It's a new year with new responsibilities for Matthew Godfrey - but he has plenty of reasons to feel positive
This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on 25 September 2002
As a teenager, I always
experienced mixed feelings at the start of a new school year: excitement at seeing
friends again, but trepidation about returning to the confines of school, and a
keen resolve to start afresh as each new, clean, exercise book was opened,
coupled with a niggling fear of looming tests and exams.
Things are not so different now
that I am a teacher. At the start of this, my third year in the profession, I
was feeling well prepared - I had spent part of the holiday re-organising the
department - refreshed (there was still time over the summer for a fair amount
of sun-seeking), and a little apprehensive, not least because a new set of
English teachers awaited me in the staff room, all hoping for a seamless and
supportive induction into their new posts at a school with more than its share
of disaffected and disruptive pupils.
As the new head of English, I was
fully aware of the challenges that lay ahead. Despite a national trend of
improved GCSE results this summer, our school's were down: just 24 per cent of
our pupils achieved five grades A to C. Last year also saw a huge turnover of staff;
the legacy is a backlog of GCSE coursework and pupils having to adjust to new
teachers. Poor discipline and weak literacy remain big problems in some
classes. On top of all this (literally), the roof of the entire school is being
replaced, smothering large areas with scaffolding.
The first three weeks of term
have, inevitably, seen low points for new and established teachers alike. There
have been epic post-mortems of disastrous lessons and countless anecdotes about
rude pupils, dozens of whom were referred to me for my first head-of-department
detention. Our stock of chocolate digestive biscuits - always a source of
comfort in the staff room - has needed replenishing several times already.
Overall, though, the new teachers
have got off to a terrific start, being good humoured, energetic and
enthusiastic. The department is looking smart and well organised, and the
atmosphere is positive.
But one of the chief reasons for
my optimism is that I have been enjoying my own teaching more than ever this
term. I have an interesting mix of classes, from the very bright to the very
weak; I have not taught most of the pupils before, and so have a fresh
opportunity to learn from past errors; and a combination of my own greater
experience, increased confidence and the status that comes with being head of
department means that I have had very few serious discipline problems and so
have felt able to be more adventurous with my classroom activities.
In short, I have been reminded
that teaching in a school like this can be great fun - there were times last
year when I forgot that.
All this has given me increased
hope that I can fulfil my overriding aim as head of department, which is to
show that difficult schools like ours can improve - albeit in modest, realistic
steps - without falling prey to what is so often perceived as the plight of
state schools: teachers overwhelmed by bureaucracy, tired of discipline
problems and limited by a dull curriculum and ineffective teaching methods.
This may sound over-ambitious, but
there are a number of things working in my favour.
Take bureaucracy, for example. I
have now been issued with a first-rate laptop, and the school's computer
network provides easy access to all assessment information about pupils, staff
email, teaching resources and general details about the school.
Used properly, this should herald
the end of a great deal of form-filling, memo-writing, photocopying,
re-invention of the wheel and duplication of information. While I acknowledge
that managing disruptive pupils does generate extra paperwork - letters of
concern to parents, incident reports and detention lists all need writing - I
reckon it is perfectly possible to run a department free of too much bureaucracy.
Given the nature of our intake, I
have to be realistic about the depth of literature that our pupils will be
exposed to but, judging from my teaching schedule for the year, it is a lively
and eclectic mix.
Most of the teenage fiction makes
great reading: Holes by Louis Sachar,
The Demon Headmaster by Gillian
Cross, Our Day Out by Willy Russell
and J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit are
particular favourites of mine. They go down well with pupils aged 11 to 14, can
provide a good early basis for studying language and literature and can trigger
good imaginative writing.
In the run-up to GCSE, my pupils
will study Educating Rita, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, a range of poetry and other texts, too, all of
which are substantial enough to maintain the interest of both teacher and
pupil.
Teaching is a physically, mentally
and, at times, emotionally demanding job. As I see it, my principal
responsibility is to free my colleagues from some of the hassles that can
overshadow its many pleasures.
Currently, 10-hour days are the
norm for me, but I cannot remember a weekend spoilt by work and, given that our
school day starts and finishes earlier than most, I am always home at around
6pm - early enough to enjoy a full evening and reflect on what has normally been
a satisfying day's work.
Matthew Godfrey will continue to write occasional
articles about working in an inner-city comprehensive
Published in The Daily Telegraph on 25 September 2002
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