2018 - 4 out of 5 ain't so bad.........

The year is 4 weeks old. I have 5 classes, 4 junior and 1 senior, well year 11. I am already missing having a true senior class this year but to make up for it I have 2 amazing year 9 classes.  One of these years 9 classes is my form class with a few extra to make up the numbers. The boys are amazing. They are polite, respectful and show empathy for others around them. Yes, we have had our ups and downs and a punch has already been thrown but so far so good. fingers crossed the honeymoon period doesn't end too soon and if I keep hammering my expectations for the remainder of the term we should be in for a great year. My other year 9 class is larger but seems to have many of the same qualities. The dynamic is slightly different, there are some increased needs with some of the boys but overall they are polite, respectful and can follow basic instructions pretty well. Again my big focus is hammering expectation and putting anyone who steps out of line back into line very quickly and purposefully. So, so far so good.

My year 10 classes are a completely different story. unlike year 9 we stream out 10s and as a result of having the very bottom class and a low middle class. I will start with my 012's or low middle class. again this is a biggish class, not the biggest in the school, but nearly double my smallest class. I taught a number of the boys last year which is proving to be very challenging. Overall, they are a nice enough class. I have a small group who sit in class and will do very little work (this weekends emails to be sent.) The majority of the boys are willing to put in some effort and by and large, we have good lessons. I have found establishing the boundaries and routines in this class to be difficult but we are getting there. We are making good progress with the routine and the boys know what is expected of them and what they need to bring to class each lesson. For the most part, they are respectful and will complete the assigned work, with some prodding and the promise that if it is not completed they lose their lunch hours and emails get sent home.
My 011 is going to be the death of me. As soon as I saw the class last year I knew I was in for a real challenge and was going to have a tough time, boy was I right. I have struggled from day one to set boundaries and the expectations. The boys just don't care. They do not respect me, the learning rights of each other and to top it all off even though there is only 14 in the class I feel like of have 28. I have real difficulties getting any productive work achieved, I struggle to keep them seated and even staying in the classroom for the entire lesson and to make matters worse I have a severely autistic boy who is like a red rag to a bull for over 1/2 the class. I spent 90% of my lessons trying to protect him from himself and the other boys winding him up to the point where he lashes out. There are some lovely boys in the class and I am trying to focus my attention on them. The majority don't want to be in class and most likely don't want to be at school. They do not engage with the material, I am producing work based on their suggestions and interests but I feel like I am getting nowhere. They are disrespectful, have zero self-control and could not give two hoots about how their behaviour impacts other. I have reached out for help, the TA I did have got removed to move to another class. I am trying to get my special needs boy moved for his own safety. The plan this weekend is to make him a personalised program that he can work through at his own pace in class.
The others I can not get under control, no matter what I say or do they take zero notice. Consequences don't mean anything to them. I feel like I am fighting a losing battle and the worse part is it is making my anxiety worse and I am having panic attacks about having to teach this class. They are making me feel incompetent and unable to control a group of 14-year-olds which is fueling my anxiety and is beginning to become a vicious circle that I feel soon will engulf my sanity and will send me running to the hills - either changing schools or leaving the profession altogether. I am sitting down next week to put some plans and tactics in place that will hopefully help get these boys under control and following simple instructions. I am at my wit's end and I fear there is not enough nettle tea in the world to save my sanity and confidence. Any helpful suggestions are greatly appreciated!!!

On a brighter note, my year 11 is fun. There are some very low boys who have fixed mindset issues and low self-confidence but we are slowly progressing through the first internal and fingers crossed they should all pass. Yes they are noisy, and can be slow to settle and some of them are choosing not to do any work - again more emails to send home - but this is their life, they are seniors now if their choice to do no work in spite of my gentle prodding and dishing out of consequence then so be it. As they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can not make it drink.

Overall, it has been a pretty good 4 week. I am really working hard to reinforce my expectations, boundaries and the consequence that go with those. I hope it will be a better year than last year and I can keep my sanity in check. Asking for help is a good first step, and I hope by the end of the term I have all 5 classes humming along quite nicely. Currently, 1 class is about 1 8/10, 2 are about a 7/10, 1 is about a 6/10 and my last class is a 2/10. So lots of nettle tea to be drunk, strategies implemented and hopefully no full-blown panic attacks before the term is over in April.

Have a gret weekend
Miss G

My weekend task

So I have been set a homework task by my mentor to identify 4-5 areas of my chem practice that I want to improve and then 3-4 'fuffy' areas of my overall practice that I want to refine.

For those of you who have read my last couple of post you will know that I am doing the typical third year survival scull. This year has been hard, a lot harder than I expected and as a result I am not getting the best out of myself or more importantly my students. I am by uni qualification a biochemist and my area of interest is molecular biology and in particular the origins of DNA and all DNA aging and degradation. I am a DNA geek which led me to do my Masters in Forensic Science, looking at plant DNA variation and distribution (by the way I hate plants!). So at T Col I trained in Bio obviously. As a result my chem was limited primarily to high school, first year and the tiny amount I was exposed to and bluffed my way though in 4th yr.

So here I am 2015 teaching IG chem to two classes that have a massive variation in ability, so not only I am trying to come to grips with the syllabus and remember/relearn all the content, I am also trying to figure out it how to teach it to a class that contains the top yr 11 in the school, internationals with little to no English and to students who are brand new to the school and have come to us from schools where junior science barely exist in a form that our students receive.

I have spent the last few days thinking about and I have come up with the fuffy's not problem. they have been nagging me in the back of my mind all year and I just haven't sat down thrashed them out yet.

The first one is my boundaries in class and been very clear where the line is. I openly admitted (rightly or wrongly) this week to my yr. 10's that i keep them on a long leash. I reflecting on this admission I really need to get down on paper what my boundaries are and really refine the box in which my class live in and what the consequences are and not deviate from them. Now I do have written down my big 6 rules.  About half are related to the fact that I teach in a science lab 80% of the time.
So my Big 7 are as follows

• No talking when other are talking, raise your hand if you have a question or comment
• No question is a stupid question! Respect everyone's right to question.
• Walking only in the lab
• Come to class with your notes and the right equipment and devices if needed (our WiFi is shocking so our BYOD rules aren't enforced yet).
• Bags on the hooks, or against the wall.  
• Food and water stay in bags, If you need a drink, ask and take it outside,
• End of lesson wait quietly behind your charis until dismissed then go to your bags,

I do have a couple of other ones that are just pet peeves of mine like swinging on chairs and specific rules surrounding chem labs like each group is responsible for there sinks and bench space. I don't let the class go until the lab space is at my expected level of clean. I have them very well trained which is awesome.

I really need to work on setting these somewhere highly visible in my room. They are currently on a bit of A3 sitting under my marking boxes in my bookcase.

What i believe my next step is articulating what the consequences are, and getting them down on paper and sticking them somewhere highly visible and enforcing them like a drill sergeant. 

Second fluff is modifying my teaching style so I a little bit less familiar and more authoritarian. I am a bit too familiar and this I believe is making the line somewhat blurred and confusing the students of where the stand.  I just need to be more of a hard nose bitch and keep the distance more pronounced.

Now the nuts and bolts of my chem practice I am relieved to be putting finger to keypad. 

1) Improve my confidence in my content knowledge and be able to express this more clearly to the students and my content knowledge in general.

2) improve how I differentiate the material to suit the varying needs of my students, (I am still pretty average at this).

3) Get a poker face, of at least get better at faking confidence and sound knowledge. (possibly fluffy).

4) How to successfully led the students to water and make them drink!

5) How do I improve my delivery and bring up the class GPA becauses currently is sucks!

6) Set up a kick ass revision plan to get the well prepared and to resurrect this years results so far.

Wow, I feel amazing getting these down on paper per se. I am excited to work on these and seeing the fruits of my hard work. Exams are November so let the salvaging begin!!

Not a very graceful swan

Had a very emotional meeting today with management today. Let me set the scene so I can provide a bit of context. I am halfway through my third term of my third year of teaching. This year I have stepped up and taken on Yr 11 chemistry and also picked up Yr 9 science. This is in addition to already teaching Yr 8 and 10, and for want to a better term looking after 1 period a week an AS chem class and a A2 physics class. So as you can guess I teach at a Cambridge school. A small private top performing private school and  the stakes are high for everyone involved - students, teachers and parents.

Taking on the Yr 9 class was no big deal really since I was already teaching Yr 8 and 10. The biggest issue was adding a modern touch to the Yr 9 material without ruffling the feathers of my HOD. I have managed to achieve this really well all things considering. This has had some bumpy bits as the year has progressed but nothing that got this swan really concerned about.

The Yr 11 on the other hand is a whole nother story. So personality wise I am a self confessed stress bunny, very self critical and honest, I don't just mean I a good way I mean I can be too open, too honest and too blunt, and to make matters worse I have no poker face, I mean zip, nada, zero poker face. I do love a good game of texas hoden, but my tells are obvious and there are certain hands I will always bet on. I am an open book, it is like looking through a window and you can see exactly what I am thinking and feeling. Now I have been come to realise this year especially, that this is a really disadvantage and something I really need to seriously work on. I need to keep my cards closer to my chest too become less brutally honest with everyone. I need to learn to better pick my time and place to appear unsure and super and unconfident. What I am really trying to say is that I need to be far better at faking self confidence in myself until I can truly feel that I am self confident in the material I am delivering. I from time to time left the facade slip just a fraction and as a result the kids smell blood and lose confidence in me and my knowledge and authority,

So where do the Yr 11 fit into all of this. So again some background. I was pretty decent at Chem at school, I took it right through till level 3 and in first year at uni. I have always loved chem, so I have a biochem degree and a Masters in forensics. So I have a sound knowledge base it's just that a lot of it has been in storage since I first year uni or from when I finished the first year of my masters. I have been continually reassured this year that i have the knowledge and that i am able to teach the course in my sleep, the trouble is I do not believe it or have faith in my own ability. I have chronic self doubt, it is one of my worst traits, I hate is. I try to have a positive outlook, and my glass is always full, its just that the amount of water is always changing to the proportion of air that is also present. I am currently about 1/3 full. I will admit in writing that I am not in a very good head space when I comes to my yr 11. I am wracked with doubt and worry that I have not taught them enough or correctly this year and that they are all going to achieve below their potential and it is all going to be my fault. As a result of this I have been having meltdowns recently that have not gone unnoticed at the top of by the colleague that i share my classroom with.

This lack of self belief came to ahead today with a very useful meeting, I am incredibly grateful and blessed to be part of a very small close knit staff and also to be part of the best science department in the city that have over 100 years teaching experience between the 3 of them and I am so lucky to be able to and be encouraged to take full advantage of every single day. between us we have made a plan. A plan that I am in love with and very grateful to be in a position to receive ongoing support and mentoring because I know a lot of third and fourth year teachers are not given this support, They are dropped in the deep end and let to their own devices. I have been set up with our physic teacher who is just amazing!! He is like a second father to me and I learn something new off him everyday, I am so luck to be in his presence. we jokingly say that he has been teaching forever, and when you think about it, he has been teaching longer than my father and he has been teaching for over 30 years. So I have the most amazing man in which, under his expert guidance and mentoring, I can perfect my craft and become the teacher I was born to be. I am very excited about the prospect and hopefully in the coming weeks I can set in writing a plan to take my Yr 11 from scaring me in how they are going to do in their exams to a place of confidence not only in me and what i have been teaching them this year but also to a place where they are confident in their subject knowledge so they can nail their exams in November.

I want nothing more that to become the swan I am meant to be. All calm and graceful on the surface, having the aura of sound knowledge and unwavering confidence in myself and my ability as a teacher but also to be able to run my classroom they way I want to but haven't quite figured out how to yet, I am nearly there but that is for another post.
I am looking forward to setting some goals and defining parameters so I can become a more confident teacher and enable my students to succeed to the best of their ability with out me dragging them down and influencing their performance negatively.

Bring on the second half of term 3, term four and 2016. They are going to see a better and improved version of Miss Graham. I hope the student population is ready!!!!

So its been 8 months.....

It has been far too long between posts. I have opened this blog in anticipation to write about 4 or 5 times already this year and I am now only finally putting fingers to keys.

This year has been busy. Well that is an understatement. It is my third year teaching and everyone say that the first year in hard, the second year you thinking you are getting the hang of things and the third year you jump in expecting to be swimming but you sink to the bottom like a rock. I am only now just surfacing from that plummet.

As I look back on my first 2 terms of 2015 a couple of things have struck one going from part time teaching to full time teaching is intense, my work load doubled, my number of classes doubles and I picked up to brand new year groups.  I was expecting a jump in workload but the extent of the jump was terrifying. The thing I found the most intimidating was taking on IGCSE Chemistry. I am very comfortable teaching junior science. Adding the year 9 course to my teaching load was not big deal content wise because I was already teaching the Yr. 8 and Yr. 10 course. Adding chem was scary, I was full of self-doubt and I am still am. I think this is natural as this year has consequence attached to it for the students. I have had a great mentor who has been super supportive and reassuring and has told me in no uncertain terms that I can teach it and teach it well. I am finally starting to believe him and I have even branched out to start making my own resources, it has only taken 8 topic but I am now building my own PowerPoint's and making my own worksheet and have left the comfort of the prepared notes that my colleague has put together over the previous years. I have been very grateful to have inherited such an amazing course that has amazing notes and resources already, all I have had to do is to personalise it which to be honest I have only just started doing and the feeling of liberation is really cool. I wish I had started to do it early, but as they say there is always next year.

My biggest frustration so far is having to build the online course for the Yr. 9's. This is not the first online course I have had to build, I did the Yr. 8 course last year but the biggest difference is finding the time to scan through the documents and then rename and upload them in some semblance of order and putting in all the appropriate sections. Having to add this to my work load as well as reworking to course to suit my style has been a nightmare. But that is the joys of working at a very small school and having a teaching partner who is not friends with computers. 

The upside of this year, is even though it is been challenging I have really enjoyed the challenge and have been learning so much about what it is to be a teacher and about myself as a teacher but that is another blog post entirely when I get around to it. 

I am finding myself becoming more confident in my ability and I really enjoy all my extra circular activities that I run. Seriously, who can complain when my year consists of getting paid to do a job I love and also to go tramping, camping and skiing on the clock.  It is sharing these amazing experience with my students that is one of the reason I love my job and why I feel so lucky and do not taking any of it for granted. 

last post of the year......

So I haven't been on here since October. man has timed flies since there. It was funny what my DP said in assembly today about the year having gone by so quickly. As so has he said that I though to myself damn it has, hasn't. 

What a year it has been. the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of camps, reports and the generally craziness that come with end of term. I finish on Friday about 10.30 all going well, I have a suspicion i will have a very prompt form class who will just want to get their reports and go home. Plan is to wrap up all the house keeping on Thursday that include writing the testimonial for one of my Yr 12 who is leaving us. Having no senior dean is really hitting home.  So the person with terrible grammar and spelling is writing a testimonial. I am just grateful I have excellent collogues who will help me out.

Looking back on the last two weeks is awesome. I had the best time on camp at Raglan. The weather played ball when it was required to, the we got the tents up and down dry and kids had a ball. the highlight for me was the rock climbing and the walk to the Bridal Veil falls. Both the geology and geography of the falls was breathtaking!

Overall camp was a great 3 days hanging out with an amazing bunch of my school future leaders and a great way for them to celebrate finishing exams.  The only downside side it was a week after junior camps so I had to leave 3 days worth of relieve. that was stressful and hard work to organise. But everything went as planned and they got through everything with out incident which was a relief.

I was grateful to have 3 days while the juniors were or camp to get work done. having 3 interruption free days, except when I was supervising exams, was lovely and I got most of my Yr. 8 scheme review out of the way. Aim to have that finished this week as well. It is a very long to do list but it will get finished, at some stage this year. 

Ok, so this will not be the final post of the year. I can feel a big year in review post. It will be long and mostly likely posted inn many stages as it has just been such a wonderful year with so many new experience and meeting inspirational and amazing teachers along the way, but more of that in its own post. 

In closing, all I can say is bring on Thursday, last teaching day of the year!!!!! It will make the Christmas party on Friday just that much sweeter. So other than a couple of meetings next week that is me finished for the year.  Bring on December 5 last day of school and December 16 my long and much anticipated surgery date!!!! 

Until next post

Miss G science over and out

Group work

I love group work, I am coming to the understanding the students for the most part love group work. They get so much out of it, they are engaged and interactive with each other, they develop team work and understanding of each others weakness and strengths. I have been using it with my year 8 and year 10.

I really enjoy teaching through group work, yes it does require some extra thought when planning the lessons but I find that I find teaching the lessons far more enjoyable and easier to teach.

The lessons that I have been making group work focussed are either practical focussed or the students are teaching each other.

My favourite group work lesson with my year 10s this year was the end of last term. We were finishing up a topic looking at human transport systems and the focus was on the components of the blood. For this activity I split the class in half  (class size is 15 and 17) and had them work through the information I had given them and quick blurb I gave them at the beginning. Their task was to work through the four pages of notes filling in as much as they could as a group.  The had free range of sources they could use, their notes, textbooks, devices. I gave them a set time limit of 15-20 minutes to complete the task the I wondered round checking in and giving help as and when required.

This activity worked really well with one of my yr 10 and not so much with the other even though I gave them more scaffolding and assistance. They just didn't seem to be engaged and willing to take advantage of the opportunity. I suspect it has something to do with there maturity level of the two classes and the small class is at a higher academic level than the other class.

The other group activity I did with the year 10 last term was using the SOLO hexagons. I love this activity and used it to assess prior knowledge of the acid and bases chemistry topic.  This activity again had a very similar outcome as the previous group work activity. I structured this activity differently with them work in pairs or 3's to begin with and then coming together as a class to build the big picture.  What I really liked about this activity was how engaged the students were and the depth of their prior knowledge. This allowed me to really tailor the teaching to each of the classes and meant I was able to identify the knowledge and ability ranges that I had across the 2 classes.

With my year 8 I took a different approach to reflect the age and ability of the class. For this group work activity they had to write a title, aim, hypothesis and method for an experiment that we carried out.  Before that started I went over the experiment with the class as a whole and outlined on the board what equipment was available and the 3 conditions that needed to the tested.  In the previous lesson we had learnt about the theory behind the experiment and why it was important. I split the class into 5 groups of 4 and gave each group 6 mini white boards to complete the activity and to write up their experiment.  I gave them 20 mins to complete this and they worked really well. They spread themselves over the floor of the lab and everyone was really engaged and the ideas were flowing and good science was taking place.

After 20 minutes or so everyone sat back at the desks in their groups and as a class we wrote the title, aim and method for the experiment. These 3 parts all ended up been all the ideas combined and each group kept their own hypothesis and unsurprisingly the 5 methods were all very similar.  The next lesson we carried out the experiment and it will run for the next week or so while they have exams.


I am coming to love group work and the more I introduce it and use it in class the more receptive the students are becoming to it. I am also finding the engagement level is increasing and they are taking more ownership of their learning.

I love chemistry!!

Or should I say I love watching students doing chemistry and having fun while doing it.  This week my Year 10 start is student driven topic looking at acid bases and salts. I first saw this in action at Rangitoto College and it worked really well with the students their and worked really well last year at my current school. The way I run the lessons is very simple the 4 periods a week we have in the lab are wet, that students are doing the experiments, getting there hands dirty doing chemistry. The one lesson a week when we are not in the lab is theory or the learning outcome for this topic that is dry - looking at the effect acid has on the environment. This lesson is going to be ICT based and will focus on group research to complement the notes I have given them.
The way I run the wet labs is very simple, the students come in sit down and I give them a brief - 5-10 minutes max run down of what I expect to be achieved in that lesson, I may go over some concepts on the board if specifically ask and then I let the students loose. I have very strict rules in my lab and they were put in place on day 1 and my students are very comfortable with the expectation and consequences.  The students for the most part work in groups of there own choosing, this is novel for them as the rest of they were assigned. They are pretty good at it they have worked out who they work well with  and who they don't. I have yet to have to step in (except with my new internationals) and change groups. As long as they stick to the size limit and don't do anything silly I leave them to it.
Today was the first full day of lab work and both classes had a double period. The amount of work one of the classes got through was amazing, they were working really hard and getting through all the experiments, asking question of each other and me, answering their own questions when asking me to give them the answers (it doesn't work that way any more).  The other class was the stark contrast, they are admittedly a slightly less able class and there work ethic and and self reliance is lower and they are more needy. I have a rule, one of my golden 5 that only only explain things twice, 3 at a stretch. This class really tested my patience today, especially after coming from the other class this morning and they are self starters and motivators (for the most part). One of the experiments I covered in the intro and briefing, what need to be achieved, what was in their group trays etc. I then set them to work. 2 groups got started right away, they were happy with what they were doing. I asked the class as a whole before went to the benches of they understood, no comment. sweet I though to myself, this should be as easy as this morning, no hassles students happily working way. How wrong was I, about 5 minutes later I had to stop the entire class and explain 2 experiments again. This time with a fine tooth comb, they couldn't or wouldn't stop to figure it out for themselves. I had already directed 3 groups this way and they kept asking. So to save my sanity I stopped them, the explained it bit by bit on the board, purely to save my own sanity. It wasn't rocket science, all they were doing was test 5 indicators to see what happened when a few drops of an acid or a base was place on them. they were then to use those results to identify 4 unknown solutions. As a class we wrote the method for that second part of the experiment at the beginning of the lesson so in my mind and previous experience it was a very straight forward task.  Anyway once we got over that irritating hurdle the rest of the double went well, that figured out I wasn't going to give them the answers of do the experiments for them. I was answering questions with questions and occasionally answers and supervising the use of 2mol H2SO4.

It will be very interesting to compare the progress of both class on Monday, I have my suspicions that one will be much further ahead of the other. Oh well, just gives me an excuse to watch Cosmos.
In saying all of this the main aim of science is for the students to have fun while they learning and they were so I am a happy science teacher!!!