It's Your Time You're Wasting - Frank Chalk

This is a true account of life as one of the most despised of professions - that of a supply teacher. Writing under the pseudonym of Frank Chalk, the author depicts his efforts to teach, or rather baby-sit, classes in a typical comprehensive. His term is "state-sponsored crowd control", which sums the whole thing up pretty accurately.

Frank says that supply teachers are those who are too lazy or inept to manage proper teaching ...
...generally regarded by pupils as an excuse to muck about for 50 minutes instead of getting on with any actual work. I should know myself, as I used to be one.

He goes on to describe his school as "fairly average for an inner city comprehensive", saying that "if you think that it is bad, then go to New College, Leicester". (I've taught [for two weeks as a supply teacher there and yes, it is even worse than his experiences!) ... more

This is a true account of life as one of the most despised of professions - that of a supply teacher. Writing under the pseudonym of Frank Chalk, the author depicts his efforts to teach, or rather baby-sit, classes in a typical comprehensive. His term is "state-sponsored crowd control", which sums the whole thing up pretty accurately.

Frank says that supply teachers are those who are too lazy or inept to manage proper teaching and classifies himself as "average". Having a supply teacher is generally regarded by pupils as an excuse to muck about for 50 minutes instead of getting on with any actual work. I should know myself, as I used to be one.

He goes on to describe his school as "fairly average for an inner city comprehensive", saying that "if you think that it is bad, then go to New College, Leicester". (I've taught [for two weeks as a supply teacher there and yes, it is even worse than his experiences!) New College is a shockingly catastrophic example of closing 6 local schools and shoving 2300 kids into a single school, from different areas of the same estate, which are mutually antagonistic to each other. Apparently the school has now "turned around" and has actually managed to pass an Ofsted inspection - previously the results from Ofsted were unanimously awful (13% pass rate at GCSE) and even these were achieved by suspending most of the worst pupils while the inspection was going on. God knows how they managed to improve anything there.

In the school Frank teaches at, he sticks to old fashioned methods - line the kids up before going in to the classroom, a no tolerance approach to graffiti and no teaching unless the kids are silent. This usually results in (as happened fairly regularly with many of the classes I took) 20 minutes of bedlam, with some teaching thrown in the middle and at the end, what is laughingly known in the trade as a "plenary session", where you are supposed to recap the work covered and go over the "lesson objectives". Unfortunately, some of Frank's lessons do not have any work set, let alone lesson objectives, as a pupil has removed the lesson plan sellotaped to the desk, or there wasn't one there in the first place. To his credit though, Frank does the best he can with scant resources.

This book punctures the politically correct language used in teaching PGCEs and the endless targets, league tables and goalpost moving which the government has indulged in. Frank is not one for political correctness - he would much rather give the kids a thick ear than lecture them about the importance of Citizenship and the Respect agenda.

Frank definitely despises the agenda of the PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education) of putting pupils into mixed ability classes, where more "challenging" pupils can learn from the example of brighter kids and more intelligent members of the class can refine their skills by explaining material to their peers. This book explodes this myth - basically a third of the class will fly through work set at an average ability, while a third will complain that "we don't usually do this" or sit their gnawing their pencils and staring balnkly into space.

Frank's fictional school is St. Judes (appropriate as he is the patron saint of hopeless causes). One of his favourite pastimes is a game of "spot the top set", whereby a teacher reads out the Christian names of a bottom set and top set of pupils and you have to guess which is which. No surprises that the set with chavtastic names like Dwayne and Shazney is not destined to go to Oxbridge, whereas Henrietta, Jemima and Phillip are probably in a different school altogether (or being taught by the head of department). Another truism about supply teaching is that, by its very nature - i.e. covering for teachers who are off sick for an extended period with stress-related depression - you get the worst classes.

Franks account of St Judes is set over a fictional year at a school. According to the author, all the events are genuine, although names have been changed to protect the guilty. It was developed from a web blog - and a companion volume about life in the police by PC Copperfield has also been published. Other tales of public sector woe worth reading are Dr. Crippen's web blog and neenaw - a warts and all look at life on the sharp end of the emergency services hotline in London

While this sort of expose of the failings of public services in New Labour's Britain has been covered elsewhere, Its Your Time You're Wasting is a very funny and self-deprecating look at the plight of a supply teacher. Like I said, non-teachers may find some of it shocking or surprising. Teachers, however, will recognise many of the situations in the book.

On a final note, if anyone remains in any doubt about the demise of educational standards across the board, "That'll Teach 'Em", a Channel 4 programme which gave a set of 15-year old pupils, who were predicted As and Bs at GCSE, an 11 plus examination from the 1950s. Unfamiliar with mental arithmetic and completely at sea without a calculator to fall back on - half the class failed.

This book is highly recommended if you want a glimpse of what school is really like for the vast majority of young people in Britain today. It is not recommended for the faint hearted reader, or for anyone considering a career in teaching.

"Its Your Time You're Wasting retails at £8, but is avilable for £6.40 from Amazon. Money well spent in my opinion.

 

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