So are they from Venus

Last lesson of term befroe everyone went home and so I decided to break with tradition and show them a video of something. I decided to show them the brilliant 'Wonders of the Solar System' presented by the person I could have been in another universe, Brian Cox. He's a professor of physics, used to be in a rock band, is married to a model and despite being 41 years old has wonderful hair and teeth. I hate the man.

Anyway, Brain happened to be talking about Venus when he suddenly cut away to a busy street in India.

'Sir....are those people from Venus'.

'No Michael, but could you go to the science department and ask them for a fallopian tube'.

'Sorry for being a dickhead'

Some of the best things about teaching in East End is the ways of people expressing themselves where at the time it's deeply inappropriate and needs to be checked but also has an underlying tenderness. One of the best examples of this today was as a student walked from a lesson and apologised to a teacher.

'Sorry for being a dickhead sir, I'll do better'.

Let's ignore the swearing for a second. The kids was apologising (and also acknowledging) that he had done wrong and was promising to sort himself out. The swear word was coarse and unpleasant-its also derived from a lack or articulacy and a representation of where he was from. So I was hearted by the teacher's response.

'Thankyou for apologsing...just don't be a dickhead tomorrow'.

Cheeky, funny...there's a shared understanding.

Let's put that in comparison to a meeting I was having with a parent and a head of year about a child's ongoing desire to fight with everyone in the year group.

'Well Angry needs to tell a teacher if he's being picked on'

'That's not the East End way Mr Scouse....he needs to fight back'.

Both are coarse, both are vulgar. One's cheeky and humorous, the other feeds into a culture of fecklessness and a disregard for authority.

Both need to be stamped out if the kids going to really succeed anywhere.

AfL for parents

Well I suppose that was a cathartic experience for us all but I wonder how useful it really was. With the odd exception each student dragged their parents around to teachers who told them the same thing for five minutes. Each parent must have heard the same thing on repeat for an hour and then left.

I felt really sorry for Bonkers' mother who was simply told what a crap child she had. All she could really do in return was have a go at him. As enjoyable as it was to see him with his head bowed meekly saying 'Yes maam, yes maaam' to each criticism we had of him it seemed cruel on both parent and child.

Why not organise it in such a way that each parent sees only one or two teachers and then spend the other forty minutes on training the parent on the best way of helping their child. It's good we tell them how they behave in school but why do it for so long. Let's spend half an hour teaching them how to log on to and use webstes we recommend effectively, good simple activities they could use with their child as they live with them....adding up or estimating shopping bills...games and resources they could buy. Simple easy ways of improving their children rather than merely letting them know how much we like/dislike their children.

For a profession who talks so much about assessment and feedback we're not great at giving it to everyone.

What I really love...

Bonkers is one of my favourite students in my form. Not at all clever, daft as a brush but also quite endearing and not at all malicious.

This week he strode into the classroom beaming from ear to ear opened the bin and swished the liner round with his hand.

"YESSSSS....That's brilliant'

Totally perplexed at this not untypical behaviour I asked him what he was so happy about.

'I love bin liners sir. I just love the feel of them. When I'm at home alone I get one of them out and just play with it when its empty. This one time I filled one up with vegetable oil and it went all squishy which was great. Then I got a hole it it and it whooshed out [he was miming all of this as well] all over the kitchen"

'What did your mum say"

'She beat me sir"

I can't really blame her.

'Sir.....I'm sorry but this is Bullshit'

Normally that remark would warrant a telling off or even a detention depending on the situation but the apologetic and weary way it was said elicited a laugh from me.

'What do you mean?' I asked Suspicious (who is on the borderline of failing his GCSE).

'Well I just don't see the point of this....'

One and a half lessons of changing the subject on a formula in and he didn't see the point, I sighed. 'Well if we start with this formula, it tells us the cost of hiring a car, however if we.......'

'No, I get that, it's just rubbish though, I want to pass my exam.

'erm....yes. this is going be on it'. All I'm doing is exam style questions (All I ever do with that class in that year is exam style questions-frankly it's all I'm allowed to do. Three X teaching-example, explanation, exercises. But what a good explanation and method I teach)

'But I want to pass with a C'

'erm....yes. What's wrong' as I pointed to the grade B on the board'

'But we're just reversing, that's not difficult'

'Inversing Suspicious, but no. It's not. Look....that's a grade B level work'

'Are you sure, it doesn't seem so'

Amazing and horrible. Here's a boy who's on the point of failing and is able to rearrange a=(b+c^2)/4 to make c the subject.

That's practically an A grade questions. Clearly I'm the best teacher in the whole of East London.

Here's a boy who can do an A grade question really easily and doesn't believe that it's difficult. Clearly there's something wrong with the test.

Probably (hopefully) a bit of both.

A depressing conversation

Cocky is in year 11 at the moment, naturally not particularly stupid nor that clever, usually smiling and always in trouble. In year 8 while I was an naive NQT he was pretty enthusiastic about school and a little cheeky, now I hear he's rude to teachers and difficult to teach but now lads like these are the least of my problems.

'Why aren't you in class Cocky' I asked him as I walked into our office while he was hanging about outside looking at a poster. However as I see him walking around the school during the day rather than spending any time in lessons I can guess the answer.

'Got sent out sir' before adding the inevitable 'innit'.

Rather than letting him wander about in the corridor for the next half hour I invited him into the office and let him sit down and proceeded to speak to him about my plans for the half term (going to Scandinavia since you ask) which he seemed to be quite interested as I made him a cup of tea.

Making cups of tea for students isn't typical for me by the way, simply being incredibly generous as it was the last day of term.

'How often a day do you get sent out of class Cocky?'

'Every day....I can't wait before I leave this school'

'So why do you bother turning up' I thought about saying before really asking 'So what do you want to do when you leave'.

'Nothing'

'What are you going to do for money'

'Mum'

'Happy with that'

'Yeah sounds great-I just want to do what I want to do'.

It transpires Cocky's mother was fined £250 as he regularly truanted lessons, at the moment if he isn't in school when he should be the police give him a lift in at a cost of another £250 for the mother per go. His mother doesn't work, hasn't worked for ten years, lives off the dole, has lived in the same council flat she got when she was 17 and has no plans of doing any paid work. All I found out about the father is that he's a 'D*******' who also doesn't work and has never done. Despite living in in Central east London he's never seen the Sea has boasted about taking drugs to other teachers will leave our school in fours months with no hope or desire of getting a job, driving a car, leaving the country to go on holiday, leaving his council estate, joining a band, taking up a sport or anything other than watching TV with his mother. He too plans to go on the dole. This is a life he is looking forward to and smiles with genuine enthusiasm about it.

He goes to a good school. It's miserable this should happen.

Let's talk about me. This is my third year of teaching, behaviour in my classroom is good, I have a mild interest in becoming head of department but enjoying teaching a lot. I'm not a great teacher but getting better as I think more about the needs of my students rather than how I was taught myself. I didn't become a teacher to 'help children' or even because I 'enjoy working with students' (I think they can be quite poor reasons to become a teacher). I became teacher as it was a good career and I care about the public understanding of maths and this is still my first interest however when you teach, anywhere, but particularly in East London or an inner-city environment you can't teach properly unless you understand the context.

Cocky was failed. Mainly by his pathetic excuse for his parents who never gave him the moral or social guidance children need, but also in part by the school (which mainly does an excellent job for the students). Was he taught in an engaging way? Or was he just given a list of questions to do following some guidance? Was he taught any skills which an employer would be interested in? Students need to leave school with a skill to do something...plumbing, IT work, social care...anything. How well was this done? A bright cheeky funny 11 year old turned into a rude funny 16 year old with no ambition and no chance.

This is why I've decided to write about my professional life-a way to think clearly about what I do at work. Mostly I won't be talking about the lives of students, I plan to write more about the teaching of maths, which methods work, the system of education in this country, the masters in mathematical education I'm staring in April however you can only do this well if you attempt to be aware of the kids and their experiences. I'm looking forward to it.