Real Reports

It's reports season again, and amidst the absolute f*cking chaos of the worst organised set of internal exams I have ever seen, we have to prepare to report to the lovely caregivers what their little shits vandals barbarians darlings have been up to and what we expect they will achieve next.

Professional Wednesday in the Pit of Despair

So, you admit you don't know what a NOUN is?
I'm an artist for f*ck's sake.

Another Bloody Wednesday.

Another morning of Bloody Professional Torture.

More Bloody Reports

So, you admit you used the word "AND" twice in one sentence?

When will this torture cease?

Reports, Mayhem, 'Flu, Stress and Diarrhoea

This has not been a good week at Nuova Lazio High School.

Ringo and A Tutorial for The Curmudgeon

We had an after school meeting today.

The List

I'm the poor sod who organises relievers for our school, Nuova Lazio High School, in New Zealand.
I don't mean I arrange who pees where, I mean I attempt to co-ordinate demand for a person to cover a class where a teacher is absent with the personnel available.

Last year I focused purely on the people aspect and ignored the financial side, but seeing as we blew out our budget to the tune of $100,000 (we had $35,000 originally budgeted) I have to be more careful this year.

Most staff don't take days off without a very good reason, but some have a tendency to use any excuse to get out of teaching for a day. We're beginning to tighten up on people, and are now expecting to see doctor's certificates after 3 days off sick.

As I've mentioned before, in Scotland, where I trained and taught for 5 years, it was expected that ALL personal appointments, for whatever reason, would be outside normal teaching hours. Time-off was simply not granted.  All courses were also arranged to fall in the holidays, weekends and teacher-only days.

I have to go for a blood test next week, as part of my annual checkup, but I'll make sure that the appointment time does not interfere with my teaching duties.

I have a list of possible relievers I can use, some I have recruited, some I've inherited, and I try to match up their personalities and skills to the requirements of the classes needing cover.  Here is a list of many of our relieving teachers.  Names have been changed to protect identities.

Bead Man:  An ex-man of religion, knows exactly how he wants the pupils (and teachers) to behave.  He has a great attitude, and a lot of heart, but sometimes prefers to sit at his desk writing screeds of notes about the pupil's behaviour rather than actually teaching the set lesson.

Doctor Death:  Lives near me and has a PhD, demands to be referred to as Doctor ******* by pupils and staff.  Doesn't like our kids, refers to them (often to their faces) as scum, does not have good interpersonal skills. Always wears her sparkling white lab coat.  I only contact her as an absolute last resort.

Bouncy Aussie:  Just taken a year off to have another baby, coming back onto the active list next month.  She's not highly qualified, but actually attempts to teach the lessons given to her, and keeps the kids under good control. She knows most of them and their families, and she gets a lot of respect form the pupils, which helps a lot.

Scottish Auntie:  Been a reliever since the European landings.  Knows about 80% of the kids and their mums and dads and grannies and aunts and uncles and has taught most of them.  Little problems with the kids, sometimes veers away from the given lesson.  Health not so great at the moment, retirement appearing on the horizon.

Jolly Dancer: Only recently qualified, but my only question is why nobody has given her a permanent job. She's efficient, focused, polite to all, and has a great control over the kids, who respect her.  She carefully teaches what is given to her, and sometimes adds suitable extension work herself.  She lives a bit far away, and because of her skills she is much in demand by other local schools.  I use her every chance I get.

English Refugee:  Great qualifications, he can teach PE, Science, Maths and History, which makes him great for relieving.  He lives only 10 minutes from school, so he's a good choice for a last minute requirement.  Gets on well with kids and staff, does not put up with any sort of shit form the kids, who seem warily respectful.  Teaches most of the material given.

Young Beardie:  Newly qualified, has been on semi-continuous relief for the last 3 weeks.  He's getting better, and has developed good relationships with the kids.  He's also on the short list for a permanent job, being decided next week.  He takes some classes which are a bit challenging, and if he can cope with them, he wont have any problems in the future.

Beginning Teacher Armour.  Normal wear in Nuova Lazio High

There are more, but enough for now.

Just as an aside to all people connected to Nuova Lazio High.

We finished the proof reading of the reports last night.  Everyone was told to print out their report comments for our perusal, and all did.

Except:

1 PE Teacher:  Understandable; a close family member is really unwell, and she has a lot on her mind.

1 Maths teacher: Understandable; he's been off sick for two weeks, and his wife is also unwell.

Head of Art::  Two for one here.  Not only didn't print out the comments, did the Form Teacher comments in the wrong place.  Semi-Understandable; All Art teachers are a bit weird.  As are Drama and Music teachers.

Ringo:  Unacceptable.  No comments printed out.  Great impression for the staff from one of our leaders.

Says it all really.

Lost It

I lost my temper yesterday.

I mean really.  I could feel the veins throbbing on my temples, the slightly engorged and bulging eyeballs, the tightening of the chest and upper arm muscles,the throaty snarl of defiance.

But it was where and when I lost it that surprised me.
It might surprise you.

I didn't lose it when I found that some clean-minded person had wiped off all the details of the relief cover I had written on the staffroom whiteboard.

I didn't lose it when I was told, just as school was starting, that a teacher would not be available for that day, nor the rest of the week, and to find and get a relief teacher in.  In 15 minutes.

Juggling can be fun

I didn't lose it when I was told just as I was leaving to teach my first class that two teachers who were supposed to be going on a training course would no longer be going, and I had to juggle the relievers around, and phone two more, telling them that their services would not be required that day.

I didn't even lose it when I was given some relief material for a relieving teacher that didn't contain any student rolls or photos.

I didn't lose it when as I was teaching (and in the middle of quite a complex explanation on the IF function formula creation and use)  my academic Year 11 class, and I was given 3 troublesome kids from the class next door to look after and settle down.

Not naughty like these silly young ladies

Or even like this silly young thing

More like this disturbed young man

I didn't lose it when one of my previously lovely Year 11 girls referred disparagingly to the 3 "naughty" students as discards and retards; but I came close.

I didn't lose it when one of my female colleagues started gushing on and on about one of the Royal Parasites arriving in NZ, and then she started on the Royal Wedding.  I didn't lose it, but I did feel very sick.

I didn't lose it when one of my colleagues, male this time, whined to me that he couldn't get his reports to print.  I left my own work to help him out.  Then I discovered the reason he couldn't print was that he had "borrowed" another teachers logon.  He was using a school computer, on our network, with another person's logon to our network.  And he couldn't understand why "things looked different" and why he "Can't print as normal", and why when he swiped his ID card to release the printing it didn't offer him the choice of his department.  He looked like he blamed me for not "fixing" it when I explained (patiently I thought) that in Windows based computers, printing is controlled by the Operating System, and it really does matter which logon is being used.  I could tell that he really didn't believe me, and that it really wasn't his fault, and that I should have "fixed" it by now.  I might just have snarled a tiny bit at this point, and immediately felt guilty as he looked at me like a newly kicked dog.

I didn't lose it when colleagues asked me to change their computer systems so they could enter some report comments.  4 hours before the bloody deadline.

I lost it when I discovered that many of my colleagues had disregarded my instructions on how to enter their comments for their form classes.  They had typed them into the wrong text box in our system.  Doesn't sound like much, but I'll be damned if I'll give up more of my already short spare time to fix their bloody mistake. 

Very, very ANGRY

They can fix it themselves

Standards are slipping

Checking things out

Last night was report checking night at Nuova Lazio High.  This is where a select few turn up and check that the comments produced by our dedicated gang of educators is up to the high standards expected of our prestigious academy.  This proof reading tradition originated in the dim past, after a serious batch of errors was released into the community, and the then Principal insisted that all further teacher generated comments be double-checked before printing and posting.

A batch of errors being released

In most cases, the mistakes are minor, and are mostly stylistic in nature.  Things like inconsistent use of capitals (Term 2, term two, Term Two, term Two etc.) However, in some cases, it's basic grammar, punctuation and syntax.

When I was a High School student, I can remember days and weeks of constant spelling practice, verb inflection exercises, sentence analysis and synthesis (parsing).  We might not have had great research abilities, but by God, we could create a sentence which was error free and made sense.  We learned to manipulate language, to construct accurate and even elegant prose.  Some of our present day teachers at NLH have not been through a similar process.

Basic spelling errors, incorrect tense usage, missing commas, inconsistent voice and use of person.  It went on and on.  Some of course were OK.  Richard [of RBB]'s efforts were ready ahead of time, and models of succinct and witty enthusiasms.  Railway Guy as always, was a foundation stone of grammatical knowledge and usage.

But some of the rest!! I shudder at what these lovely and hard working people are teaching our kids.

I will mention on closing one other impediment to our struggle for perfection.  I refer of course to those deaf and dumb so-called professionals who couldn't even be bothered to print out their report comments for checking.  I'm not talking about teachers away on trips or courses, I'm pointing the finger at the lack of forward planning by a few of our colleagues, who, hours after the deadline are still printing out their reports.  Plus about 8 who just didn't print them out for us.  Or I suspect have their work checked by a colleague.

It gets depressing.

It was also depressing for MoE [The teacher, not the Ministry] who got stuck with being an acting temporary Deputy Principal when the rest of the SLT had swanned off to some meeting off-site (probably a pub), and who was trying to control the usual mob of suspects outside my office.  He always approaches these incidents in a calm and controlled way, and I admire him for his professionalism.  I would have loved to have strangled one of the hyperactive, abusive, foul-mouthed little buggers pour encourager les autres.

It's not too late.
I have a little list
They never will be missed.  Not by the teaching community at least.

I wonder how deep the creek is outside my classroom? 
I wonder if an accident could be arranged?
I wonder if I could get away with it?

Will they find out?

Nit Picking Tuesday

This is the report writing season, when we try and describe a student's behaviour, attitude, academic performance, character, punctuality, appearance (including unhygienic personal habits) and future prospects in 701 characters (including spaces).
The 701 is not a number with any special mystic powers, it is just the number of characters (letters and numbers) I could squeeze into our report template.  (I should note that I'm responsible for the electronic production of the reports as well as the relief.  Someone got to me when I was vulnerable, OK?)

Last night the report-checking committee sat and proof-read all of the report comments produced by our staff.  Many of the comments were concise and accurate, some were dull and bland and quite a few were minimalist in the extreme.  But some were missing.
We have known that these report comments were due to be checked on Monday evening, immediately after school finished at 3:30.
Some staff were still printing out at 4:00.  Including Ringo I might add.  Really setting a good example, not.

But some of our so-called professionals, dedicated to teaching in every form had not printed out their comments.  Which meant that we had to check which comments were missing, and then we had to dig into the computer system to find them and print them.

Then the real fun began.  I've never seen people so incensed over a comma!  Blood was not actually spilled, but it came close.  We argued obscure grammatical and syntactical rules, debated long forgotten conventions, and shouted at each other over the presence of semi-colons.

Look, I like Nuova Lazio, the vast majority of our students are really good people, friendly, approachable and  community spirited, as are their parents and caregivers.  But concerned with the finer rules of English (or even the Kiwi variant) they are not.  Goodness, many of our staff have to use the spelling and grammar checker in M$ Word to write a coherent sentence, so I don't think that a comma here or there is going to influence the readability or interpretation of a comment.

But we're teachers, to whom such things do matter, so we argue and debate of the minutiae of grammar.  It's something we've always done.  In every country, in every town, in every school, it matters to us to get things right.

Well at least it does to most of us.  I'll be having words with the less-professional amongst our staff about their behaviour, attitude, academic performance, character and punctuality. (But not appearance (including unhygienic personal habits)).  That's just to gross to even think about.

The Worm Turns

Ha.
Though you'd beaten me Dark Lord of the Shit?
Never. (Although your damned black infection is difficult to erradicate)

We Scots are made of tougher stuff than you effete English.
Begone, back to that dark pit from whence you came.

Now I'm back, I can now offer a bonus for my tired readers of a scholastic persuasion.
TSB(the Scot, not the Arena)'s Report Writing Service is available to the select few.
Rates are quite reasonable and are shown below:

Basic Report: (varies between 550 and 700 characters per pupil)
Year 9 core class (max 32) $2.00 per pupil
Year 9 option class (max 32) $2.50 per pupil (specialised vocabulary needed)
Year 10 core class (max 32) $2.50 per pupil
Year 10 option class (max 32) $3.00 per pupil (specialised vocabulary needed)
Year 11 or 12 class (max 30) $5.00 per pupil
Year 13 class $6.00 per pupil

Extra Bland Special Offer: 25% discount of total

Special Services:

Nasty Nancy;  Non PC innuendo on pupil's sexual preferences $5.00 per selected pupil
Dumb Dustbin;  Especially twisted comments exhibiting pupil's low IQ $3.50 per selected pupil
Big Bugger; Aimed at those kids who are destined for the front row of the All Blacks; $3.00 per selected pupil
Musical Misfits; For those of an artistic/dramatic/musical bent. $3.00 per selected pupil.  extra 50% off when chosen together with Nasty Nancy.
Vitriolic Venom;  For those you really hate.  Guaranteed non-actionable. You can choose from 3 sub-options; Lazy, Stupid or Evil.  $10.00 per selected pupil.

Simply send a list of names and type of class to my secret email address, and deposit 50% of the total bill in my account.  Balance to be paid within 24 hours of receiving the completed report comments. 

Or Else.

Another (sigh) Monday

Back to the grind, to earn my daily bread.
Well not exactly bread, more a nice Merlot with some oatcakes and a strong cheddar.  I've found that my tastes have definitely changed since my youth.

I used to think a animal-fat dripping piece of vague minced meat wrapped in rich flaky pastry (a bridie) accompanied by a dark beer was the pinnacle of gastronomic delight.  In some ways I still do, but my stomach will no longer tolerate such a high load of fat, and I know if I even try a couple of mouthfulls, I'll end up with severe heartburn and nausea for some hours.

Man eating a Bridie

As Richard [of RBB] mentioned in his post. we're now entering the senior report stage of the school year, when we write our comments on the little darlings we've been trying to teach for the last 6 months.  Of course being a PC country and being in a mostly PC-mad profession, we are not really allowed to write what we really think.

We cannot say that wee Johnnie is an absolute waste of space, who deliberately disrupts every class he is in, who has the mental capacity of a decerebrate frog and who would benefit from a rigorous application of carbolic soap using a scrubbing brush, especially in his mouth, which might slow the stream of expletive utterances.

We might like to say such things, but what will eventually appear on paper will be along the lines of:

John is mostly on time for his class.  He occasionally brings a pen, but never wears school shoes or a tie.  He finds the basic work quite challenging, although I think he could do better if he didn't spend so much time chatting to his friends around the class.  John has not yet completed any of this year's assessments, and he really needs to focus more on his tasks to meet the milestones that have been set. At this rate of completion, I cannot recommend that John progress into next year's XXX201 course and it may be to his benefit to repeat this year's XXX101 course.  John always has a grin on his face and demonstrates a good sense of humour, and his absence will be noticed next year.

Second Last Thursday

Two days to go. The light is visible at the end of the tunnel. It has been a long 11 weeks. Everyone, pupils and staff are getting tired and irritable (there's a good Scots word for this. It's 'Crabbit'.








All of the hard stuff is finished.
The last report evening went off last night. 2pm to 5pm in a large, mostly empty icy cold gym. No coffee easily available. I saw 8 groups of parents, caregivers and offspring. Some good discussion, some awkward moments, some plans set.
22.5 minutes available for each group. They normally finished in 5. I was bored, cold and fed up. All of my marking had been finished. Many of us got up and wandered around. Some lucky buggers had their desks and chairs positioned below the gym heaters and were reasonably comfortable. Some had been positioned in front of the doors, and an icy wind made them very uncomfortable.
No sarcastic comments.
No advanced cynicism.
Too tired.

Report Tuesday

This recording was discovered in the remains of the hall after the police had cleared the riot. It appears to have used a voice-activated microphone, but only one side of the conversation was actually recorded.



"Well hello."
"Sit down, sit down."
"So you're Report Evening's Dad?"
"Oh, sorry, Report Evening's Uncle then, how do you do Mr. Evening?"
"Oh, you prefer to be called Drunk and Disorderly?"
"No worries, let's get started Drunk."
"I take it you've seen Reppy's Report Card?"
"No?"
"Let me check the address we've got on file"
"Hmmm, a bit different from what we've got."
"So you don't live in KeriKeri then?"
"That's OK, I'll get it updated."
"Now then about Reppy."
"She means well, and is normally good natured, but she talks far to much, and often doesn't pay attention"
"She hasn't achieved any of her major milestones this Term, and her attendance is way down, less than 25%."
"She really doesn't know what she's supposed to be doing."
"No." "I agree." "It's not good enough, and we're going to have to make some changes."
"First we need to see her attendance go way up."
"She often seems hungry and thisty, so perhaps you can ensure that she has access to snacks and tea/coffee/juice."
"Some people work better with some light background music, so perhaps we can try that."
"Oh." "I agree." "No Double Bass music, it's far to moody and depressing for Reppy."
"One area I'm worried about is the quality of work taking place."
"It's no good just covering things she already knows, we'll have to go into new areas, see things she doesn't know about, discuss things outside of her comfort zone."
"I'm glad you agree."
"Sorry, what was that again?."
"Do I know Reppy's cousin, Learning Conferences?"
"Yes I know LC, sometimes I think she's more trouble than she's worth, but we get good results, so I can't complain."
"I see."
"You prefer LC to Reppy?"
"Well we'll see what we can do, but I can make no promises."
"What do you mean typical teacher, never listens?"
"I'll have you know I'm the best teacher here, and I know considerably more about Education than you do."
"Don't call me an opinionated Irish bastard, you colonial oik, I'm Scottish"

Saturday and Survived

Well we made it through a pretty fraught week. All kind of things were happening.
First Richard (of RBB) got the New Professional Award. Wow, we all bow before his magnificence.



Then the walking disaster area that is Ringo decided that as he has left early on Thursday (while everyone else stayed behind to get things correct and finished)he would get his stuff done on Friday, ignoring his allocated responsibilities.
You know, minor things; kids with knives, kids swearing at teachers, kids with dying relatives, kids stealing form the staffroom. It doesn't matter, Ringo remains inviolate. And arrogant. And a bully.

I'm not going to give too many details (to protect the innocent) but he just pushes people about as he sees fit, regardless if it's his job to do so, regardless of the greater benefit to the school.
I know that these (and previous comments) may sound a little bitter and twisted (check my name for goodness sakes), and I have tried to be as objective as possible, due to a previous competition which I lost, but this man is almost singlehandedly destroying the fantastic collegial atmosphere which was the main saving grace of Nuova Lazio High.
The previous Führer, now with the Afrika Corps in the scorching desert sands, made many improvements to this Stalag, and some mistakes, and I believe his biggest mistake was appointing Oberstürmbahnführer von Ringo to the General Staff of Stalag Luft Nuova Lazio.
Finally after I had sorted out various mistakes and re-printed the junior reports, I began to print out the seniors.
Picture the situation.
I don't have any time off.
I'm teaching senior and junior classes, who need constant teaching, supervision and encouragement.
I'm trying to print to the main printer in the main office. 200 meters away.
I'm using an advanced printer configuration setup to produce booklet type reports.
I get a phone call (in my classroom while I'm teaching)that the main printer has made a funny kind of grinding/crunching noise and has stopped.
After 10 minutes I get the message that it's restarted.
Repeat the entire sequence 3 times. Start. Stop. Start. Stop. Start. Stop.
Every time it stops, we're not sure what has been missed, and what has actually printed.
While I'm trying to sort this out, my Year 10 class arrives. A strange mix of bright hyperactive, evil hyperactive, clever, dumb, super-hardworking, insecure, defiant, resistant, forward, precocious, mongrel-mob prospective, talkative, loud, gossipy, bad-tempered, and generally nice kids. In other words a normal class.
Non-teachers may find this strange, but no matter what you hear, the vast majority of the kids we teach in schools are nice kids. Reasonably well behaved. A bit more argumentative than you will remember from your school days, but basically nice, decent kids who want to learn and to progress.
It's the scum of the difficult 5% who stuff it up for everybody else.
In these days of complete educational inclusion, you cannot just throw these buggers out.
Even though they probably account for 25% of teacher time in trying to create a safe working environment for your classes, and severely reduce the attainment levels of the majority of the kids, we are no longer allowed to remove the sods. The MOE gets really upset if we fling them away.
If they acted the way they do in adult life, they would end up "as a guest of Her Majesty".
But not as a juvenile.
They're safe, and they know it. We can do very little to them as long as they don't actually thump/knife/shoot anyone.
However,back to reports. The end result was chaos. I wasn't sure what had been printed or not printed. When I tried to get back into the print room to check, it was locked. Everyone had gone home.
At 3:30 there was no one left in the Stalag from the Reichsgruppe.
Sod it.
We can sort it out on Monday.
Laphroig (thanks Peter) beckons.
New horizons next week. Onward is better.

Fridays can be good

Friday at last, but not a completely normal Friday.
Today is report day, when I start printing our junior school reports. This is not a simple job of just pushing a couple of buttons, I've got to go through quite an involved process configuring KAMAR and printers to work in harmony (reminds me of a 70s song, the title of which has gone) and constanly checking the output. KAMAR (the all-powerfull) demands constant sacrifice, so I've got to keep checking the stuff coming of the printer is correct. KAMAR (the capricious) does some odd things if not placated. Last year I thought I'd had enough of the constant ministrations, so clicked the buttons to print of the whole school. Oh Dear, KAMAR (the mighty) was not amused, the printouts came out OK, but in a scrambled order, all the form classes mixed up in the year groups. I do it now class by class.
Today is another of my "heavy" days, with the same 4 classes from yesterday. I know some of you out there will laugh lightly about a 4 spell day being thought of as heavy, but when you have one of your teachers off with morning sickness, and one away to the UK, so you have to ensure that some work is available for the classes, and you have the reports to complete, believe me, it's heavy.
Lastly I'm not feeling to well. I'm developing the sore throat, chesty cough and sore eyes which seem to be indicative of the Nuova Lazio bug. Absolutely bloody perfect timing. Why do I always get sick just before a long weekend. Is it dedication to the job. I don't think so. I've obviously pissed off one of the Kiwi Gods. I'll make much sacrifce of whisky and then feel better. (In this context, sacrifice means drink)