Am I thinking too deeply about this, or do I have a good point?

[MaureenMLove]

I am a cover supervisor. A teacher has left and he has two classes that need covering each day. Both are English Yr8's and both are very very heavy on the SEN front, either mentally, socially or behaviour wise. They are very difficult children, but I seem to have struck up an understanding with them, so since I am in charge of organising cover each day, I have opted to cover these classes myself.

Due to circumstances beyond the schools control (i.e. end of financial year and no money!) I cannot hire a supply teacher, so I will be taking these classes up until Easter.

Anyway, I spoke to HOF yesterday and she is sending me all the cover work for the next five weeks. They were going to be reading a novel, doing a bit of creative writing off the back of it and finishing with a book review and a poster for the wall.

I have just received an e-mail from her, saying there has been a change of plan and they are now going to write their autobiographies! She even says, 'starting with what their childhood was like'

Some of these children are majorly f'ed up because of their childood. I'm not sure I want the responsibilty of the potential fall out to this! Their max TMG's for this year are mostly 3 with one or two 4's. Should I suggest this topic is not such a good idea or shut up and do as I'm told?

I am, but in my own sweet way!

We started with a brain storm on things about us, likes, dislikes, best moment, worst moment etc.

Did the definatiion of biog and autobiog, then today they've been designing their front covers, having discussed why famous people have chosen to call theirs what they have. E.G Why did Katie Price call hers Being Jordan. Why did David Beckham choose, My Side.

We're going to do a take on family trees tomorrow. Draw a tree and put the important people in their lifes on it.

Strangely, I've had to set cover work for tomorrow because I'm interviewing all day!

Ha ha! Joke's on me. We have a teacher off atm for an undetermined period. They've been unable to find an English supply teacher atm, so - without consulting me - my HoD has asked for me to be put in to cover all the KS4 classes (9 per week!) if at all possible. I'll do it for a week, and HoD has agreed to support including doing some teaching with the yr11 class.

I still can't help thinking that if it were my children in that class I'd be cross and frustrated.

I saw this thread yesterday and it was a real eye-opener for me. I had no idea non qualified teaching staff at secondary schools were asked to do so much teaching!

Roisin and Maureen, I'm sure both of you could more than handle this role but as you say, it is not your job. And as a parent, I would be worried if non qualified staff were taking a class with my child in it, for weeks and weeks on end.

Maureen, I think I know your school - it's one that I am considering for ds2.

Oh, I'm not sure Tigermoth. It starts with a W! I'd be bloody furious too! Whenever DD tells me she's had a substitute teacher, I grill her for how long!

Thing is, the school has many good aspects and if your DS is an average student, he will do perfectly fine there. What year is he in now? It is very much on the up, despite what I say! Promise!

The trouble is, the teachers that go off sick are the ones that have low set groups and can't handle it, then they have to start the process of hiring again and times are hard in education too. Very basically speaking, if people don't pay their council tax, because they are out of work, schools don't get the budget they need for teachers. So despite people thinking a job in a school is safe and people are always crying out for teachers, that is not the case.

maureen, I know the school - I went to an open day there a few years ago for ds1. I think your school is meant to be strong on arts subjects. ds1 took the 11+ and is at a grammar school and in theory this is where ds2 could go, but I'm not at all sure he'll pass the 11+. I think it's harder to pass now, anyway, as I believe there is more competition. It's good to know your school has improved - I was impressed with the facilities and now I know you're on the staff, it's gone up in my estimation even more
I think ds2 would probably be in the average sets if he went, so would have more teachers present by the sound of it.

Maureen - I think you were absolutely right to question the idea of an autobiography, and the fact that at least one child has declined or been unable to complete certain sections bears this out.

Part of my work centres on drama with young people, and we have strong guidelines around ethical practice in either ,mining, young plpe for personal stories, or asking them to expose themselves. Also - it is not appropriate fo untrained tachers to delve into areas which are 'therapeutic'.

I would say FICTIONALISE the autobiography: write a model autobiography of an animal or fictional character. They may well include details of own lives, but under the thin veil of fiction. It protects them from the reactions of other pupils, apart from anything else.

Re: pupils without pens - I have discovered the ideal way to get everybody penned up and ready to work, without you spening a fortune in pens every week! Just give them a pen and take away their hat or coat. You get all of your pens back at the end of the lesson and no time is wasted in nagging, them trying to borrow from friends, wanting to go and buy a pen from somewhere else etc. I know it doesn't teach them to be be any more organised or independent but it saves an awful lot of fuss!

The Autobiography APP is quite a tricky one iirc.

last school i was at they would leave without hat or coat(or more usually would have neither), however if you offer them a choice of hand over phone or shoe - they always opt for leaving shoe and they do pick them up at end of lesson. am now at school where nearly every child has pen/pencil and bliss - coloured pencils. many even have own rulers/calculators etc saves so much time so can do much more teaching.

Our lot normally need to be surgically removed from their hats! I often teach barefoot so a lot of my pupils slip their shoes off as soon as they sit down anyway.

I had to give a couple of Yr 11s a packet of felt pens each the other day, as they would have been unable to do their H/W without them and said they had none at home.

Just noticed I lost a "p" earlier!

Janeite - I take their bus passes off them! I also count out the pens and count them back in at the end. No-one leaves the classroom, until I've got them all back.

Thanks for the comments again. I did start another thread on Friday, as it all came to a head with me 'teaching' them. I'll link it to here.

We've been doing really basic autobiography stuff tbh. They are drawing and writing on coloured paper for each topic of their lives that they want to include and I'm going to make books out of them before the end of term. They seem to respond well to the drawing and coloured paper thing. Even a girl that usually doesn't do a thing. Drew some lines on her paper and was happy to write a whole page, because she was allowed to write in felt tip!

Here it is.

Oh and thankyou Tigermoth. That is definately my school and although I'm a very small fish there, I can assure you, that we are moving in the right direction. We're not actually governed by the council anymore. The foundation that we belong to, have 4 VERY successful schools across SE, one of which got their 2nd Ofsted outstanding last week and they were as low as us 5 years ago.

have skipped to end of thread, so may just be repeating things other people did. tis 'bad form' to change plans so suddenly, the faculty should have plans in place for the entire key stage, but it sounds like you're 'fire fighting' not into long term planning. my sympathies, i've been there.

i led ks3 english so had to do all the planning for this. we did auto. writing (tis compulsory at some stage of the key stage) & used 'boy' by roald dahl as a lead-in. there's also 'my father was a polar bear' by michael morpurgo. boy is quite a long time ago & he did some mad stuff (operations on the kitchen table) and it's in short chapters so you can pick & choose. my father is about a kid who didn't know his father, so could relate to some of your kids.

i know you're not supposed to plan, but there are downloadable resources you can use. not sure if it's still available but 'the grid' from herfordshire is excellent (they were talking about making it a subscription)

hope that helps