Category: Old school

Those were the days Part 8

SPORTS DAY……

Sports day in my early days of teaching was something the kids either loved or hated. If you are down to do a Patrol Duty this meant you had to man the gates on the field and stop kids escaping.

A coveted duty was to be one of the marshals for the long jump. This was presided over by the head of maths, who used to sit under a beach umbrella and hold court with a thermos flask and ice box with a day’s supply of G&T in it. He would direct kids from his chair and the event ran like clockwork.

I was the man with the gun who in my first year of starting races managed to officiate in about six races where records were broken in 200m & 300m. This was until we worked out that I was starting the students from the front of the changeover box used only for the relay races. This line was 10 m in front of the correct starting point. Oops!

One other monster cock up I made was in the event that was always a grand finale – the year 10 boys’ 4x100m relay. Having sent them off with no hitch I saw that there were two more caps in the pistol. The race was on its third changeover when I decided to be lazy and not take out the caps but to shoot them off instead. I did not know that two sharp rounds from the gun was a signal for a false start, but it certainly dawned on me when the whole race ground to a halt and the whole school turned round to look at the muppet who had stopped the race.

I think PE Department award me a medal for that ‘Champagne moment’ in the leavers’ assembly for that year group.

Those were the days Part 7

Why we have a block on picture searches

We used to be able to search for images with laptops. You get blocked from doing so by the County server these days. If you read on you will see one reason why.

I was teaching a year seven class about food chains using a food web that had a field of corn as the habitat for insects, field mice, various birds….. You catch the drift. One the girls in the class genuinely did not know what a swallow was. I told her it was a bird that ate insects. She still had no idea. So in order to provide a remedy for her blank stare, I did a quick picture search on Google and beckoned her over to my desk. As she approached the first hit came for an image from howtomakeyourwifeswallow.com which was hastily minimised with a Homer Simpsonesque yelp! It was a close call and luckily I was not hooked up to the projector at the time!

When I started teaching 30 years ago……..

I started my professional career in teaching on 8th July 1991 at a West London comprehensive school and I was thinking….

 

 

When I started teaching:

  • Kids stood up in the Hall when the Head walked in to start an assembly.
  • The Headteacher in my first school always taught a GCSE class, turned up to department meetings, wrote reports etc. Just to keep his toe in the water.
  • Some staff would go down the pub at lunch every day, without fail. The Clay Pigeon used to take a copy of the TES on a Friday from the news agent as so many staff went there at lunchtime on that day
  • Every parents evening you were served a hot meal before the appointments started or alternatively you could claim travel expenses for a return journey to and from home.
  • Wine was always served at all INSET day lunches.
  • Reports were written by hand once a year on A5 carbon paper for each student.
  • The form tutor report also had space for a comment from Head of Year and the Head Teacher too. The Head wrote a comment about every kid in the school every year.
  • UCAS was done by hand. If you wanted to write a reference (by hand) on a student you went to the school file, which if you were lucky had a few clumps of year reports in it on hard to read carbon paper to use for background info.
  • WORD had only one font option.
  • Computers were not networked, they were pushed around class rooms on trolleys
  • Chalk was king
  • You could smoke in the staff room
  • Registers were filled in by hand simply with a ‘/’ or ‘O’ with red and black ink
  • You could tell off an unruly student and they would stand there and take a good verbal whelping. You could have it out with them without having a ‘time out’ card waved in your face, or the kid simply walking off away from you because they ‘had issues’.
  • You differentiated by getting brighter kids to copy out more than their less able peers.
  • It hardly ever snowed. One change for the better.
  • The Borough minibus test consisted of backing out the minibus onto the school car park from its garage, driving to Sainsburys across the road, turning round and coming back the long way round the block. Providing you did not curb the bus turning left on the way back you passed. It did not involve waiting till you were 26 and having to pay £2k for the training course and test.
  • Mini buses had no power steering and PE teachers had arms like Popeye.
  • The staff football team had a better kit than the students.
  • A three part lesson Period 5 most days was as follows: shout at the kids, copy out, and put the stools up at the end.
  • Students used my digital scales to check the mass of their lucky pennies, as drug dealers had not yet done the analogue to digital switch. The pennies were used to measure out the set weight of puff on pan scales
  • INSET days were called “Baker” days after the Government minister who took a week off our holidays and made us come into work instead.
  • I regularly played football with a year 11  group if their PE lesson coincided with one of my free periods.
  • Free Periods were free, not “Non-contact time”

Those were the days Part 6

Maths Vocabulary

I am grateful for the cover supervisors who do a thankless task in covering classes these days. I have said this before, but man alive, have I done some maths covers in my time, particularly at planet QM. It got so bad that I was asked for an appointment for parents evening by one kid as I had covered his class so much.

It is hard to teach maths – it is great that once they master something. Kids love to do the same process or calculation time and time again. They find it comforting – a sort of algebraic ‘copying out’.

What is hard is introducing a new term or equation to students, especially when you only know your way of doing the new calculation yourself.

I have learned over the years that the following verbs are essential when teaching maths:

Addzez                      (+)                   eg. “3 addz 4 is 7”

Takesawayz             (-)                    eg. “13 takesawayz 2 is 11”

Timezez                     (x)                   eg. “ 2 timezez 2 is 4”

Guzinterz                  (÷)                   eg. “6 guzinterz 24 4times”

Those were the days Part 5


 

Work Experience Visits

During the Summer term all the Year 10 students spent two weeks out of school  on a variety of work placements. There was an expectation that staff went to see how the students were getting on. Teacher visits were organised using a booking sheet by the staff room that you could sign up your name next to a student. It was pretty flexible and there were a few perks, one of which was the fact that you got out of school and away from being called for “cover” if you went visiting.

Some students really blossomed in the working environment and it was just a nice to see how they were getting on. 

One mentor of mine, a Tea-club stalwart and fellow member of the Science department Richard Michaels (RM) shared the same GCSE science classes in year 10 and 11. This meant that during work experience in June we had a lot of “free” periods that coincided.

RM suggested that we did a batch of work experience visits together along the High Street, as we had similar “free” periods in a run from mid-morning till the end of school. 

So the next day, after prearranging via a few phone calls, we visited a group of students who were working from Woolworths to the solicitors’ office all the way up the High Street. It was good to see the kids doing well and after completing the last visit RM suggested we debriefed in The Swan.

At the pub we had a good go at writing up the visit reports, as it was still lunch time at school and we were free last period. Here RM assumed the old git, Inspector Morse role and I (as Sergeant Lewis) was the younger partner, who got stitched up with the driving and getting the rounds bought.

As I brought the drinks back RM leaned back in his chair and puffed out a plume of smoke and said “This is the life! Year 11 are down the road, no classes to teach, no registration neither!”

REGISTRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My jaw dropped. I could see RM grinning smugly. He had no tutor group, whereas I had a Year 9 form to register. The school had a 5 minute afternoon registration period where you checked everyone was present, distributed notes and notices to your tutor group and then sent them on to their afternoon lessons.  

He knew the score and I had been mugged off. I checked the clock……….. Too late! I had no time to get back in time to do it. Panic set in, I had visions of my form group drifting in to the lab after getting bored of waiting for me and causing mayhem. Knowing them it could get messy.

I jumped up and got on the payphone and quickly punched in the numbers.

Rings for ages, no answer. Kids will be waiting now. COME ON PICK UP!

Still rings. I have visions of my lab getting trashed.

Receptionist finally answers

“Chris, it’s Sam. I need help!”

“You’re down the pub aren’t you?”

“No I am not! I need a really quick favour”

At this point someone in the pub wins on the fruit machine and it starts paying out loudly. RM is laughing his socks off.

“You ARE down the pub!”

“YES I AM DOWN THE PUB! Just please get someone to register my form. PLEASE!”

RM is in absolute stitches.

“I will see what I can do. Make sure RM behaves himself!”

I could have swung for him, sitting there with his fag, pint and big grin.

Those were the days part 4

Inspections OFSTED had not been invented when I first started teaching. Instead you got dropped in on by Borough ‘advisors’ on a very infrequent and irregular basis.

During one lesson observation of a Tea-club member tension was building. As the class beavered away, putting together a spice rack, or some such wooden contraption, the advisor scuttled around the workshop with his pen and clipboard, occasionally asking the teacher inane questions.

The Tea-club member normally did not take any messing and the advisor clearly irritated him. When another “shouldn’t you be doing it this way?’ question came his way the teacher finally lost it.

“Right lads,” bellowed the irate teacher “tools down, machines off!” The wagon load of monkeys that was this year 10 class ground to a halt and silence returned to the workshop.

“Now then lads, as you can see we have a visitor today, a Mr Jones. He is a so called expert in woodwork teaching and I have decided that he knows far more about my job than I do, so I am going to leave you both to it and go for a brew.”

Then beckoning with his hands he introduced both parties, “Lads. Mr Jones.” “Mr Jones, meet the lads, they are all yours!” and then walked out and left them to it! Old school!

Those were the days part 3

Teaching Practice in West Yorkshire in the early 90’s

Every school has one – the Racing Post clutching, die hard punter. My Teaching practice mentor was such a bloke – Pete Rose, another school, another legend. He loved a bet, but loved teaching too – he really showed me the ropes and was a top guy.

On the first day of the Lincoln Handicap meeting at Doncaster, Pete sent me down to the town centre to the bookies with a handful of loose change, rather than have me teach my classes. This was in the days before mobiles and the internet, so I was sent on an information gathering mission to the Keighley branch of Ladbrokes.

The Lincoln is a mile long cavalry charge down the straight and often horses win due the favourable draw they get from the stalls, rather than winning on ability. The stall draw number can be a massive influence on the race result. The big race was due to run the next day, so I had to sit down and watch the races on this day before and write down the stall numbers of the first five horses home for each race. These five numbers I relayed back on a pay phone outside the bookies to the lab technician back at school every half hour or so. Scribbled notes were then passed to Pete as he taught my lessons.

A picture built up of the draw bias that Pete used in getting his wedge on early for the race the next day.

Pete bought me a pint afterwards for my good work in the local pub – “The Grinning Rat.” The whole episode looking back seems so alien now when compared to today’s times in schools.

Those were the days Part II

Those were the days Part II

Cover

An “old school” teacher of what was then called Woodwork & Technical Drawing (I think it is called RM now, or is it D&T?) had his own personal policy with regards to cover.

The school had an 8 period day and cover was managed by a member of SLG. No computer networks then, you got given a slip of paper the cover details on it. These dreaded cover slips got delivered by students that ran around the school looking for you at the start of the day. When the said “old schooler” got given a slip he would often be found in the T-club (see later) having a snout.  The bloke would squint through the smoke drifting from the fag drooping in the corner of his mouth and say ‘That’s number 6 lads now – not long to go’.

He had a large bulldog clip hung on a notice board in his workshop. It was used to collect cover slips. When he reached 8 that was it. The next full teaching day he had, bang, he would be “ill” – in his reasoning 1 day of cover = 1 day off in lieu. He would always take a sickie on an 8 period day to get his full pay-back.

The man would do this regular as clockwork, and it did not take long for him to clock them up, as the school was a little less gentile than here – so there were long term absences and also supply teachers would turn their noses up and a day of work there.

Cover got so bad at times that I covered the same maths class 4 weeks running. When I went to the HOD to ask what to do in the last week as we had finished the chapter – he replied ‘any chance you can set them a test?’ I was even asked for appointments for parents’ evening from some of the students in that group as I had taught them more than the regular teacher.

Banda Machines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditto_machine

There was an art to using these. The real trick was not go too slow, or the ink smudged; going quick was the way, but too fast ended up getting the machine jammed.

The staff room had different smells and sounds then. The big Banda machine certainly provided a lot sound and that characteristic organic solventy smell when it was being used at full pelt.

Geographers loved them – all those colours!

Bottom set year 11 loved them – scratch and sniff!

Last day

Drinking was a cultural thing when I first started teaching. The last day of the Christmas term was notorious and one would often get invited to various gatherings.

A typical day would start at

8 am              Port and Stilton in Music with the legend that had his own optics.

Break             Gin slings in the Maths office or

Mulled wine & mince pies in Science

The mulled wine was cooked up using a tripod, gauze & Bunsen burner in a large Pyrex flask and served in 100ml beakers.

Lunch                        the kids went home and the Tea-club Christmas dinner started.

In addition PE would be an all day ‘open house’ serving cocktails & nibbles – a young suave blonde(then) Head of Boys PE was host and maître d’. Hawaiian shirts and flip flops were part of the dress code to the PE department one year.

Tea-club

When one mentions a Gentleman’s Club these days, people think more White Horse on the West Wycombe Road than The RAC Club.

The Tea-club was an ‘old school’ gentleman’s club that was based in a metal work workshop. Club membership was granted to me only after I wrote a letter of application that was seconded by a club member.

There was always tea available that was brewed in a big enamelled tin tea-pot. No women were allowed in the club – not that many wanted to join! Other colleagues that needed to speak to a club member would often knock and wait at the door if they paid a visit.

Typical members were Matt Morse the music “optics” teacher, the metalwork ‘cover’ teacher and my mentor, Richard Michaels who got me in to the tea club. Before gaining membership I would not have to knock before coming in.

President of the T-club was a salt of the Earth head of technology. He would often cook himself breakfast on the top of the ceramics oven. This oven was used to roast the turkey for the end of term meal.  The President would get into work in the early morning to fire up the bird, the spuds were popped in during lesson time and sprouts & veg cooked on top.

At the end of school on that last day we had had a few drinks beforehand, by the close of the meal it was carnage. The traditional after dinner game was to try and get from one end of the workshop to the other without touching the floor. Only half the room had work benches, the last half was the tricky bit. You had to either climb over the machinery like lathes and bandsaws, which was nearly impossible. The reckless alternative was to jump up and monkey swing from the service pipes and cables on the ceiling. This manoeuvre was made more difficult by being pelted by uneaten sprouts as you tried to reach your goal! As darkness fell you could see the wives and girlfriends sat in their cars parked up at the back of the workshop with the engines running waiting in the cold to take their better halves home.

The Tea-club Christmas meal bit the dust circa 1991 when one of the deputies (Reg Ball) paid the Tea-club a visit to try and call things to a halt. “This cannot go on” he told us. “People are making comments about it” After delicate negotiations where the Tea-club view was it was a tradition and in fact had “become custom and practice” The resulting stand off was broken by Reg when he said “Ok. What is it going to cost me to get you boys to cancel the Christmas dinner and get yourselves to the pub?”  A £50 cash donation from the deputy to start the whip was enough to break our resolve and the gents went to the pub instead that year.

The team.

Well the first guess at the team was wrong in that the bloke stood next to Opalka is not Nic Tebb!

The back row was pretty well done except the bloke at the end is not Ruth Whitaker.

The caretaker was called Matt Springford – he was a tidy player and a real laugh to go on tour with. His nickname was “Billy T” because he was so prone to just go wandering off when we went out – we called him a liability. Mind you he did blag all 12 of us into the Jungle Club in Bolton one year with the “we are all firemen from London on a weekend’s training” line. When asked by the bouncer on the door to produce ID to prove it – his response quick as a flash was – “We are not supposed to carry it when we are off-duty in case it falls into the wrong hands” Priceless. The Jungle Club was the scene of that infamous incident that I cannot talk about in this forum.

I always roomed with Colin Raitt which was no problem except his Sunday hangover cure was a very early switch on of the TV and a serious amount of cartoon watching whilst he gulped down his first pint of the day (normally chocolate milk) with a couple of bags of sweets. Mad man! He had the incredible talent for kicking the football with his knee.

First guess at that team..

Well the first attempt has been delivered by a great mate, who had clearly come in from a good night out when she did this!
I would like to thank her for taking this the right spirit and she has thrown down the gauntlet!
So the team sheet reads:

“Ol something”
Tebb
Denial
Cosby
Raitt
?
Whitaker
Soneji
Simpson
caretaker guy
?
Morgan

I would say that rates a 7.5 out of 10. Good start – can we keep the ball rolling?