NoTime

Our senior kids have headed off to 2 weeks of exams and about 2½ months of holidays in the lovely New Zealand summer.



This means that I only have one junior class to teach, and that's only 5 hours over two weeks.  It sounds  pretty cushy, but the reality is different.  The departed seniors have left a lot of teachers with fewer teaching hours, so I have to use them to cover classes when others are off sick, away on courses, attending meetings and conferences or just hiding somewhere because they can't stand the sight of 10DK anymore.

Have 10DK gone yet?

All of the relief is internal, and I really hate having to ask colleagues to cover classes.  Most don't complain, (although a few have developed a habit of whining a lot) and I try my best to allocate the work in as equitable a manner as I can, but I still don't like doing it.

But that's not the reason I'm getting stressed.  That's not the reason I'm up to about a ½bottle of wine a night.  That's not the reason that I'm not sleeping very well.

It's the timetable.(TT)

It's the Time Table

Our small group is working on creating a TT for next year.  I did the same last year, but I don't remember it as being as difficult.  This year we are under many more constraints than we were previously.  Subject A, B and C, MUST we were told line up with 4 more subjects in the junior school,  Some cultural groups MUST be locked into some set hours.  We MUST align 6 senior classes on 3 adjacent lines at fixed times with particular teachers and rooms.  We keep a notebook in our TT office and it's full of lists of all these requirements. 

Sometimes it feels like this

We were at it for 5 hours yesterday, and by the end, my brain had just turned into a block of frozen crap. It just wouldn't work, so I went home, knackered.  I think my colleagues were just as tired as I was, but maybe it's because I'm older that I feel tireder earlier, or maybe it's the damned relief stuff that's the extra factor.

All I know is that I'm looking forward to taking my lovely Year 10 class today.  Teaching about 24 inquisitive, active kids all about databases will be an absolute delight and should help to de-fog my tired brain.

Don't move or the teacher gets it.