my day

Today I taught primary music at THAT school.

Kids tend to play up for supply teachers. Kids tend to play up for music teachers. Kids at THAT school tend to play up. Put these three facts together and you can understand how I was feeling as I went to work this morning.

But, praise God, 80% of the day was fantastic. I taught 2 prep music classes and 2 and a half hours of year 3 music. Was great fun. Rhythmic stuff- ta, te-te etc. I impressed them with my (very poor) drumming skills, lovely lycra, the three bears rhyme... All good!

But. I also helped out in a regular year 4 classroom for an hour. Very concerning. The kids were, well, behaviourally challenged. The teacher was on the verge of a nervous breakdown (as I would have been if I had hung around for much longer). All very horrible. Five kids out of twenty out and out refused to do anything. Two kids swore at us constantly. We had one other kid who liked to push his desk over. Two others who wanted to beat eachother up. Another who cried the whole time...

I talked to the teacher at lunch time. She is feeling defeated. Every day she has to turn up to that. I'd be surprised if she lasts the year. I told her she should be given a bonus just for turning up. She laughed bitterly and said that she'll probably be getting a pay cut - if the idea of 'outcomes' based pay gets through.

The idea of 'outcomes' based teachers pay is fine if you can customise the outcomes for each situation. In that particular class, a good outcome would be for everyone to survive the day.