The complications

Some people out there were wishing to know what the complications of my End Point Review at the end of school experience when I posted about them in a generic sense on tuesday but did not have the time to explain (mainly because it takes too long to type anything on a phone keypad). I promised I would explain later and so now is later. Its considerably later than I was anticipating it to be but that was mainly because I have been busy the last few days (even though yesterday I had no pupils to teach as they were all off inducing secondary schools or whatever it is that needs doing to secondary schools before they can have new pupils in them).

So, anyway, down to it...

Tuesday was pitched as the day of my final observation and the day of my end point review. In theory this is when you pass or fail the experience though, if the system works properly, you should know by then as they should have hit you with a big mallet during your mid point review while shouting 'NO! You are doing it wrong you idiot! You're supposed to TEACH them, not shout nonsensical crap at them like a moron for an hour!'. Or words to that effect, anyway. Its called a 'cause for concern policy' which is a good name as possible brain damage from being hit with a mallet would indeed give me cause for concern.

The initial plan was that my tutor (traditionally it is the partnership tutor, the one the university sends, who has to do the EPR) would come out and see my Science lesson on tuesday morning. This was good as I was fairly confident about the science lesson I had planned that day and only so so about the Numeracy lesson that was my back up and the allegedly a DT lesson that was planned for the afternoon (for the past few weeks DT has not really been planned. Its more a case of 'here is the stuff, you know what you are doing, get on with it. Fun lessons but not exactly Ofsted outstanding quality). So, I put in a little extra effort on the science, once I knew it was an Obs, and was fairly confident of success (well, I had 5 satisfactory or highers by now so there was little chance of total fail).

This is when the complications occured... I get to the school in plenty of time to set up and prepare to find that the class are not doing science from 0915 - 1030 as anticipated. Over the weekend the damp had got into the school (no damp proofing) and 2 year 4 classrooms were flooded. The contingency plan for this was to move those two classes into two of the year 6 rooms for their numeracy lessons that morning and have year 6 rehearsing their end of year production in the hall. Ok... but what about my observation? That's ok, you can move it to 11 - 12. But my tutor is coming at 0915! That's ok, he can have a chat with you first, maybe go through the EPR, then do the obs at 11. Ok, thats possible... I try to contact the tutor to tell him of the change but he is not available - already left to get to the school on time and no mobile.

Then we have the next complication... tutor arrives (late for the intended obs but thats no longer a problem) and I explain the situation. Problem: he can't stay until 12, he has to leave to go to another observation. Bugger...

So, in the end we agree to do the EPR which goes fine (not sure who they were talking about... apparently the person they discussed had a professional attitude and modelled good behaviour to the pupils consistently. This caused Sarah immense amusement when I told her) and it is agreed that the school based tutor would do the observation. As it turned out, it was her and the head who did the observation which scared the bejezzus out of me when I found out... but apparently he likes me too :) That observation went fine - another satisfactory (lost out because while I supported the LA group, I didn't do enough to support the HA group - he reckoned I should have pushed them with some discussion about extrapolation of data, I told him I considered that a potential philosophical and mathematical minefield which even A level students had trouble with).

Wednesday should have been an easier day but one thing conspired to make it busy. All the pupils were away so no teaching but the SBT decided that she wanted to do another obs to try to push the score up. She'd done one previously that was satisfactory bordering on good and reckoned that I deserved to get that good so wanted to have another observed lesson. So, I spent all day wednesday preparing for this lesson which involved setting up 3 different tasks, one for each ability group, with laminated prompt cards and other resources to help them. Not much thinking involved in this, mainly monkey work - laminating, cutting etc.

Today I ran that lesson and even though the class were reluctant to do a lesson this late in the term and there was some bad behaviour, it went rather well. What surprised me was that the LA group, who were on a totally different task to the rest, surpassed all expectations and ALL achieved 3 ticks for not only achieving the objective but surpassing it. What surprised me more was that the lesson got a 'Good' and my SE file got a 'Very Good'. So rather pleased about that...

Now, tomorrow is my last day and I have no teaching, all my marking is up to date and they are spending most of the time rehearsing again.... so all I need to do is complete my grade descriptors (long tedious meeting with the SBT for this tomorrow afternoon - we are both resigned to it being a long and boring task...) and act surprised when they present me with something that I already know they are planning to present (in fact I knew before the CT told me... they are not all that subtle at keeping secrets and you can always tell when they are hiding something :) ). So a fun day ahead...