The Headteacher’s office. Wednesday.

 Ah Chipz, come in, take a seat. Tea? Coffee?

No ta, if I have another cuppa I’ll piss meself. Got a fag?

Of course, of course…I’ve got a selection…

Christ Boss, you know me, whichever type cost the most really. Got a light? I’m fucking gasping. Gasping!

Yes, that’s what I called you here to discuss. Chipz, to be honest I’m worried about you.

Worried Boss? Why? What have I done wrong? Cos I tell you, I haven’t done anything any fucker can prove and the union’s only a phone call awa…

No no no! Nothing like that, well, nothing anyone outside this office knows about. Relax. I’m worried because, well, because before half term you looked…

Yes?

Well…you looked…a bit tired.

Tired?

Yes, tired. Overworked.

Oh Christ! Overworked! Fuck me Boss, you’re not wrong. Worked me fingers to the fuckin’ bone I did. I did it for the kiddies of course, you know how I’d do anything for them kiddies…

Oh I know Chipz, I know! You’re the very model of pastoral care. Oh, by the way, I offered Timmy’s mum some hush money but she didn’t take it. So I gave it to Kieran’s dad instead.

The big fucker with the tattoos and the restraining order?

The very same. Anyway, he accepted it and we won’t be hearing any more about Timmy’s black eye he sustained when he disturbed your mid lesson nap.

Nice one chief, knew I could count on you. Fucking great boss you are. The best.

Anyway, yes, as I was saying, you looked tired. I think you should slow down.

Don’t worry Boss, I saw this little chat coming so I’ve already dealt with the problem.

Excellent! That’s what I like about you Chipz, always using your own initiative. What have you done about it then?

Well, since we came back on Monday I’ve decided to cut down on the graft a bit, you know, take a bit of time to smell the daisies and that. For a start I’ve got that new student, the one what’s replaced that other one who didn’t last more than five fuckin’ days in my class. Honestly, I nurtured her like nothing else but she packed it in. Fair hurt my professional pride it did.

How’s she shaping up then, the new one I mean? Does she…er, shape up? Eh?

Can’t say as I’ve noticed chief, I’m spoken for. And far be it for me to notice a female student eleven years my junior’s vital statistics. No, I’m straight up but you know that. She’s good though, seems confident. Good with the kids, better than me to be honest but that’s what we want isn’t it? A new generation of young 22 year old teachers to lead the way.

So she’s teaching whole lessons is she?

God yeah, best thing for her, take my job over completely. I mean, she’s only with me for four bloody weeks so you know, best get in the deep end eh?

I quite agree Chipz! Quite agree! Did she teach today?

Sure, maths, first thing.

How was it? Handing over control of your class I mean. I know it can be difficult.

Fuck me yes. Honestly, I had to leave. She was doing a grand job so I thought I’d best get out of her way and that.

What did you do with your time? Come on Chipz, I know you too well…I don’t want you going off and finding some job that needs to be done that could just as well be done by one of the assistants, you need to keep fresh!

Thought you’d say that Boss. So I went to the staff room and had two cups of tea and read one of the journals.

TES? Not looking for another job I hope!

No Boss, The Sun. Should have seen young Danni today…tits like ripe melons, and a well rounded view on world poverty. Cracking girl. Anyway, she did fine. Did get a bit stressed that I had to do break duty though…although she’ll be taking that over from next week.

Good, good. You work too hard Chipz.

I know Boss, I’m a fucking martyr, I really am. Still, French was next so I took the student off to the computer room and, being the nice bloke I am, downloaded all the planning framework for her so she can get her arse in gear and plan all of next week. Still, I know it’s above and beyond the call, but I thought I’d teach five whole maths lessons next week. You know, give her a bit of a breather.

Chipz, Chipz, Chipz…you’re very good to those students you know.

I know Boss, still, remember when I was one. I thought five hours of work next week for me was reasonable.

Quite so. What else have you been up to this week?

Well, we had that story workshop woman in yesterday morning and she’s in again tomorrow. I’ll have to be there of course. At the back of the class. And our resident artist is in. She’s done two afternoons now. Good stuff…but I tell you Boss, sharpening pencils ain’t no fucking picnic.

You’re sharpening pencils for the visiting teacher?!

Yes, you know me Boss, I’m 100% committed. Got a blister though, look.

That’s nasty. Will you sue her?

Christ yes Boss, you know me. I trust I can count on your backup?

Naturally Chipz, naturally. The usual 50/50 split when you win?

Of course Boss. Like always. Anyway, I’ll wait till five weeks is up and then start proceedings, let the visiting artist finish the course and that.

So, let’s get this straight Chipz…by Friday you will have taught three whole lessons all by yourself?

That’s right Boss…one of those is making Mothers’ Day cards though, which is always fiddly.

I see…and next week you’re teaching five whole hours.

That’s right Boss.

I think you should be resting more Chipz, you stretch yourself you know.

I know Boss…but what can I do? It’s not a job, it’s a calling. A burden I choose to carry.

Chipz, you are a shining example to the Public Sector, you really are. Another cigarette?

Thanks Boss, I will. Got any scotch in that decanter of yours…?

Of course Chipz, I’ll get some glasses.

New half term resolutions

 My resolutions for the next half term:

• 1) I will motivate the four boys in the bottom group who prefer to spend their working day gazing into the middle distance and breathing through their mouths.
• 2) I will find out who the light-fingered little bugger in my class is.
• 3) I will accept that I know damn well who the light-fingered little bugger in my class is even though accepting the fact that they conform to every stereotype of social deprivation is frankly, depressing.
• 4) I will try to be patient with the kid whose mum always gets him to school late, it’s not really his fault he’s neurotic.
• 5) I will count to 10 when a certain classroom assistant blathers on with huge authority on subjects of which she has no knowledge. I can always stab her to death next term.
• 6) I will try not to swear too much in the staff room.
• 7) I will get my new student through her placement with flying colours, no longer will I have students who constantly break down in tears or go off sick after a week in my presence.
• 8 ) I will wash my hands every break time and use the antiseptic gel stuff in between. I refuse to spend the next half of this academic year coughing my guts up/spewing my guts up/ shitting my guts out.
• 9) I vow to get worse if any wet colleague tells me I ‘can’t say that’. Social problems won’t be tackled unless some of us stand up and speak out on certain issues.
• 10) I’ll try and do all my planning well in advance.
• 11) I’ll mark work straight away. Christ.
• 12) I’ll teach RE.
• 13) I’ll be more enthusiastic about doing Circle Time, and try not to grimace as I encourage children of six to talk about their fucking feelings.
• 14) I’ll try and be more enthusiastic about being Head of Art.
• 15) I will be honest at parent’s evening in two weeks time and tell a psychotic mother that her son’s just lazy. Neither is he big boned, if she mentions it.
• 16) I will try and get fit, healthy body; healthy mind and all that crap.
• 17) I will not get sucked into terrible bouts of backstabbing female gossip and bitching, even though it’s quite intriguing sometimes.
• 1 I’ll try to keep my classroom tidy.
• 19) I’ll try and remember to read the school diary so that I’m not left blinking like a retard when parents ask me about things I don’t care about, like school parties and that sort of thing.
• 20) I’ll change my class displays around, they’re getting on a bit.

That’s a lot of resolutions. I wonder how many I break by next Friday.

Somebody please explain

 I’ve just been reading the BBC news online, and as usual popped into the education section. I read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7255493.stm

I’m a bit puzzled, what’s a community language? Do they mean languages that are found commonly in our social community? Because if that’s what it means I would have thought (well, judging by the languages I hear out and about) there’s a fair whack of Germans and French living here too. So that makes theirs a community language doesn’t it? Confused. I fucking hate the word ‘community’ by the way. It’s usually used on the news to describe the opposite. As in ‘The Uzbekistani Community’, which seems to have been excluded from the rest of society by being described as a separate community.  Winds me up. I’m feeling a bit reactionary at the moment. I’ll make a whole new rant about that though.

Art

 Yeah anyway, I got some horrible bug on Friday night. Well, 2am on Saturday morning actually. I woke up and through pure instinct headed for the bog and chucked my boiling guts up into it. And then puked about every half hour until eight in the morning. And then it started coming out elsewhere. Bloody kids! I know it’s them. The last time I had a stomach bug was 12 years ago when I did some holiday work in a crèche. I was supposed to be going up north on Saturday to see my brother but that was obviously off the moment I started doing an impression of Bruce Parry after he’s been fed some native medicine made of frogs’ cocks. Kids are so germy, and the younger they are, the germier they are. For three years in key stage 2 I had more colds than I had in previous jobs but that was it, after half a year in key stage one I’ve have three, three colds, a chest infection and a vomiting bug. It’s all shit. Well, actually it’s a bit more solid this morning so it looks like I’m on the mend. I also missed the chance to hook up with my very best buddies who I don’t see often last night and didn’t because I was still feeling ill and squirty. I curse the child what did this to me.

Going into work in an hour, I’m being given a new student seeing as the last one broke after only one week. So I have to go and get a load of info off to her so she can start planning her lessons etc. She starts on Monday which is great, but it means I must get off my arse and do something about it. Curses.

Also starting next Monday is my ‘artist in residence’. We’ve got an artist coming in twice a week for five weeks to do an on-going project with my kids. Should be good. She’s quite sensible so while the work will be a slightly abstract mural-type thing looking at our local environment it won’t be shit. I know all about artists’ tendencies to be shit as I went to art school with them. And most of them were really shit. I did Graphic Design, and we had our studios upstairs in a split level warehouse type thing and the Fine Artists (ha!) had theirs downstairs. I’m still in touch with three people who did Fine Art at my college. One is a very successful (self-taught, nothing to do with his course really) photographer for a dead posh fashion mag, one is a very successful director who makes all advertisements for off of the telly and one is off shooting at people in Afghanistan. I assume the others have all given up on their ridiculous dreams and are selling advertising space for some local rag. I know this hasn’t got much to do with teaching but I’m reminded of it because of this tenuous link with my artist in residence…so I’ll tell you about these cunts anyway, just to try and purge them from my system. Here are a sample of four people I remember from the fine art department.

• a) A bloke who had the challenging idea of buying a pig’s head from a butcher and nailing the component parts of it to a piece of board and putting it in the foyer until it stank. This was shortly after the time that cunt Hirst was putting animals in tanks full of pickle.
• b) Another bloke who took a photo of himself (in tasteful black and white) oiled, naked, with one foot behind his head trying to suck his own engorged penis. He decided to hang that one outside the illustration studio. Where I worked. How challenging.
• c) A big butch lezza who made a cast of her puddle-jumping friend’s erect cock and did challenging things like sticking it to a baby doll, the handle of a knife (geddit?)…anything pertaining to children. And then displayed them around the graphics department.
• d) A bint who spent the day in the foyer on a white armchair wearing a dressing gown and reading a book. When she got up at the end of the day…wait for it…she’d gone and done a period onto the chair! I was challenged.

There are just a few things that unite all of these artists. They were shit and all of them insisted on putting their work in the space used by non-fine artists. I don’t know what they were expecting, maybe they thought our sell-out graphic little world would turn inside out. I just thought they were narcissistic little fuckers without a grain of originality since something equivalent to each one of those things had already been done and widely publicised. Some of you will probably say that in me writing this they gained the reaction they wanted since that’s what art’s all about. I’d argue that’s not the case. I just think it illustrates the self-love many young ‘artists’ suffer from. If those four really really wanted to challenge the local community they should have gone and displayed those four stunts in Iran. As far as I’m aware pigs, menstruation, masturbation and erect penis casts are still very much off the menu there and they should have brought them to the public’s attention. Not to a bunch of graphic designers who were so used to the flailings of the art world that they very sensibly decided to ‘sell out’ and learn how to design corporate logos.

Half term

 The last week of this half term went mercifully quickly. I confess, I’d run out of patience and was no longer fit to be in charge of 30 small children. The kids were ready for a break too, they gave little hints like permanently getting into trouble with other members of staff, fighting, crying, shoving each other’s coats down the toilet (nice) and generally being fairly un-lovable. Fortunately that was just the boys, the girls managed to hold it together. If they hadn’t I would have gone insane. So most of the boys went through their last week on various forms of last warnings, missing five minutes of break time, sitting facing the wall, narrowly escaping a back-hander from myself. I swear, my job is the best prophylactic in the world. Think you want children? You won’t when you see my lot having a bad week. No more “she’s only just had her period, I’m probably ok to leave it in” malarkey.

Friday was therefore a fairly welcome arrival as I was away from school at the training centre. The day was hideous though. All of the borough’s Year Two teachers had a get together to look at their children’s work and level it together. This means there’s cohesion across the borough you see. Which means a child who’s a 2C in one school will also be a 2C in another, stops the figures getting skewed. Sounds fucking boring? Yes, yes it is. It also highlights our nations obsession with league tables and (when it comes to six and seven year olds) statistics. I’m not going to rant about it now though, done that enough and you can find all the pros and cons on any news website in the education section. I arrived and went to the table at the back and found I was sitting next to the teacher from the primary school closest to mine. Worlds apart…her school has a middle class catchment area (second house in France, nanny, Chelsea Tractor…that sort of thing), mine is solidly working class (second secret flat on benefits, three ‘dads’ and a pile of broken glass on the pavement where the car used to be). Only a road separates us. Her children are all, apart from one newly arrived Pole and one with special needs, overachieving. I have one over achiever, a handful on target and a lot well below. How we laughed when we compared our tracking sheets. Still, I don’t envy her. She suffers from pushy parent syndrome, who compare their children’s results and demand to know why she can’t ‘make’ Rupert get marks as high as Hamish. Probably because Hamish has more private tuition than Rupert…or the simple fact that if you’re from a certain class you’re not necessarily going to be very clever. Anyway, give me my lot any day. I will be back to write more. I’ve been unwell and need to go toilet…

Boring boring boring

 It must be nearly half term. The grown ups keep sighing and saying things like “they’re getting tired, it’s been a long term…” when some little bugger does something naughty/spiteful/dangerous/blasphemous/racist. My lot are still a bit frisky. Actually about five boys are a bit frisky but that’s enough to feel like throwing board rubbers. Not that I would of course. I don’t need to…I can hit a child with a piece of chalk at forty paces. You will of course notice that I’m joking, we don’t have any chalk these days. I use board markers.

The pressure’s mounting regarding these up coming SATS. I’ve got a day at the PDC (or Depressing Council-run Centre for Training and Indoctrination) next week, all about the joys of moderating and levelling the academic offerings of six and seven year olds. Apparently this is a phenomenon in the rest of the world and teachers from other countries laugh behind our backs about it and watch in amusement as their much less-tested children overtake ours with ease. Us Brits do love a good folder full of statistics though so fuck what we all suspect, let’s make them go to school just after dad ejaculates up mum and test them at 3 months. Anyway, according to the letter they sent me I’ve got to take lots of children’s exercise books, past papers, IEPs etc for analysis with colleagues from across the borough. Sounds like Hell. Sitting in a hall full of teachers is bad enough, but having to mark for a whole day is up there with watching High School Musical (1 & 2). There’s always a little clique of middle aged female teachers as well, such a bunch of old hags. They’ve done primary so long they talk in ‘that’ voice all the time, even to adults. You could punch them with ease, believe me.

Anyway, it’s far too early on a Sunday and I’m up, couldn’t sleep. Woke up at six and started, worryingly, thinking of work. Got a whole school assembly this week where my lot are going to show their work and cuddly dinosaurs to the school and their parents. Takes a bit of thinking.

Sometimes they drive me mental.

 Feeling a bit frazzled this week. I sometimes wonder if it’s just that I’m knackered, or whether the children really have turned into the spawn of Satan. Actually, that’s not fair. I can assure you that the class have not turned into evil gremlins…it just feels like that sometimes. I think I nailed it today; every child in the class with a notable ‘bad point’ (good honest Educationalists would vomit they read that some children had bad points. And then try to stab me) has somehow had that ‘bad point’ magnified this week. For example: Timmy is being very very wet. The boys who bicker and tell tales are bickering and telling tales. The sweary one is doing swears, the grass is grassing, the loopy one is going bananas and the liar is lying his face off. Don’t know how it happened, or why. I suspect it may be me. Children, as any fule kno, are a bit like dogs and pick up on adults’ moods. I think they know I’m not firing on all cylinders and that unsettles the ones that are prone to being unsettled. I want to make one thing absolutely clear, most of the children are being lovely. It’s just ‘those’ ones that are being a bit, er, frisky. Or neurotic.

Yesterday was a peach, it really was. (Here we go, Moaning Teacher mode engaged) It all started with my rather challenging boy, who has been mentioned before…the one who is taught to hate the English etc, was rapidly going off the chart in the morning. I’ll have to give him a name. Let’s call him Mohammed. Anyway, of late I’ve started to suspect that Mohammed has taken to trying to hide his bookbag, which contains his reading book and spelling book. I think his idea is that if he ‘can’t find’ his spelling book the lady who works one-to-one with him won’t be able to remember what his spellings are. Sadly for him this isn’t the case. As the morning went on we were struggling to find his spelling book. Soon the bag was found lodged behind a cupboard in a random part of the school. He denied everything. On the one hand, Mohammed’s new-found penchant for lying is quite good; it means that he now realises that other human beings have thoughts of their own, which he must try to manipulate if he is to achieve certain goals. Until this academic year we would assume that everything he said was the truth because he was totally unable to lie. Now he can…which is, I suppose, symptomatic of a leap forward in mental ability. Sadly, it means he lies now. A lot. Fortunately, as this skill is new, he’s crap at it and never fools anyone. The first clue that he’s lying at the moment is that he always says “honestly Mr.Chipz, I’m not lying!” just before he tries to sell you an outrageous whopper. So yesterday, when he said “honestly, Mrs.Harlesdon stole my spelling book, I’m not lying!” my suspicions were aroused. Mrs. Harlesdon teaches another year group and wouldn’t know where Mohammed’s spelling book was kept, or care for that matter.

So the search started and we found the bookbag and spelling book. His pendulum of behaviour was starting to swing at an alarming rate. He can swing from ‘good’ to ‘bad’ over an hour, or half an hour, but yesterday morning he was tick-tocking every minute. One moment he’d do the right thing because it was the right thing. Within seconds he’d be trying to do something nasty. Then he’d try hard to do something good but actually do something wrong by mistake (in this case he probably thought that ‘good’ children help teachers maintain good discipline. So he started fabricating bad things other children had done…he really was confused as to why this was ‘bad’). Then he’d try and defy his helper and burst into tears when I snarled at him. Then he’d try and tidy up, but at the wrong time, treading on a small Polish girl who was sitting on the carpet, like he should have been. His behaviour was becoming more and more erratic. This isn’t too worrying though…I’ve got a tonne of paperwork telling me that ‘erratic’ is kind of his thing. As I sent the kids to wash their hands for lunch he decided that he wanted to practice his handwriting. Fine, it would only make him five minutes late, and frankly, that would keep him out of the lunch queue…often a health and safety issue; Mohammed queuing for lunch can often be like a one-man Chinese fire drill; chaos. He did his work and went to get dinner. I circulated amongst lunchtime staff and any teachers present asking them to keep a sympathetic watch on him, and if any doubt over his behaviour, not to go for the kill but to send for me. Honestly, the boy really isn’t like you n’ me. I turned to see him sitting at his table, forcing two whole pancakes into his face. It was unreal. He gagged. He shuddered. He covered the table in sick. Ace. As he was hauled off a little girl in my class told a dinner lady her mouth ‘felt funny’. This little girl has a very severe dairy allergy. She’d eaten a fucking pancake. She was then hauled out for emergency medication. I wandered down to see how they were both getting on and had to pacify Mohammed who was wailing his head off claiming “I don’t do sick!” while covered in sick. His mother was called and he was carted off. He’s not sick. He hit his sick-trigger with a pancake. However he’s being a handful so I told mum to keep him at home for a day to make sure he’s better. I know; bad. But seriously, he was sending some other kids mental…it’ll be good for the kids! I then saw another of mine on a chair outside the office looking pale. I asked him if he felt ill too and he said yes. I was then told by the school secretary that in fact he was waiting to see me because he’d called a younger child a ‘Fuckhead’ in the playground. Groan. Mother was seen after school. After lunch another of my boys upset another lad by trying to kiss him on the mouth. Quite a few of my boys are like that actually, fruity little buggers. Mohammed’s the worst. He loves the boys.

This morning Timmy sat at my feet in register and gave the sort of sniff that makes you retch. You could hear a pound of snot slamming into his throat. I made him go and blow his nose and put two tissues in his pocket. He came back to the carpet with one tissue and sat down with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. This is a sign that he’s regressed to the pathetic creature I got at the start of the year. God knows why he’s having a flaky week, he’s been much better for months. The conversation went like this:

Mr.Chipz: “Have you blown your nose?”

Timmy: *stares at Mr.Chipz, blinks*

C: “Have you blown your nose?”

T: *shakes head*

C: “Blow. Your. Nose.”

T: *looks forlornly at tissue. Looks at Mr.Chipz*

C: “NOW!”

T: *touches nose with tissue. Blinks again*

C: “Right. Get up. Go to the bin. Blow your nose OVER the bin, you’re leaking. Put the tissue in the bin AFTER you’ve blown your nose. Did you put two tissues in your pocket like I said?”

T: *slight, almost imperceptible shake of head*

C: “Speak to me!”

T: (whispers) “No”

C: (getting angry) “Right, go and blow your nose, and come back with two tissues!”

Timmy walked off to the bin. I turned my attention back to register, time’s a ticking and if I leave it much longer the children will start a riot. I read a few more names out and look over to the bin. Timmy is standing at the bin holding a tissue, looking vacantly at some snot that’s dripped onto his jumper.

C: “BLOW YOUR NOSE RIGHT NOW!”

Timmy leaps into the air, blinking at speed. Finally blows his nose.

C: “Right, now put it in the bin. IN THE BIN! Oh for God’s…PUT IT IN THE BIN AND COME BACK HERE WITH TWO TISSUES IN YOUR POCKET! NOW!”

I turned back to the register, pulse racing. It’s times like this that I’m glad that I have a very low sperm count.  Timmy shuffles back to the carpet (he walks like an 80 year old) and sits down at my feet. I finish register. Timmy sniffs.

C: “Timmy, please don’t sniff like that, it’s making Paul feel ill” (Paul looks absolutely disgusted at the noises Timmy is making, can’t blame him either)

T: *makes small mewing noise and blinks a lot*

C: “Timmy, get one of the tissues out of your pocket, and blow your nose again. You do have those tissues in your pocket don’t you?”

T: *tongue lolls out of head, looks stoned…which is quite normal for him*

C: “what was that Timmy, you need to talk to me, say something. Anything. Do. You. Have. Those. TISSUES THAT I JUST TOLD YOU TO GET?!”

Timmy, shook his head. For fuck’s sake. Call me a heartless bastard but it’s at times like this that you could really slap a child.

C: “GET THE TISSUES!! GET THE TISSUES OR YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE!”

Timmy waddled off like a duck trying not to shit itself. I could’ve killed him, I mean it. Sounds petty doesn’t it. Actually, reading back I sound like a fucking bully. I promise you I’m not. I am human though, and sometimes, just sometimes I really don’t like children much. It passes though.

Wind - I demand an answer.

 What is it about wind that makes kids go nuts? I mean the sort of wind that you get outside, not wind from one’s guts. Because God knows, my children get enough of that sort as it is. Someone on the front row of the carpet in my class has rotten guts. I don’t know which one it is but I’m beginning to suspect it’s Timmy. For a start he looks like the sort of kid who permanently pushes air through shit, and also he was off for two days this week and I don’t think I got a retch-inducing lungful of bowel gas in that time. So it’s probably him. God knows what his mother feeds him. Anyway, back to the wind. The outdoors kind. It’s a well known fact, and I do mean fact, that something weird happens to children on a windy day. The younger they are, the more mental they go. I took about sixty of them out for break on Thursday and it was blowing a gale, by the end they were all nuts. And remained so for the rest of the day. Why is that? I’m not a parent so I’ve only ever noticed this effect on large groups of children, if anyone reading this has (or has had) small children can you let me know if they also go mental on windy days if there’s no other children to go mental with? I can’t remember turning into a nut-job in a strong wind when I was young but then I can’t remember a whole load of things from thirty years ago, which is fair enough. Also, if any of you are in any way knowledgeable about this sort of thing, can you please tell me why wind sends children nuts.

Actually, to be honest, my class were a bit weird all week. It was one of those weeks where the children’s worst traits came to the fore. Not all of them went bad, some are genuinely good all the time, but some of them became bastard spawn of Beelzebub. Fortunately they didn’t try it with me, but they played up the lunchtime staff something rotten and I had to make sudden appearances with my ‘cross face’ on and snarl a lot. This works, but taking away 10 minutes of their lunch break is a bit of a Pyrrhic Victory as I then have to lose my own by sitting at my desk glowering at them in pretend fury as they sit in nervous silence.

My student, who is here for a nine week placement lasted a week before getting a kidney infection. I’m pretty sure it’s all true, I really don’t think I had enough time to put her off a career in teaching and send her fleeing for home. Got an email from her just now and it seems it’s got a lot worse, sounds fucking nasty to be honest. Anyway, don’t know when she’ll be back but she’s now two weeks behind and if it goes on much longer I fear the university will pull the plug on her and she’ll have to do her placement next year, which means she won’t qualify this summer…serious shit. On a rather more selfish note I’m rather frustrated because by now she would have been teaching about 75% off the week which would allow me to take small groups of low ability children and do quite important stuff, teach them things a six or seven year old really needs to know. Like how to write their own fucking name. Honestly, it’s a worry. I fear for these SATS I really do. Actually, it’s also just a fucking bitch that I have to actually work for a living now that the student’s not around. Strike I say! Strike now!!