike. When I say ‘we’ I mean the good members of the NUT. There hasn’t been a teachers’ strike for ooh, years. The issue this time is pay rises not being in line with inflation. The NUT is very very cross about it all, and there’s a general discontent among the public sector. As you are aware, the police want the right to strike, nurses have every fucking right to strike and the Fire Brigade will strike at the drop of a hat (watching porn three days a week in a fire station being very hard going I suspect). Personally I’m not that worked up, I pay my fee to the NUT so they can worry on my behalf and if they say ‘strike’ I will do so. I have a lovely daydream of the rozzers and teachers striking together (god, how unpopular would that make us) and having to be policed by the army. Imagine a huge wave of protest involving thousands of malcontents dressed in corduroy and the sort of shit clothes favoured by off-duty policemen. I’ve never been on a strike before, it sounds very exciting. I don’t think I’d be very good at it though, I’d just ruin things by standing amongst seasoned lefties holding pithy and hard hitting placards while mine would say something immature like “honk if you bonk”.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how the political unrest goes, teaching fans. I know that if it does come to militant action I can rely on your support. By ‘support’ I mean the usual comments about being a lazy fucker with too much holiday time.

I’m back

 Happy new year. Sorry for the silence lasting several weeks, but as some of you will have guessed I’ve spend a fortnight sitting on my arse getting drunk…it’s what the holidays are for. I tried to write a few posts but since this blog is about teaching and teaching alone they were very boring, what with me not being at school. I anticipate japes and larks of all kinds to start as of tomorrow, when my decadent sojourn crash to a traumatic end. I am expecting to see 30 (no, less than that, there’s always a few missing for the first few days of term) frazzled children all wanting to bring their new toys in to school to show off to the class. Well, they can’t. Not because I’m a killjoy but because a) they’re bound to get broken to their parent’s fury and b) I have a thief in the class. Sad but true. I’ve a pretty shrewd idea who it is but no proof as yet. So, no toys. Bah humbug.

Anyway, I hope you are all well (if slightly liverish) after your festive breaks (if you had one) and I will be posting again to thrill you with tales of derring-do and pedagogy.