Did last week seem like a 4-day week??
Well quite aside from what to call the upcoming holiday (I’ve taken to calling it the fake ‘Easter’ holidays) is the question of whether it’s a holiday at all.
I’ve got to teach 4 days of GCSE revision, plan Key Stage 3 revision and (fairly importantly) prepare for a Deputy Head interview (oh, read back for my thoughts on the joys of being an internal candidate).
I find myself agreeing with Beverley’s comments on another post and wishing that I could go to a website somewhere and find a list of possible interview questions for posts on senior leadership team.
It’s geting to be that time of year again so perhaps I’ll support my readers and start a list of questions for Assistant Headteacher jobs as I’ve been for 4 interviews (this is my second job at that level). That list will have to be in my next posting because i haven’t even handed in my application form and need to get it finished!
The summer break is long enough to catch up on things you should have done in the Summer Term, completely relax and then move on to things you want to do during the autumn. It’s the start of the second week of the holiday and I’ve finished marking my Year 10 coursework. I’ve also emptied my laptop of all documents. I’m changing schools and so those are the last jobs I needed to do in order to feel I’ve been a good colleague to whoever inherits my teaching groups or laptop. I’m just coming to the end of the visits to the dentist, optician, etc. My car’s had a £500 service (don’t ask!). I’ve booked the hotel for our wedding anniversary weekend. So although I have a few planning meetings for my new school still to come, I feel at a loose end. More than ever this year I want to have a (school-related) project. The cynical part of my mind suspects this is so I don’t get around to my home-related project of painting the bathroom. I started that job at the same time as I started applying for jobs. Funnily enough I now have a new job but still have an unpainted bathroom. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to try to consolidate my teaching materials. Every year (for 12 years now) I’ve said I’ll put all my ‘number’ stuff in one place and then sub-divide into categories such as fractions, types of number, percentages, and then start on the ‘algebra’ stuff. I’m going to have to synchronise all my electronic teaching materials as well. They are currently scattered on three memory sticks, a PC and two portable hard-drives. However, it would make life simpler and my planning more effective if I only had to look in one place to find my indices pairing game!
If you’re changing jobs this summer, how are you spending the holiday?
Checklist for today
- Mark the Year 10 graph homeworks that I found at the bottom of my bag on Sunday evening – they’ll never let me live down having two weeks ‘off’ and not marking their work.
- Produce a list and schedule for the photographer of our new school prospectus. He’s not coming until the middle of May but he needs the list this week – I don’t know why, I think he needs to check I’ve got enough Sports, ICT and other exciting things on my list.
- Find the Head and explain I’ve got a job interview on Friday. I can do this bit but I cannot explain why I didn’t tell him I’d applied to another school. Whoops – never mind, cross your fingers for me! Nothing much would change with my blog I’d just be the assistant head in a different mixed comprehensive school!
- Start planning a 10-minute presentation on ‘What makes an excellent lesson’ – guess what that’s for! Why do they make you jump through such hoops? I can add that one to my earlier post.
- Prepare my study skills session for Year 11. They’re off timetable for a double lesson tomorrow. There’s a team of 10 or so staff delivering a high-energy session to small groups of students, reminding them of things like SQ3R and mind-mapping and how to set up a room for study. Luckily we’ve plenty of resources from The Life Skills Company to help us.
- I know I should have planned this in the holidays but I left my folder in school and forgot to pick it up when I was doing Easter revision. I am only human!
- Teach three lessons and hold a line management meeting. I have planned these, and the line management meeting will be okay although it means one less free period in which to do all the other items on this list.
- Stay awake through coursework moderation – nothing worse than reading more or less the same thing but in different handwriting 10 or 15 times, except possibly reading it 20 or 30 times when I’ve marked it. Bring on the end of coursework!
Oh that’s enough, surely!