I'm A Real Teacher!

So I know there's been a shocking lack of blogging going on since I returned back to work after my half term adventures. It can all directly be explained by a dramatic life change for me that was quite unexpected. 

As you know, I've been working part time at Ryde Academy on the Isle of Wight every Monday and Friday. The majority of all my supply work has been at Ryde Academy as well. Even though I worked part time, I was still really just considered a supply. Two of the class I taught on Monday and Friday were co taught with another teacher (not at the same time) and so they would leave me cover lesson plans and do any marking. One of the classes was my own but I was given a slideshow with a scheme of work on it so I had to do little prep or marking. 

When I got back from half term everything was different. You could tell there was an atmosphere of change around the school. We had a new English department head (Karen). On that first Monday back Karen told me they were going to be reevaluating my timetable. I instantly panicked and thought that maybe they no longer needed me. I summoned up the courage to ask Karen what she meant by that and she said, "Well we'd like for you to be full time now." 

My jaw dropped. But to be honest, I didn't even really have time to think about it. It all happened so fast. One minute I was a supply teacher like I had always intended and the next minute I was given a full weekly timetable.  I inherited seven new classes. 

I hadn't come to England to be a full time teacher. I had come to be a supply teacher which gave me the freedom to work when I wanted, to travel, and to not take home any stresses at the end of the day. No marking, no lesson plans. Nothing. I had also only planned on staying until Christmas but this new job opportunity would have me staying until the end of next summer. So why did I take the job? Besides a lack of time to consider it, there was something so tempting about it. I love teaching. Supplying is babysitting and crowd control. But I absolutely love teaching. I also figured that at the end of the day when I come back to Canada, it's going to be a lot better on my resume to have not just been a supply teacher but to also be a real teacher. Furthermore, I had really only just begun to do all the travelling I wanted. England is beautiful and I needed more time to explore. 

So there I was. Finally a real teacher! It was not all glamour though. Once the excitement of getting my name badge, staff laptop, special desk area in the english staff room, and new classes wore off, the workload was insane. Sorry to use cliches but it was literally baptism by fire and sink or swim. I was replacing a teacher who was leaving immediately and that left me no time to do any shadowing, lesson planning, or familiarizing myself with the British curriculum. I left school on Monday as a supply teacher and came in the next day to teach year 9 English on a book I had never heard of. I printed off multiple worksheets I had found online but of 

course when I brought them in I discovered that the students had already done all of them. That left me with an hour and a half to kill and little concept of what they had been previously studying. Nonetheless I managed to completely wing it like so many other things in the beginning. I was given 150 different students spread out into 7 different classes. I have two year 7 classes (ages 11-12), one year eight class (ages 12-13), two year nine classes (ages 13-14), one year ten class (ages 14-15) and one year 12 class (17-18). I absolutely adore every single one of my classes except for one. Most of my students are so great and I have a lot of fun teaching them. I just have one demon class but realistically I think it's good to have such a challenge because it wouldn't be helpful to me as a new teacher to only have easy classes. I need the constant challenge and stress that they bring so I can keep working on my teaching style and learn how to handle myself. They are a super challenging bunch though. The first three lessons I had with them I had to shout at them up and down so loudly until they quivered in their seats. After that I kept trying different ways to break them and it's been a lot better since. They keep me on my toes and although I used to dread our twice a week lessons, I now actually look forward to teaching them. 

In terms of how else I got on at the beginning: the first two weeks were hell. There's no other way to describe it. Up almost all night every single night of the week. Non stop working. There were tears. Every day there was something else added to what seemed like an already insurmountable workload for me. Every day there was something else to stress about or something else that went wrong. Two weeks of misery. Then finally after a lot of sweat and tears I managed to complete all lesson planning for all seven of my classes for the rest of the semester (so up until Christmas). I taught myself how to do marking the British way. I taught myself the Keystage 3 and Keystage 4 curriculum. I taught myself what exam boards were and what exam board Ryde was using (WJEC) and how to prepare my students for it. I had two very helpful teachers at Ryde who guided me in all my multiple questions. I made seven new seating plans and memorized the names of my now 150 students. I tried to get on top of all staff expectations for the school and leaned all the rules and customs and systems in place. It's so different from Canada it's not comparable. 

I can tell you that it was worth it though. There is no better feeling than walking down the halls and hearing "HI MISS M!" and having a student tell you that you're their favourite teacher. I genuinely never minded being a supply teacher, but the feeling of walking down the halls as a permanent full time teacher is so gratifying. 

So for now the challenges are difficult but I am really loving overcoming them and becoming the teacher I've always wanted to be.