From Banda Machines to Google Classroom E-Book

Jon Hall

• Herausgeber: Grosvenor House Publishing
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 230

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A wide-ranging memoir of life as a junior/ middle school teacher. The author takes us on a fascinating journey through his career from the naive young probationary teacher of the mid-1980s to the experienced Deputy Head of the early 2020s. He uses his collection of Academic Year diaries to transport us back to a date in October for each year of his career and tells us about what was happening to him and his pupils and fellow teachers on that day. Using this method, he informs us not only about his own career ups and downs, but about the many educational changes that he and his colleagues had to try and implement and deal with. The introduction of the National Curriculum and SATs tests, the emergence of OFSTED, the Literacy Hour, 'Prevent' and teaching through the challenging Covid period are all covered, together with ongoing challenges such as career progression, running the School Council, teaching Sex Education, health and safety, pupil behaviour and curriculum development. Anyone with a background or interest in education will relate to the amusing anecdotes set in the classrooms, staffrooms, assembly halls and playgrounds of the three Hertfordshire schools the author worked in.

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Prologue - “Welcome to Lyndhurst!”

1. “Don’t smile till Christmas!”

2. “I’m gonna do well well!”

3. “The fees are as much as Eton!”

4. “How are you going to eat?”

5. “No chairs if there are any more problems!”

6. “Conkers-holes at home, litter, not indoors!”

7. “We don’t want to see you go, but we think you should!”

8. “Bluff your way in Teaching.”

9. Secondary Transfer and a Withdrawn Bus Pass.

10. Tough on your average ten- or eleven-year-old.

11. Making a Statement.

12. Mentoring the Next Generation.

13. The death of ERIC?

14. That ‘Brian Hanrahan moment’.

15. South-East London or North-West Kent?

16. A Varied Agenda.

17. Balancing Budgets and Fixing Leaky Roofs.

18. Headship: Thanks, but no Thanks!

19. Disneyland, David Beckham and a Roller Hockey pitch.

20. A Reserved Englishman learns how to Give Out Praise.

21. Autumn Days.

22. “Fun, Fit and Fruity Week.”

23. Staying Positive and ‘Taking it on the Chin.’

24. The Secret Angel(s).

25. The Carpet Salesman pays a visit (in lieu of OFSTED.)

26. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

27. Can we just get on with the job now please?!

28. “We’re quicker than the AA you know!”

29. The ‘Curriculum Tsar’ talks through his plans.

30. ‘Prevent’ and British Values.

31. “Are you familiar with Instagram, Mr Hall?”

32. “Are you sure she isn’t your Mum?!”

33. ‘Imposter Syndrome’ makes a Brief Appearance.

34.  My knuckles are rapped, and ‘Fingers’ is framed.

35.  Dr Crippen makes it onto Twitter.

36.  “What is pornography, and would you recommend it?!”

37.  A Funeral and a Farewell.

38.  “Good but declining - and that’s just the Deputy Head!”

Epilogue - Leave it as you Found it.

Copyright

Foreword

Perhaps I’ve always been planning to write this book. Maybe that’s the reason I didn’t throw away any of my academic diaries at the end of each school year. Over the years, the line of them in my various stock cupboards has got longer and longer. When I finally retired, there were 38 of them altogether, and they came home with me. They have been my main source for writing what follows, supplemented by the internet for the odd bit of fact checking when timelines have got a bit confused in my head.

My original plan was to write about what I was up to on the same date every year, in the style of the couple in the brilliant One Day by David Nicholls. It struck me fairly early on that to stick with this religiously would mean that quite a few of the 38 years would fall on weekend dates, when generally I wasn’t involved in anything to do with school. (I’ve tried, particularly in the second half of my working life, to work long hours in the week and leave the weekends as free as possible for other activities.) So, I changed that initial idea slightly and chose various dates each year in October, when my diaries suggested a starting point for what I hope you will find is something vaguely interesting to do with the life of a late twentieth/ early twenty first century teacher. Why choose October? No particular reason really, other than it’s a fairly typical teaching month-you’re getting into the swing of the new academic year, you’re beginning to get to know your new class(es) reasonably well and you’ve got a week off at the end of it to look forward to.

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to the pupils, parents, governors and staff of the three Hertfordshire schools where what follows all happened: Lyndhurst Middle School, Borehamwood (1986-1992), Fair Field Junior School, Radlett (1993-1999) and Bishop Wood CE Junior School, Tring (1999-2024.)

And also, of course, to all my friends and family for their encouragement and support over the years.

Prologue

“Welcome to Lyndhurst!”

Monday, 28th April 1986

My train pulls out of Bournemouth Station at some ungodly hour, but I’ve always preferred to be hours early rather than minutes late, and today is a day where being late is not really an option. I’m travelling via London to Borehamwood in Hertfordshire for an interview for my first ever teaching job. This is the sixteenth job I’ve applied for, and the second for which I’ve made the shortlist. I’ve picked up a few dos and don’ts from my only other interview, where I was edged out by a Cambridge undergraduate for a post in New Romney, Kent, so maybe it’ll be my turn this time.

I’m almost at the end of a four-year BEd course at the Dorset Institute of Higher Education. I’ve absolutely loved it, but the time to face the real world is fast approaching. I’ve fallen in love with the county of Dorset and its motorway free world, its endearing place names (I’ve played cricket at Owermoigne and Melplash, for example) and its slower pace of life. The urge to be fussy and stay until I get a job in my new adopted county has been a strong one. But teaching jobs down here are hard to come by-it’s such a lovely part of the world, once people are here, they tend to stay. So, I’ve been applying everywhere, eager to put my newfound skills to the test, to get on with life and change the world by influencing the next generation of children for the better.

Borehamwood, when I arrive bleary eyed at some point mid-morning, doesn’t seem that different to my childhood home of Bexleyheath, diagonally opposite on the map if you draw a line through London, and about the same distance from the centre. They’re only 30 miles or so apart as the crow flies, but I’ve never been here before. I wander down the High Street and come across the world-famous Elstree Studios. I had no idea that was here, but I suppose the fact the station was called Borehamwood and Elstree was a bit of a clue.

In my one and only suit, a light grey pinstripe, I present myself at the school reception desk and the whirlwind of an interview day starts again. I answer the questions of the interview panel as confidently as I can, without, I hope, appearing too much of a ‘know-it-all’, and sit in the staff room trying to make small talk with the teachers, who greet me warmly and feel like people I could work with happily if I’m offered the chance. 

A key question nearly always asked at the end of an interview is something along the lines of, ‘If we offered you the job today, would you take it?’ I answer this with a resounding ‘yes!’ This, I find out much later, is the most important answer of the day. Apparently, the role comes down to a choice between me and one of the other candidates, who at the key moment hedges his bets between this job and an interview that he has elsewhere a few days hence.

So, I’m in. Shirley, my new boss, reaches across her immaculate desk, shakes my hand, smiles encouragingly, looks me in the eyes and says, “Welcome to Lyndhurst.” My ambition to become a teacher, born five or so years previously whilst watching To Serve them all my Days on TV, has been realised. All I need to do now is finish those last few exams, find somewhere to live, and turn up here again in September, raring to go.

Chapter 1

“Don’t smile till Christmas!”

Wednesday, 22nd October 1986

You can see it written on the faces of some of the parents “is this young whippersnapper really in charge of my child’s development until next Summer?” (I’m only twenty two years old and barely ten years older than my young charges.) Today is my first Parents Evening as a teacher. I can’t remember much advice about how to handle these being given on my B.Ed course, so it’s in at the deep end.

But, for the most part, the parents keep this thought to themselves, and the early feedback is encouraging. Most of the kids seem to be reasonably happy in my class and it would appear, as I’d hoped, that there is a genuine rapport with at least some of them. “Don’t smile till Christmas” one of my colleagues had said in the first week of term- a reference to the undoubted truth that it’s much easier to relax with a class once you’ve established all the ground rules and got them working as you want, rather than starting out all free and easy and having to back-track when the pupils don’t work or mess about or both. I’ve probably smiled a few times most days but the balance between Attila the Hun and Mother Teresa has been about right.

And, to my secret relief, some of the parents of the more difficult children don’t turn up. Half of my blood is Northern, and I have a tendency at times to speak my mind when a more diplomatic form of words would be more prudent. I haven’t yet worked out how to subtly tell someone that their child makes large parts of my working day very difficult. The catchment area of the school is a mixed one, and some of the parents aren’t desperately bothered about how their offspring are doing as long as they’re here and we’re not hassling them.

My decision to trust to fate and apply for jobs everywhere has paid dividends. I’ve really landed on my feet at Lyndhurst. I enjoy working with my class and I have a supportive and fun year group team in Carole and Nikki. I’ve also managed to get a teacher’s flat on the other side of town at a very reasonable rent.

Even better, it’s half term next week so get through tonight and two more days then I can sleep for hours and hours and hours. I never knew it was possible to feel this tired. I did a whole term’s teaching practice last year, but there was always the student bar in the evening when lesson plans had been done, always others who’d had a worse day than me, and we were driven there by minibus. No peddling home up a long hill with Tesco bags stuffed full of books to be marked dangling precariously from the handlebars.

Chapter 2

“I’m gonna do well well!”

Thursday, 8th October 1987

I’m not what you’d call a naturally gifted sportsman, but I love sport and have a modicum of talent in some games, so a lot of my early teaching is in PE. I’m teaching in a “Middle School” for pupils aged 9-13, and it’s run to some extent on secondary lines, so that you can choose to teach subjects that interest you and that you know something about. So, PE is on my list and while specialists are teaching my class, 2H, subjects like art, metalwork and home economics, about which I know next to nothing, I am to be found on the field or in the gym teaching how to pass a rugby ball or execute a badminton drop shot.

Earlier this week, though, I’ve been distinctly out of my comfort zone on a course for trampolining teachers. I’m due to teach this for the first time soon, and before the LEA will let me loose on such a dangerous piece of equipment, they wisely insist on me completing a qualification of competence. The coaching side is not too bad; although I lack the co-ordination to perform seat drops, front drops and the rest with the required finesse, I can grasp the teaching points satisfactorily enough, and back at school there will always be an able child to demonstrate said manoeuvres. 

No, my real problems start when I am asked to put away the trampoline and then safely get it out again. I am not technically minded and this proves very difficult. Mum tells me I am the product of a very long labour (“I thought they might have to use forceps”), and as my poor skills in this area of life have been revealed to my family over the years, speculation has increased that maybe the long labour caused some mild brain damage. Anyway, I can’t crack this and the blessed thing keeps collapsing under my direction. The kindly LEA (Local Education Authority) adviser smiles and offers a personal visit to my school to help.

Another worrying aspect of the course is highlighted when the tutor tells us an anecdote from a school in Leeds. Some teenagers apparently broke into a school there one night a couple of years ago. They got the trampoline out, started jumping up and down on it, and one of the lads fell off and broke his neck. The boy’s parents successfully sued the LEA for damages, because the trampoline wasn’t locked. So, if I learnt nothing else this week, it was to make sure our trampoline is always locked!

But today I am back on more familiar territory. It’s the 2nd Year football team’s local derby away to Holmshill, one of the other two middle schools in the town. I’m young and full of energy, so I devote most evenings after school to running one sort of sports club or another-three football teams this term have the benefit of my tactical know-how. And today I will be pitting my wits against another fresh-faced teacher, Marcus, coach of Holmshill.

Our school is strong in PE, and in just over a year, I’ve already seen how school sport can help keep some of the less academically inclined on-side at school. The head of PE, Yvonne, is a most impressive figure and one of a handful of colleagues whom I’m already basing my attitudes and expectations on. The quality of her gym club’s displays is breathtaking and very few bring in sickness or injury notes for her lessons. Any girls who try to play the period card will not get away with it more than once a month, because she keeps a meticulous record of all excuses!

Sports Day last term was very keenly contested between the houses, and followed weeks of intense build-up in lessons and after school clubs, with enthusiasm reaching boiling point in time for the big day. The Deputy Head overheard one excited pupil blurt out “I’m gonna do well well in Sports Day!” The word ‘well’, I should explain, is currently the prefix of a number of other words in common usage amongst the pupils, with ‘crucial’ and ‘wicked’ being also particularly favoured.

The football is close, as I expected it would be. We shade a tight first half and are 1-0 up at the break. But then in the second half defences tire and the goals start to stream in- at both ends. Tempers become a little frayed on the touchline, and I do my best to walk the fine line between encouraging our team, and not pandering to the parents’ rather warped view of how Marcus is refereeing the game. Refereeing school matches is horrendously difficult- you want your team to do well, but are paranoid about being accused of bias towards them and if anything tend to over-compensate and favour the opposition. Parents refereeing from the side and shouting their opinions do not help. I’ve already had to threaten to abandon one game when exuberance crossed the boundary into abuse and rather ‘colourful’ language. At the end of a breathless second half, we have triumphed by the odd goal in nine, and I can look forward to delivering a detailed report in assembly tomorrow.

Chapter 3

“The fees are as much as Eton!”

Thursday, 13th October 1988

I’m now in my third year of teaching and I’m feeling quite pleased with myself because already I’ve gained a promotion, and have started climbing the career ladder. Since last month I’ve been in receipt of what they’re now calling an ‘A’ allowance- this means I get about an extra £1K per annum on top of my basic wage for doing something other teachers don’t normally do.

I’ve been lucky really, in that a couple of senior colleagues have moved on in the last couple of years, and their roles need to be taken by other, younger teachers, and that means me! So, towards the end of last term, my Headteacher called me in, said I had impressed people with my work in the school so far, and would I like to take on the EWO liaison role? I had an inkling what that meant, but not really much of an idea exactly what the role involved. But, a promotion is a promotion, so I said yes, had a crash course in the job from the previous postholder, a chat a couple of weeks later with a Governor who had to rubber-stamp the appointment, and now here I am!

EWO stands for Education Welfare Officer, and he visits us every Thursday afternoon. He has a very interesting and varied job description. Not that long ago he might have been called a Truant Officer, and he does spend a fair bit of his time knocking on doors of children who aren’t attending school enough, and trying to find out why. Another of his roles is to escort children from the local area to special boarding schools away from the area. These are children with emotional and behavioural issues of such significance that it’s been decided they need to be away from family and their local environment in order to try and get them back on track. Terry never tires of telling me that the LEA are paying the equivalent of the fees at Eton for one of his young clients.

My job involves two non-contact periods every week. On a Wednesday morning, I go through the registers, and note any lengthy or unaccounted for absences. I put notes in registers asking teachers to chase up things, and then anything I am concerned about I can raise in my second non-contact period the following day, when Terry, the EWO, comes calling. Sometimes this meeting is preceded by a lunchtime conflab with Tina, the School Nurse.

To say this is an eye-opener would be an understatement. Some of these children are dealing with some very difficult problems, and frankly I’m not sure if I could face school if I was trying to deal with what they’re having to. Today I’ve got four cases I want to talk to Terry about- all boys, although that isn’t necessarily typical. He answers my queries with good humour and his experience helps me sort trifling concerns from the potentially more serious. In the end, only one of the four requires immediate follow-up by him, so I will need to talk to that teacher and bring them up to date.

Nagging teachers for absence details and telling them that one of their pupils is an EWO concern is my first experience of putting potentially more work on my colleagues, and I’m finding it hard at the moment to deal with their occasional (and understandable) annoyance at this, but I guess if I don’t want to remain a teaching foot-soldier for the rest of my career, this is something I will have to get used to. 

It’s also my first experience of dealing with parents of children whom I’m not actually teaching. If an absence goes unexplained for more than a week, I have to follow this up myself and put a call to home in. This is tricky for me because I’ve never been the most confident or assertive user of the telephone; already, I’m coming to dread this part of the job, and I’m never that disappointed if there’s nobody at home when I call. A real bonus is if nobody is in, but they have an answer phone- then I can get my point across without actually having to speak to someone!

Chapter 4

“How are you going to eat?”

Wednesday, 18th October 1989

Last year’s Education Act is starting to bite. We now have an American style all-through year numbering system, so that your first year in school is called Year R (for reception) and the Upper Sixth (if you get that far) is called Year 13. So, at Lyndhurst, we have Years 5-8, and our year groups and classes have been renamed accordingly. More importantly, we have a new ‘National Curriculum’ and this means there is now a lot less choice over what we can teach, and when. My colleague in Year 5 who has taught the Romans every Autumn Term more or less since the Romans left these shores just because that’s what she’s always done, can no longer necessarily do so. And that’s probably a good thing isn’t it? The Government are saying that, amongst other benefits, the more centralised curriculum will mean it will be easier for children who move from one part of the country to another. It’s a step towards the French system, where apparently the Education Minister can look at the clock on the wall in his or her office at say, eleven o’clock on a Thursday morning, and pretty much know what all 8 year olds in the country will be being taught at that moment. All sounds a bit Big Brother-ish to me!

Anyway, the arrival of a National Curriculum has certainly caused a few headaches for those of us working in Middle Schools. The new curriculum has been divided into 4 ‘key stages.’ Key Stage 1 is children aged 5-7 (ie infants)- no problem for us, as we don’t have any. Key Stage 2 is children aged 7-11 (ie Juniors)- well we have some of them but so do our feeder First Schools. Key Stage 3 is children aged 11-14. Well, we have the first two years of that group, but then they move onto Upper School. So how do we decide the content of what is taught in the various years? We have a whole series of meetings with colleagues in other schools across the town, that’s how. And in terms of History and Geography, that’s down to me.

This is because I’ve quickly moved up from an ‘A’ allowance to a ‘B’ allowance and have joined the ranks of the school ‘Senior Staff’ team. I’m Head of Integrated Studies (that’s what we call History and Geography), and a Year Leader too- responsible for the pastoral care of about 90 children. Another experienced colleague moved on last Easter, there was very little interest in the job from outside, and the Headteacher and Governors took a chance on me (again.) Whilst not exactly rolling in money, it’s another welcome top-up to the salary. My partner and I joined the home-owning classes last year, and the Financial Adviser, who did nevertheless grant us the mortgage, looked up from the figures at one point and said rather worryingly, “this is all very well, but how are you going to eat?” Well the ‘B’ allowance is helping to keep the wolf from the door, as they say.

So, this afternoon, I’m experiencing only my third ever ‘Senior Staff’ meeting. These important gatherings are so important, and the attendees such an exclusive lot, that they take place not in the staff room, but in the confines of the Head’s study- and it’s still called that, not the Head’s office. It’s a room that I generally feel comfortable and positive in, as it was within these four walls that I was offered the chance to officially join the teaching profession about three and a half years ago now. Although I’ve learnt a lot in the interim and can hold my own in most of the discussions, I’m still slightly in awe of some of my senior colleagues, particularly the Head and the Deputy. Their jobs are tough, and yet they come back here day after day and manage, outwardly at least, to take everything in their stride.

During the last three years, I’ve sometimes experienced a slight feeling of jealous exclusion when I’ve not been able to attend these meetings. Thoughts like “what on earth are they discussing in there?” have gone through my mind. But now I’m in here, I realise it’s just fairly mundane stuff, but on a slightly more ‘whole school’ level than general staff meetings. Today, for instance, we focus mainly on tomorrow evening’s Prospective Parents Evening, and what we can do to encourage our visitors to send their offspring here next year.  

So, a large part of my time from now on will be spent in meetings. National Curriculum meetings with colleagues from other schools, pastoral care meetings about children in my Year Group, Senior Staff meetings, and ordinary staff meetings. That’s a lot of meetings.

Chapter 5

“No chairs if there are any more problems!”

Friday, 19th October, 1990

This year, Senior Staff at our school haven’t been given our standard issue ‘Education Year Diary.’ We have a very trendy ‘Management Handbook and Diary’ instead. And it’s in thick ‘filofax’ format, so if we take it out with us at weekends and stroll casually down the street with it, we could be mistaken for ‘yuppies.’ 

There’s space for me to write copious notes on all sorts of topics and certainly a lot of ink is being taken up due to my newfound role as Year Leader. This is a job that gives you an insight into people’s lives in a way that my training and very early years of teaching did not. It is a real eye opener to me, coming as I do from a stable background and a generally happy home, what some of the 12- and 13-year-olds in my care are having to put up with.

Custody court cases, bullying, evictions, domestic abuse, substance abuse, lateness, children running out of school, parents being imprisoned and shoplifting have all come to my attention in just over a year in the job. Sometimes it’s a wonder to me that these children are able to focus on their learning at all given what’s going on. 

I use most of my 3 free periods each week (the other 22 are spent teaching English, PE, RE and Integrated Studies) trying to keep on top of all this, liaising with parents, talking to the children and offering support and guidance where I can. But often it’s just listening. I can’t wave a magic wand and solve these problems, much as I’d love to. Sometimes I can pass the child or parent on to some other professional or agency that might be able to help. I lean a lot on other colleagues, particularly John, the Deputy Head, to help me with all this.

The other aspect of all this is in some respects even harder. As well as trying to help these children, I’m also responsible for their discipline and behaviour. If they’re messing about in lessons, in assembly or on the playground, it’s down to me to do something about it. I’m beginning to dread a colleague sidling up to me with an opening line of , “Oooh Jon, I’m glad I’ve caught you, I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about….” I’ve even found myself occasionally finding excuses not to go in the staff room for fear of such an encounter, and that’s not a healthy place to be in.