NQT Archives - How to Teach

How to weekend

Posted on August 30, 2023August 31, 2023 by Elizabeth

“You only get one day. Pick one. You don’t get a two-day weekend in your first couple of years”.

Sad man looking at a calendar on Freepik.com

This was the sage, but stark advice given to me by a trusted vice principal when I was in the second half of my PGCE.

Not having a weekend had already been my reality, but I just assumed it was because I was disorganised or slow. I didn’t realise that it was “normal” that I was not able to fit in all my obligations as well as leisure time in a weekend.

You have to accept that your social life and hobbies will have to take a deep cut for a couple of years. Radical acceptance is required from you that will not be able to do everything you did before. You will have to be very clear and specific about what you can and cannot include in your spare time.

Remember that you’re giving yourself the best chance at being a fantastic teacher – your career is worth the short-term sacrifice.

Plan the weekend

The weekend starts on Friday night. I like to decompress with colleagues on Friday nights. I’ve been lucky enough to work in schools in which the teaching staff are very sociable. I like to go out and share roses, thorns and buds and “let go” of the week that has just been.

This will not necessarily also be right for you. Some teachers want to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible from all things school on a Friday night. They do not want to spend their time talking shop after a grueling week at work.

It can be tempting to get into your pyjamas and just kick back with a nice drink and some mindless television. You have earned a break and deserve to relax. If, however, this attitude spills into Saturday and Sunday you might be inadvertently building yourself up for a very stressful week ahead.

A woman relaxing at home on Freepik.com

TGIF night – first night of the weekend

The secret is to be intentional. I usually do my laundry on Friday night. I’ll get home and put on a wash load. This is then done and ready on Saturday morning so all I need to do is take it out to dry, ready to iron on Sunday.

You might find that washing up, hoovering or cleaning the bathroom are great decompression tasks that you can complete as you wind down for bed. You will never regret doing these tasks the next morning when you wake up to a clean house.

Weekends are for lie-ins

I’m sorry but no, they are not. It’s better for your overall sleep hygiene if you if you wake up at the same time at the weekend as you do on Monday to Friday.

Use that time as your precious protected time. Maybe take a walk in nature, go to the gym, get started on housework, go food shopping, do food prep for the following week or journal.

Use that time to actively support your mental or physical wellbeing. Cleaning and organising your living space serves both of those very well.

Schedule the weekend

I cheat and spread my leisure time across both Saturday and Sunday. This is what a typical weekend looks like for me.

Friday night – laundry

Saturday

5am – 7am – laundry, washing up, hoover flat

7am – 12pm – breakfast, clean kitchen, lesson planning

12pm – 5pm – clean bathroom, lesson planning

5pm – leisure time

Sunday

5am – 7am – iron work clothes, sort work food and bag

7am – 12pm – change bedding, bedding laundry, lesson planning

12pm – leisure time

I make sure that I have the essentials covered so that I can sanely navigate the following week with as much order and as little chaos as possible.

I use my breaks from planning to get quick tasks done like cleaning the bathroom or changing my bedding. All of these are necessary as well as productive so if I’m stuck on a piece of work or can’t face a new task, I’m not “wasting time” by cleaning the cooker instead.

Schedule the weekend fun

To make sure that I don’t become a house bound at the weekend I actively make plans for my weekend evenings.

It might be tempting to just wait for the weekend and play it by ear. I guarantee though, that if you don’t have to get ready and go somewhere to meet someone, you won’t. It’s important that you know during the day that you have a time limit on how long you have to get everything done. This will give you the impetus to get it done quickly so you can get cracking with your lovely fun evening.

I deliberately schedule working time on Sunday too. That’s because if I don’t get everything done on Saturday I still have time planned in to work on Sunday. This makes it easier for me to down tools on Saturday and allow myself my leisure time.

What if I schedule my weekend wrong?

There is no right way or wrong way to weekend, only your way. It may take some time to figure out what type of schedule works best for you.

Your goal should be to eliminate the “Sunday Scaries”. You never want to be asking yourself “How it is Sunday night already?” . That growing panic as you realise there isn’t enough time now to get everything you wanted to do done now is not an experience you need to have.

Remember that it won’t be like this forever. By being intentional with your time you are being kind to your present and future self. Making sure that you are ready for the week ahead is the best way to start the week. You will get a feeling of calm and order as you tick all of the tasks off your list. This will be exuded into your daily interactions with staff and students alike in the week ahead.

Once you have established a routine that suits how you weekend, you will then have the freedom to be more flexible going forward.

how to teach

How to indoctrinate children

Posted on December 29, 2022January 3, 2023 by Elizabeth

Fill their minds with a liberal lefty woke agenda and turn them against democracy and capitalism!

I mean, you can try. Good luck with that.

Brainwashing?

There is a narrative among some politicians and media outlets that some (all?) teachers have a “woke liberal agenda”. Teachers insidiously try to infiltrate the pure and innocent minds of the students with the aim of corrupting them and making them become leftist shills.

This article from the Times Education Supplement Magazine – Are we indoctrinating our pupils? – is a tongue in cheek summary of just how ridiculous that premise is.

If you are so inclined, you can try to brainwash the little vessels, but you definitely will not succeed.

Contrary for contrary’s sake

My inability to even get a foothold in my mission to influence minds has been demonstrated many times.

One perfectly illustrative example of this was when I was teaching a Year 8 (age 12 to 13) class. The topic was viscosity (how thick and gloopy liquids are). I wanted to make sure that they knew what it was.

I asked the whole class if they had ever seen maple syrup being poured and three students had not. I then asked if they had ever seen honey being poured and two of the three students said no. Suspecting mischief I asked them both if they had ever seen vegetable oil being poured. They both said no.

They could tell that I needed a consensus on the class’s knowledge of a substances viscosity. It suited them to be contrary little monsters.

Gaslighting and psychological manipulation on Freepik.com

Gaslighting for gaslighting’s sake

They will sometimes even tell you an outright lie. It can become a sport for them to gaslight you.

I was teaching the concept of friction to a different class. I needed them to confirm that they had walked on various surfaces. We needed discuss how slippery they were in comparison to each other. The surfaces were a concrete pavement, a linoleum floor, a wooden floor and a carpeted floor. Three boys claimed to have never walked on a carpeted floor.

Rather than scold or sanction them, I informed the class that future discussions required that the pupils had knowledge of shared experiences. I told the class that only the pupils that knew what we were referencing could speak or contribute. The mischief makers soon got back on board.

Indoctrination for dummies

Indoctrinating a child takes more than the occasional negative reference to Brexit or joke about the prime ministerial revolving door. The people that believe brainwashing by teachers is possible (and easy) have not spent any time of substance engaging with secondary school pupils.

It is difficult enough for teachers to find the time to teach the core National Curriculum comprehensively, let alone shoe horning in discussions of The Communist Manifesto in lesson time.

No harm in trying?

If you do try to indoctrinate children with your agenda (left, right, or whatever) – the pupils will see through you.

Some will gleefully parrot back whatever you say. They will be grateful to have found a way in which you can be easily manipulated – and diverted from teaching a lesson. Some will grudgingly agree with you hoping that if they concur you will hurry up and shut up about whatever it is. The rest will sense your passion for your propaganda and actively and aggressively disagree with you just to watch you get more and more angry.

You will have only succeeded in losing their respect. They will see that you are treating them as intellectual equals and / or you need them to validate your opinions. From that point on they will then treat you with the lack of respect that you will have now earned. They will no longer regard you as a teacher and leader but a peer who has been put in their place – beneath them.

You will spend every future lesson managing disrespectful behaviour and teaching nothing.

This has been your guide on how to indoctrinate children. Good luck with that.

Teaching

How to be private

Posted on December 28, 2022December 31, 2022 by Elizabeth

“You don’t look that old. How old are you?” I have been asked different versions of this question many times. Just one example of the invasion of my private life.

My answer is always the same. “Thank you for asking me but I don’t discuss my private life at school”.

Child broadcasting your private life on Freepik.com

Just tell them. They are just trying to get to know you.

Not really. Some pupils really do care about you and do want to get to know you. Most pupils are just being curious. Some pupils want to have the bragging rights of having found out from you directly, which affords them the ability to flex when they share the information with their peers.

Regardless of the intent the answer should always be the same.

Those that really care may view you as their friend so it’s natural that they would ask their friend personal questions. You must always remember though that you are not and will never be their friend. You should of course be friendly and caring but this does not mean sharing personal information.

Children that need a teacher as a friend are probably struggling with not having peers as friends or see you as a trusted adult maybe because they do not have that at home. You will have had safeguarding training regarding what to look out for and how to report it should you have any concerns – it is always better to err on the side of caution, if you think it might need to be reported, definitely report it.

They just want to know your age. Why does that have to be so private?

There will always be a follow up question. They will keep going until you tap out. Part of being professional is maintain the distance between yourself and the pupils. They should not feel like they have the right to know anything at all about you. It is possible to have a great relationship with pupils without sharing your place of birth, star sign and retirement plans.

Harsh? Maybe.

Seriously though. What are they going to do with any information you share about your trip to the gym, favourite films, number of cats? Your intention should be to forge strong bonds of mutual respect so they “know” you outside of the classroom. They are children and you are an adult who does grown up stuff – don’t share grown up stuff with children.

Let’s get back to basics and remind ourselves that you’re a professional with a responsibility of care. You are there to educate them and teach them how to be responsible members of society. You can be friendly but don’t share your private life. Remember, they are not your friends.

But my private life is my life, nothing to do with school

Yes. But definitely no. I actively choose to always work in schools nowhere near where I live. Luckily that is easy to do living and working in London. I don’t want to come across pupils in the street/ supermarket/ park while I’m enjoy some downtime. It then becomes a game of “will we pretend we haven’t seen each other” or “will we have an awkward two minute non-conversation” (don’t worry they will be more mortified than you).

Some teachers actively live near the school they work in and they love to see the pupils and their parents around and about. That’s great for them. They are less protective of their privacy and don’t see any inevitable questions about their private life as intrusive.

The problem is that once you open that Pandora’s box then it can never be shut again. Once they have one piece of information, they will feel entitled to know more. This is even harder to counter if they themselves have shared personal information with you. It is up to you to decide on your boundaries in advance and then make sure they are not crossed.

Social media sites where your private life is display on Freepik.com

What about my socials?

Especially your socials. Your school will get you to sign on to a bunch of policies at the start of the year. Most schools are now explicit about what is permitted regarding communication with pupils and parents outside school that is not via the schools email / Teams / SharePoint (or equivalent).

Some good advice I got from my first school was to hide away all your social media pages, for example, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat – make your profile pictures unrecognisable, remove your surname from your profile, and enable all the privacy controls so any new friend requests can be vetted to ensure that they are people you know. Remember that mum and dad might be curious cats with different surnames to the pupils.

I have had pupils in two different schools tell me that their parents had found me on Instagram (luckily, it’s an old one from six years ago with only two boring posts but I’ve forgotten the password). Protect your privacy. Make sure that your private life remains that way.

Teacher telling students to stop on Freepik.com

So am I supposed to shout them down when they ask me anything?

No, that would not be friendly. Tell them that you’d be happy to discuss it at the end of the lesson. This stops you from batting off their questions during valuable teaching time. Their queries will become louder and more insistent – especially if they can see that you are not comfortable with the questions.

Some of the queries will be innocent, other’s will be downright rude and inappropriate, those need to be sanctioned in line with your school’s policy on behaviour.

They will most likely not come to see you at the end of the lesson to have their personal questions answered. If they do, then thank them for being interested but tell them that you do not discuss your private life at school. Any follow up questions from them can have the same answer. If they become belligerent and rude then of course follow the policy on behaviour.

Remember that it is up to you to decide if you are comfortable sharing your age / where you live / if you are married etcetera etcetera, they are not entitled to know.

So I can’t say anything then?

I didn’t say that. Remember to be friendly. On a tour of the school with a new cohort once I noticed that one of the girls was humming Dynamite by BTS she was blown away that I knew it and after that I was always asking her about what music she was listening to.

In a line up for assembly once I noticed a boy had a pencil case of my favourite football team. Every time I saw him after that I got him to give me an update on how we were doing.

You get the gist.

When you are walking around the school make it a point to say hi to every student you walk past. Make sure you say their name too, they love to be acknowledged. If you are approached by a pupil and they clearly want to talk to you but seem shy, you will get a response from one of these questions:

How is you day going?
What lesson do you have next?
Are you joining any school clubs this year?

The questions are open ended enough to afford you a follow up question regardless of what they reply. They are also closed enough to allow them to give you a one-word answer. You can also then tell them your answers to these questions, and they will feel like you are connecting with them.

What if I let something slip?

Don’t beat yourself up. It is a tricky balance to find. There are so many things that need to be negotiated and considered on a daily basis you’re allowed to give yourself a break. Protect your privacy fiercely. Don’t let yourself find out the hard way why you must always be friendly but can never be friends.