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

Advantages: Hilarious warts-and-all expose of supply teaching.
Disadvantages: Maybe not so hilarious to non-teachers?

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 ... Read review

Advantages: Amusing. Easy reading. Will ring true for many teachers.
Disadvantages: Not all comprehensive schools are this bad, honestly.

Angela Mason, the supply teacher who filmed Channel 5’s documentary ‘Classroom Chaos’ was banned from teaching a year for her pains. Frank Chalk — it’s a pseudonym — will escape punishment for this more humorous and more detailed whistle-blow. First I should say that I’m a teacher — not a supply teacher but I’ve often covered lessons for absent colleagues (and some teachers are absent a LOT). A good lesson requires that you know the pupils, are ... Read review