Have a Good Trip!

These are two words which strike fear into my heart. So many things can go wrong. It takes hours to plan them and from the second you send the letter home, announcing that we are going on an educational trip to The Best Place Since Sliced Bread, there is a sense that something can go wrong. From out of thin air, come the What Ifs.

What if……

We don’t have enough parents making a voluntary contribution and we can’t cover the cost?

We can’t scrape together enough adults to meet the children: adult ratio?

It rains?

One of the adults is ill on the day?

The bus breaks down?

We lose one of the children?

We forget the sick bucket/ first aid kits/ childrens’ inhalers/somebody’s lunch?

Consequently, it’s a nailbiting time, right up until the moment we step on the coach. The cost of a trip is always high- by the time the coach and insurance is paid for, it’s difficult to add on a £5 entrance fee to the Sealife Centre or a zoo, as it just makes it impossible for the families who are on a low income or the families with two children within the group on the trip.

My Top 5 Awful Trip Moments

Trip to Hunstanton with Year 1 and 2

This was the day that the boy who was Allergic to Everything left his lunchbox in the classroom and his teacher didn’t notice until we got off the coach in Hunstanton. He was 6 years old, but couldn’t recite what he wasn’t allowed to eat (which scuppered the chances of us cobbling him a lunch together from the adults’ lunchboxes).  I had to telephone school, in the days before mobile phones (which meant I had to find a phone box first) and ask the secretary to contact his Mum to ask her what we could give him to eat. I then had to find a shop, so I could get change to phone the secretary back, to get the list of approved food, then I had to find a shop from which to buy it.

Lesson learned: Make sure somebody has the job of giving the classroom a final sweep before getting on the coach.

Trip to Hunstanton with Year 1 and 2

This was a different year to the one above, made memorable by the fact that we were going to the beach, to explore the rock pools. It was quite a walk from the car park to the beach, and there was no shelter. Unfortunately there was a sudden downpour and a sandstorm when we were amongst the rock pools. The children started screaming and crying because the sandstorm was stinging their legs (most of them were in shorts because it was a beautiful day) and we all had to make a mad dash for the coach. On the way to the coach, my Mother-in-Law (who had been drafted in as a responsible adult) had a funny turn and we almost had to call an ambulance (but she didn’t want a fuss).

Lesson learned: Don’t trust the weather forecast, wear trousers and leave the old people at home.

Trip to Snettisham Farm Park with Year 2

It’s hard to enjoy a day out when you can smell sick. One poor little girl was violently travel sick the second we got out of town. I can ‘do’ sick (I can’t ‘do’ blood ) so I was the designated Sick Mistress on the journey. Armed with wet wipes, soothing words, a bucket and a heaving stomach, I sat with her all the way and tried to make her feel better. The thing with sick though, is that once you have the smell of it up your nose (or in your hair), it’s very difficult to think of anything else. This was, of course, in the days before handy little bottles of sanitising gel- an invention which has made school trips much more savoury.

Lesson learned: Take some sort of deodorising equipment/air freshener/body spray to get rid of the ‘Eau de Sick’ fragrance which will cling to you like you are giving it a life force.

Trip to Mountfitchet Castle with Years 4 and 5

This was going to be a long day, as it was an hour and a bit journey both ways, but none of us was prepared to be on the coach for 7 and a half hours. There was an accident on the M11, just after the slip road which we could have used to make a sharp exit along the back roads. Our two coaches, full of excited children who had done nothing but talk about the trip for weeks before, were stuck on the motorway for the whole day, whilst the road ahead was cleared. One coach had a television and dvds, the other had a radio. Both coaches had a chemical toilet at the back (hooray!) which quickly became full (oh dear). As this WAS in the days of mobile phones, we were able to let school know we were safe and we could check the news to see what was happening. The children were brilliant- very disappointed, but they were so very well-behaved and took it all in their stride. Once the road was cleared, we were able to travel onwards to the Service Station at Stansted, where we all trooped in to use the toilets. Having made the most of the facilities, we then got back on the coaches and came home again. What a day!

Lesson learned: Take extra food and drink, a book, phone charger and a class set of incontinence pants, just in case.

Trip to The Shire Horse Centre with Year 2

This was my first year at a new school, so I didn’t have a lot of say in the trip. Had I been asked, I might have expressed my concern at a 3+ hour round trip, where we couldn’t fit all of the children on the coach, so we had to take a mini bus as well, together with the fact that I was 7 months pregnant and didn’t think I could travel that long without needing the loo. I was assigned to the mini bus, along with several  “spirited” (challenging) children and the only saving grace was that our driver was our Chair of Governors, who was also a Paramedic in his spare time. This gave me a little bit of comfort, medically speaking, for all of 30 seconds, until I realised that should anything happen in the baby department, I would never be able to look him in the eye again. Yes, I knew he was a professional, fully trained and highly skilled man, but I was 7 months into my pregnancy and my raging hormones and overactive imagination had kicked in. We set off on our trip, with me fully expecting to give birth on the way there in a layby, with 9 “spirited” children looking on in horror/amazement at the spectacle before them. Thankfully, I was wrong, and we arrived at The Shire Horse Centre in the late morning, where I elbowed the children out of the way to take advantage of the one (yes, I said ONE) toilet they had for public use.  

Our trip actually went very well- nobody got trampled by a horse, which is always a bonus, and it didn’t rain. We each took our group of children around the shop and most of us kept a close eye on what they spent their money on. As the time was drawing near for us to leave, it took us a Very Long Time to make sure the children all had the chance to go to the one toilet before the long journey back. It is the journey there and back which really sticks in my mind on this particular trip. Our poor Chair of Governors had to drive home with one of the boys on the mini bus constantly snapping at him with a shark’s head on a stick which he had managed to buy whilst being carefully supervised by the adult in charge of his group. It was one of those sticks with a trigger on the end, which made the shark’s mouth snap when it was pulled. I estimate that it was pulled about 5 times a second for an hour and 45 minutes.  I wasn’t a lot of help- I’d queued for 20 minutes before we left, for the toilet, only to find that once I got in there, I didn’t need to go. Obviously, 15 minutes into our journey home I would have given my right arm, left arm and as yet unborn child for the chance to queue again, but it was not to be. My predicament curtailed my ability to disarm The Boy With a Shark on a Stick and I had to put all my efforts into bracing myself every time we went over a bump, so that we didn’t all go home with wet feet. The Boy With a Shark on a Stick was completely oblivious, and declared the journey home more exciting than the rest of the day!

Lesson learned: Stick with the paramedic if you’re pregnant, invest in incontinence pants Just in Case and ditch any child who has something snappy on a stick.

A Slip of the Tongue

I spent four years training as a teacher, but nobody taught me how to cope with children swearing. More to the point, it seems different families have different ideas of what constitutes a swear word. It really can make life quite difficult in the classroom.

Picture the scene….a red faced 6 year old careers across the classroom, risking life and limb as he negotiates his way round a metre high tower made from precariously balanced building blocks. He clearly has A Very Important Thing to tell me. Without pausing for breath (thereby explaining the red face) he blurts out “David just said a swear word!” To the uninitiated, this might seem a straightforward problem to deal with. After all, if David DID say a swear word, then he does, indeed, need to spoken to about it. But remember…we are in a world of 5 and 6 year olds, and nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems at first glance. On this particular day, my Teaching Assistant gave me a look which was crystal clear. It meant ‘You can deal with this one- I’ll just listen in.’ I took the bull by the horns and asked “What did David say?” (cue a sharp intake from my T.A.).

“He said the ‘SH’ word”, he elaborated, with a solemn face.

Leaning towards him, I asked him which ‘SH’ word David has said.

“I can’t say it”, The Red-Faced Boy stammered. I crouched down in front of him and said that I really needed to know what David had said and that I wouldn’t be cross with him.

“Well….he said ‘Shut up’”, he said. Panic over, I told him that whilst ‘Shut up’ wasn’t a very nice thing to say to a friend, it wasn’t actually a swear word. He went back off to play. My Teaching Assistant remarked how she didn’t like to ask what the alleged swearer had said, but obviously the child who’s been ‘grassed up’ will just clam up if you ask them what they’ve said, and I’d rather know what I’m dealing with, as so much of the time nobody has sworn at all.

About an hour later, in the playground, another child came running over to me to say that someone (not David this time- he’d obviously decided to say ‘be quiet’ instead of ‘shut up’, as a result of the previous investigation) had said a swear word.

My Teaching Assistant’s eyes met mine and the message was clear- my call again.

“What did he say?” I enquired.

“He said I was ugly”, came the reply. I said to the child who had run to me that it wasn’t a swear word, but that it wasn’t a very kind thing to say.

I dealt with the next little boy as well, who beetled over to me, cleared his throat and announced that That Boy Over There with the Runny Nose had called him a bad word beginning with ‘Y’. That was a new one on me. I racked my brains and couldn’t for the life of me think of an offensive word beginning with ‘Y’.

“What did he call you?”, I asked.

He puffed out his chest and said “He called me a yanker”. Double whammy. Not only did I have to reprimand the Boy with the Runny Nose, but I also needed to see if either of them needed referring for speech therapy.

This went on for some days, with my Teaching Assistant listening in to these sorts of conversations and in the end she agreed with me. Nearly all the time they’re not actually swearing, as such. They are using unkind words. If telling someone to shut up was the norm in their house, then they wouldn’t know it was an unkind thing to say and we really needed to be clear on what it was that they’d actually said, so that we dealt with the children fairly.

Later on, it happened again. This time my T.A. dealt with it.

“He said a swear word at me.”

My T.A. gave me a knowing smile and said “And what did he say?”

“He told me to F*** off!” came the reply.

School Reports

When I first started teaching, we had to write our school reports by hand. It was a real killer for three main reasons:

1.       You had to use the same pen throughout the report, so you couldn’t lose it. Too much pressure.

2.       If you made a mistake, you had to start all over again, right from the beginning.

3.       It was physically painful, writing 3 A4 sheets per child, for 30+ children.

May half term holiday was a complete write-off (excuse the pun) because I would be wading through my reports, trying to complete as many as I could in the holiday so that when I was back at school, I wouldn’t have too many to do in the evenings and at weekends. It was a real busman’s holiday, but there was no alternative, so I just got on with it.

As you get used to writing the reports, you try different things to help you work more quickly. At first, I tried to write a whole report for a child at a time, but this took a long time. Then I tried writing all of the Maths comments for the whole class, all of the English comments, all of the Geography comments etc, but some days it was like swimming through treacle trying to think of 30 different ways of saying ‘Sam has seemed to enjoy Geography this year. He was very interested in finding out the differences and similarities about living in the town and the countryside and is always attentive in lessons.’ That, on top of handwriting the reports, made it a very repetitive, boring task.

Twenty plus years later, we now type our reports, which means if I’m falling asleep on my keyboard and make a mistake, it’s easily rectified and I don’t have to start all over again. I can also lose as many pens as I like and I won’t have to sit with my hand resting on a frozen bag of peas in the evenings.

When I find it difficult to sleep, during report writing season, I often think about writing a guide to school reports. We are told to be honest, but positive. There are never any surprises in a school report- we are only confirming what the parents already know. Sometimes, however, just SOMEtimes, I imagine what it would be like to be completely honest….

Report Speak	Actual Meaning
She prefers to work by herself.	She can’t share.
She prefers to work with a partner.	She can’t do it.
She is equally happy working on her own or with a partner.	She doesn’t really care.
She speaks her mind.	She told me I was fat yesterday.
When he is taking part in an activity which he enjoys, he throws himself into it.	Take extra precautions when pond dipping.
He is a confident speaker.	He goes on and on and on. And on.
She treats her friends fairly.	If there are two girls near her, she will pinch them both, so one isn’t left out.
His handwriting is improving slowly.	To be fair, I still can’t actually read it.
He is very proud of his bilingual ability.	Today, he taught three boys how to say a rude word in Russian.
She likes to work with a Teaching Assistant.	She’s hoping the Teaching Assistant will just do her work for her.
He doesn’t say much, preferring to watch the others.	Stalker material.
She is beginning to form good relationships with the other children.	She hasn’t hit anyone today. Yet.
He is always happy to read to an adult at school.	I wish you’d listen to him read at home as well.
He is a confident, friendly boy who is bursting with energy!	Make him go away please. He’s like a human whirlwind.
She has strong views of right and wrong.	She’s always right. Everyone else is wrong.
He has remembered some details about religious stories, but needs to make sure he listens carefully when they are being told, as his attention often wanders.	No, Goliath wasn’t in the Garden of Eden.
He is always keen to share his news.	He talks over the top of me.
She is always keen to help.	I’ve tripped over her three times today.
He learns his spellings religiously every week.	Vicar material.
Her written work does not accurately reflect her ability.	She’s a lazy little so-and-so.
He has learned lots of new words in English this year.	He can now swear bilingually.
She shows a helpful, unselfish approach to others and treats them kindly.	If only the other 29 were the same.
He is still learning how to play appropriately with the other children in the playground as he is quite big for his age.	He mowed down three Year 6 boys at lunchtime. Not bad, considering he’s in Year 1.
She shows leadership qualities.	She’s bossy.
He was really interested in finding out about the Great Fire of London this year and was keen to enter into discussion to share his ideas on the causes and results of the fire.	Keep him away from matches.
She uses all available art materials to produce work to be proud of.	She makes a mess and I cop it from the cleaner.
She enjoys P.E., especially running.	Like a headless chicken.
He is very adventurous during gymnastic lessons, but shows a lack of awareness about safety issues.	Keep him away from the climbing frame.
She needs to make sure she is concentrating.	She called me ‘Dad’ last week.
He no longer becomes upset quite so easily when things don’t happen as he would like.	We are getting through fewer boxes of tissues.
He has enjoyed working with a range of different Art media, including clay, ink, crayon, paint and particularly pastels.	I hope you have enjoyed washing all of these things out of his uniform.
She recognises that some questions cause people to wonder and are difficult to answer.	She always looks at me blankly when I ask her anything.
He often complains about the other children.	Nobody likes a grass.
She really enjoys playing in the water tray.	Give her 5 minutes and she’ll look like she’s swum The Channel.
She is beginning to understand what is expected of her at school.	She didn’t huff or roll her eyes at me when I asked her to come and read today.
He is quiet and polite in the classroom.	But a complete nightmare at home, apparently!
She enjoys using the percussion instruments.	She hit two girls with the cymbals yesterday.

My First Job

I fell into my first job. I’d applied to Cambridgeshire County Council for supply work, as my original job in Dagenham had fallen through, and spent my days waiting for the phone to ring. One night, I came home from an evening out at almost midnight, to find my Mum waiting up for me (it was before the days of mobile phones). She said I’d had a phone call from a Headteacher in Peterborough and he wanted me to call him back, whatever time I got in. It seemed very odd to be calling someone at that time of night (and I was very glad I hadn’t been drinking!) but I did as he asked and we arranged for me to go into his school the following morning, as he had a vacancy he wanted to fill. He said that having seen my application form, he thought I would probably fit in very well.

The next morning, I caught the train to Peterborough, excited and nervous in equal measures, wondering if a new chapter in my life was about to begin. The school was in the city centre, and I found it quite easily. It was in a predominantly Asian area, and the school itself had a 99% Asian intake. I was shown around the school by the woman who would be my Team Co-ordinator, should I get the job. She was larger than life, with a personality to match, dressed in clothes of every colour imaginable. As she bounced along the corridors, bombarding me with questions, I found myself almost running to keep up with her. It was easy to see that she loved the school, the children, and her job. She threw open the doors to different classrooms, introducing me to all of the staff and children. I felt a bit like a rabbit being pulled out of a magician’s hat, but without the applause (or the fur). The school was beautiful and had a really friendly atmosphere and I was soon able to imagine myself working there, although I had no experience of working with children who had English as their second language.

After the tour, I went into the Headteacher’s office for a ‘chat’. I had expected an interview, but it really was a chat. He told me about the history of the school and about the current staffing situation. One of the teachers was off on long term sick leave and had actually resigned, and it was his class of Year 4 children who needed a teacher. We sat chatting and I felt like I’d known him for ages, although we’d only just met that morning. After selling the school to me and convincing me that he was offering me the perfect job, he leant forward in his chair and said “What I’m really saying is, I’m interested in you, if you’re interested in me?”

That was the moment when The Girl Who Thinks She’s So Funny took over my mouth and answered “Well, that’s all very well Mr Creasey, but what I really need at the moment is a job, before I start thinking about anything like that!”

He roared with laughter and said he could see I would fit in perfectly. I thanked my lucky stars that The Girl Who Thinks She’s So Funny didn’t scupper my chances and left as quickly as I could, in case she had anything else to say.

Why I Became a Teacher

I don’t remember waking up one morning and thinking “That’s it! I’ll be a teacher!”-  it was something which I always knew I wanted to be. When I was at Infant and Junior school, I loved my teachers and the whole school thing.

At Infant School, my first teacher was a lady called Miss Anderson, who wore big owl-like glasses, which made her look very wise. She used to read us an extract from ‘Winnie the Pooh’ every day. I’ve never been able to separate these stories from the memory of a boy called Alan who felt so relaxed during story time, that he no longer felt the need to keep a tight rein on his bodily emissions. I would be totally engrossed in the story, oblivious to the pea-souper building up around me, until all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. Alan didn’t seem to mind us all coughing and spluttering around him, as long as the story continued to be told. Anyway, I was obviously scarred for life, as you won’t find any A.A. Milne on my bookcase. Also, none of my children or pets has the name ‘Alan’.

When I moved up to Junior School, I was in seventh heaven. My teacher was straight out of college and had lots of new and exciting ideas, like teaching us Country Dancing. I adored her and she would let me do ‘jobs’ at lunchtime, which I felt at the time, showed that she had spotted within me the teacher who was begging to be unleashed. She let me copy out her Country Dancing notes, complete with diagrams, which was so obviously a vote of confidence in my position as a kindred spirit. Looking back, I really don’t know why she let me do that- my writing wasn’t brilliant and neither was my drawing. Anyway, she was a lovely teacher, Miss Jones, and she nailed pole position on my teacher leader board by not sitting me near Alan, the Boy Who Made Smells.

There followed a succession of supply teachers in the second year at Junior School- one in particular stands out in my memory. She was Very Old (about 40, I think) and she used to sit at a high desk at the front of the classroom and watch us. If we were too noisy, she would bang a reel of Sellotape down on the desk with such a force that it stopped everyone in their tracks, the first few times. However, after that, the novelty wore off and we just moaned about her giving us a headache. One boy got really told off when she found him under her desk. I think she thought he was trying to look up her skirt, but actually he was looking for the pile of sawdust I told him would be there, from her incessant banging.

We all heaved a sigh of relief when a permanent teacher was found for our class, not least because she didn’t appear to have a reel of Sellotape about her person and was very young and beautiful. I think she was recently qualified and she was just so happy and actually seemed to enjoy being with us, which was a joy. She drove a little pale yellow Mini and at lunchtimes, she would let two of us go and sit in her car in the car park and listen to a cassette tape of The Jungle Book, which was her favourite thing. I loved being in her class and to this day she remains my biggest inspiration in the classroom. I don’t remember a thing she taught me, but I do remember how she made me feel, like I was worth something and that she wanted to know what I thought about things. She taught me a great deal about how to be with children and get the best out of them.

In my Secondary years, there were various teachers who Made a Difference and inspired me, and several who did the opposite. I found myself wanting to become a teacher not just because I wanted to be like the ones who held me in the palm of their hand, but also because I wanted to prove that I could be better than some of the uninterested and uninteresting teachers who taught me.

My Aunt was a teacher and so was my brother, so I was following in good footsteps. One of my sisters later became a teacher, but that was after I qualified. When I was at Secondary School, I had spent each Wednesday afternoon helping out at a local centre for mentally handicapped adults and I decided that I would like my main degree subject to be Special Education. I went away to Teacher Training College in Crewe, Cheshire, for four years and by the time I qualified, most Special Units had been closed down and the children were being integrated into mainstream schools. Some people might have taken this as an omen, but not me. I ploughed on regardless, changing my plans as I went, and that is how I ended up in mainstream education.