Diary of an NQT Cash in the Attic, anyone?


THIs WEEk I have come down with one of the worst afflictions homosapiens can contract – man- flu. A severe headache, a runny nose and just feeling and looking a bit peaky has completely ruined my week. Now, this would make me a miserable at the best of times (I am very rarely ill and when I am I like to go down with a flourish), but as it is my first time trying to teach when ill I have made a right song and dance. The obvious thing you are


going to say is “have a day off, rest up”. To be honest in any job I have ever had, having a day off is always a real pain – you annoy your boss through absence, work has to replace or at least cover you, and you end up returning to a bigger pile of work than you left. That is just for a normal job, teaching is that times 10. Having a day off involves an


enormous cost/benefit analysis. The first thing is setting cover, but when you are feeling rubbish and trying to think about genuinely worthwhile cover (something which doesn’t involved drawing a pretty coat of arms) can be endlessly exhausting. All this so you can watch people shout at each other on Jeremy kyle. Hardly worth it. Then there is the knowledge that you have


to go back to deal with any students who have misbehaved, which inevitably they have when all they are asked to do is draw a coat of arms for an hour. All this to have chicken soup and watch Phillip schofield charm his way through a morning. I think not. so we can reach the conclusion that the cure


for my horrifically debilitating man-flu is not a day off work. This means that instead I must


manfully soldier on through adversity. Now we have a whole new stream of problems. Working when ill. Working when ill is impossible, marking even harder. My teaching relies upon, and revolves around, stories, bad jokes and trying to instil enthusiasm in the morose teenage hordes as best I can. Consequently I have somewhat


of a reputation for dodgy impressions, being a clown, and regular choruses of pity-filled laughter. On a 100 per cent health day I enjoy holding this audience captive,


on 50 per cent the idea fills me with abject terror. I lumber around (instead of


bounding), a coughing attack ruins the timing on my best Adolf Hitler joke, and I can see the boredom filling their eyes as quickly as gunk fills my hankey. Teaching is a job that involves so much effort, so much patience, so much energy and so much selflessness that when you are ill and you want to be selfish, impatient and lazy it becomes like


pushing a elephant up the stairs. The best thing you can do is muddle through and be honest with the kids.


Explain that today will be a bit more relaxed, ask for their silence to save your throat, and beg for their patience when yours


has become lacking. And if you really can’t go on, call in sick, put


the kettle on, and settle in for a bit of Cash in the Attic.


• Tomas Duckling is a history NQT at Queens’ School in Hertfordshire. He returns after half-term.


Prescription or common sense? Once a teacher...


THE lATEsT brouhaha to annoy the easily angered is scotland’s education minister Mike Russell’s announcement that all students sitting Higher English must answer a question (and therefore study) at least one scottish text. While the scottish secondary Teachers’


Association has welcomed this, Ronnie smith, general secretary of scotland’s largest teachers’ union, the Educational Institute of scotland, warned that “we should all remain cautious, however, regarding the political direction of what is taught in our schools … we should be wary of too much prescription in any and all subject areas”. Had scottish politicians


not been engrossed, on the day following Mr Russell’s announcement,


in the


referendum announcement, there would have been a host of comments accusing the scottish government of political interference in the school curriculum. Is there another nation in the


world where young people could leave school and enter higher education without some experience of their great national writers? Would French university entrants know nothing of sartre, Gide or Zola? Americans be unaware of Melville or Twain or Whitman? Or English students be ignorant of shakespeare or Dickens? Now I hold Mr smith in high


regard, but could shetlander Ronnie imagine teaching music in shetland without reference to shetland’s own musical tradition or would insisting on such a common-sense approach be inappropriate “political direction”? The real “political” aspect of this has been the systematic de-prioritisation over years of scottish literature, culture and history. Perhaps however the problems centre more on


the principle of “prescription”. English teachers in particular – and I know, I was one – dislike prescription. They yearn to teach two types of text. First, every English teacher wants to teach texts which he or she loves passionately and personally. The argument is that they best teach that for which


they have enthusiasm. It’s a dodgy argument. Try applying it elsewhere. Maths? Mr Bloggs only teaches calculus; he’s not interested in algebra. History? Mrs


Jones prioritises the French wars of religion – far more interesting than the First World War. second, English teachers tend to teach texts with


which they believe their particular classes will engage and which they will understand. Of course we should reach out to where young people are. We should certainly teach obviously relevant, contemporary material. If, however, the limit of the literary experiences


of our young people is contemporary, in easily accessible language, then we will have failed. Our students will have no sense that literature has both developed historically from the realities of its own day and that each epoch’s literature is built on the traditions of the previous epochs. We will also have failed to


develop their literary intellects, for it is coming to understand the material which is challenging and difficult which generates real intellectual


growth and development. Perhaps that is also why some English teachers in scotland shy away


from scottish literature. It is not easy. The language of Burns is not beyond our grasp but is the language of a pre-industrial society, dominated by ideologies and technologies hugely different from today’s: it requires effort and commitment. What of Hogg’s Confessions of


a Justified Sinner or stevenson’s Weir of Hermiston, metaphysical novels, packed with unique and complex characters and challenging


to teach? It is sad, but the exam content will always lead the curricular content. let’s not fear the minimal prescription evident in Mr Russell’s latest, and quite


commendable, initiative. Indeed let’s also ask what else, as well as at least one scottish text, we would expect


any well educated 17-year-old with Higher English to have read. My added prescriptive element would be at least one pre-20th Century text.


• Alex Wood has been a teacher for 38 years. Prior to his recent retirement he was headteacher of Wester Hailes Education Centre in Edinburgh. He is currently an associate with the Scottish Centre for Studies in School Administration at Edinburgh University. He returns after half-term.


SEN Dyslexia a


SEN expert Sal McKeown offers advice and guidance


on how secondary teachers can support children who suffer with dyslexia and dyspraxia, especially when it comes to revision and preparing them for exams


D


yslExIAAND dyspraxia belong to a whole family of specific learning difficulties that includes Tourette’s syndrome, Asperger and attention deficit disorder. While a child in your class may have a “diagnosis” of dyslexia,


they may well have elements of dyspraxia which can present as “clumsy child” syndrome or make them ultra sensitive to sensory stimuli, such as the ticking of a clock or bright lights. secondary schools place greater demands on


children’s organisational skills as they keep track of their belongings and the constraints of different curriculum subjects. This puts pressure on both long and short-term memory and children may become quite stressed. Victoria Biggs give a very graphic account of her first day at secondary school in Caged in Chaos: A dyspraxic guide to breaking free. she writes: “Class sizes were too big and I couldn’t


put names to faces. I had to take legible notes quickly and write down my homework and hand it in to the right person at the right time and remember my PE kit and look people in the eye when I spoke bring extra notebooks instructions to follow not fall over on stairs concentrate listen carefully too much thoughts in head hurting... “And I also had to be more sociable, which isn’t


easy when you feel as if the space between your ears is clogged with thick porridge.” secondary school means a fresh start and pupils


may have a battery of assessments in the first term. This can be very revealing. Chloe, one of the case studies in my recent book, How to Help your Dyslexic and Dyspraxic Child, had always been on what she called the “thickies” table in primary for maths, but when she was assessed at the end of her first term in secondary she was put in set four out of six. The teacher thought she had some natural ability but had been badly taught. sometimes staff in secondary schools need extra


support too as Jake’s mum Tina discovered: “I had written to the school and discovered that while they had heard of dyspraxia they did not really understand what it was, so once again I had to fight for some kind


Guidelines for revision and exam preparation


Some children think that re-reading is revision. This fine if you have a photographic memory but most do not have this gift so make revision as multi-sensory as possible • Visual – use a highlighter to pick out the main points, underline key vocabulary, or use arrows to link ideas.


• Auditory – read work aloud or tell someone about a subject, chant it. • Kinaesthetic – make a timeline, write a five-minute plan for an exam answer, draw a picture, or make a mindmap.


• Memory tricks – invent mnemonics, acronyms, draw cartoons with speech bubbles. Elsewhere, you should make sure students know the dates and times of exams, how


long they will last, how many questions they need to answer, whether they do all the questions or have a choice, and what equipment they need to bring to the exam. Children with specific learning difficulties need all this information to be made explicit and to be available somewhere when they have forgotten it. Also, exam concessions must be explained. Does the pupil know that they have extra


time? If so, make sure you talk about what they should do with it. Some children need to re-read their work and just focus on spelling. Others will need to have a five-minute break at the end of an essay and sit with their eyes closed while their head clears. An examination that lasts three and a half hours can be exhausting. If a pupil is to have a scribe for an exam, make sure they have met the person who will


write for them and have had a trial run way before the day of the exam. Dictation is quite a hard skill to master, even for those pupils who talk better than they write.


of recognition of his needs. Through the Dyspraxia Association I arranged for an occupational therapist to come into school.” Children are faced with different staff each day, new


subjects with their own jargon and lessons which are much more focused on teacher talk. secondary-aged


8


SecEd • February 9 2012


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