As you all know, this school year has basically been a nightmare for me. I'm glad it's over and wanted to do one last post about my final days working there to really paint a clear picture as to why it just wasn't the right place for me. I realize that I am not going to agree with everything at every school I'll ever work at. I am extremely flexible and very easy-going but I can only handle so much. Over the last few weeks of the school year, I kept hoping that the tension would ease up so that I could just enjoy my last days with the children. Unfortunately, that never really happened. Different events and things kept popping up which just made me more ready than ever to run out the door. Today's post will be about the day the video camera crew came, the day the dog came, and the day the skip came. After you read about these 3 tidbits, please know that it was just constant things like this happening ALL THE TIME.
Story 1 - The Day the Video Camera Crew Came: During our last couple of weeks, we were crazy busy trying to get things complete and ready to turn in or send home. It was a wild afternoon. I'm pretty sure it was raining because we definitely weren't outside and the kids were crazy. We were down 2 out of the 3 teachers and thankfully we had all of our TA's (a rare event!!). Since we were down so many staff and it was pretty chaotic, I made the decision that we would tidy up a bit early and calm the children down with a story and maybe sing some songs in our own classrooms. We were just settling down and it was now about 2:15. We dismiss at 2:55. As soon as everyone was sitting on the carpet, a video camera crew comes through the door and says "Hi, we are here to film activities going on in Reception to make a promotional video about Reception." Just great. Activities weren't going on. In my opinion, if you are going to make a promotional video about Reception to encourage others to come to your school, you might want to let the teachers know that this going to happen so we can put forth our best effort to making everything look great. I don't like putting on a show, however; in this case we should have been warned that this was happening. Apparently, the head teacher didn't even know. It was the executive head that didn't bother to tell any of us. I was really embarrassed by the whole thing. If someone is coming around to see good practise and we've already cleaned up for the day, it doesn't look good on us. I'm over it now but at the time, it was just another thing not communicated to us that really should have been.
Story 2 - The Day the Dog Came: The underlying issue with this story also comes back to the issue of a lack of communication. Apparently there is a school dog. No one knew about this until the day it came around to visit at the start our our last day of phonics instruction. Not sure if it's actually a school dog or if that is what they are going with so it's actually allowed under health and safety rules. I have a child who is TERRIFIED of dogs. I would have loved the chance to say to my kids a little "By the way, a big black dog is coming around today with the head teacher. He's really friendly...blah, blah, blah." As much as teachers want to know what is going on, the kids do, too! Apparently it's been our school dog since April but he's been going through training and such. Who knows. If that is the story, an email should have gone round way back in April stating here is what's happening and we'll let you know when the dog is coming. Then the day before he came, we should have been warned. Again, I'm over it now but COMMUNICATION is so so important to me.
Story 3 - The Day the Skip Came: A skip is another word for a huge dumpster. It came the last few days of school and I figured it was just for some broke furniture and bits of rubbish during the final cleanup. I found out that the main purpose of the skip was to put ALL OF THE CHILDREN'S WORK FROM THE ENTIRE YEAR INTO IT BECAUSE APPARENTLY IT WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH TO SEND HOME?!?!?!?! How ridiculous is that??? The children in all year levels have different notebooks for maths, writing, homework, etc. Instead of sending home at the end of the year for parents to see the hard work, they all got tossed in the bin because it wasn't good enough. I realise that not all parents care to save everything but they should at least have the chance to look at it and make that determination themselves. I sent home an early morning jobs book that we had been doing with the children because I just figured we sent everything home. It's what I've always done and at this point, no one had said otherwise. I got told off for it since it wasn't a good representation of the children's work. No. It's not great, however, it shows where they started and if it was so crap to begin with...why did we waste our time and even make the children do it then in the first place??? I don't think I need to say anything else here. It makes me angry that this happens. They even had children lugging the bags of books out to put in the skip. Yes children, we really value all your hard work. Dump it now. Don't worry about sharing it with your parents. And to the teachers who marked it all and spent all that time grading and writing notes (there is a strict marking policy), thanks for taking ages to do all that but just throw it in the bin now. Oftsed is over so just throw it all in the bin. UGH! Enough said.
I could go on for days about the issues I have with this place, however, it's done now and over with. I couldn't be more happy to move on to whatever the next thing might be! :)
