When you started teaching...

[TheFifthKey]

The thread about how office jobs have changed got me thinking about how teaching has changed (apart from turning from a great job into a crap one...)

I started in 2003. Nobody used emails and we had internal memo envelopes used between buildings. This carried on for years! Not every room had a computer and we did registers on Bromcoms (handheld things, like overgrown Kindles, that did registers and you could also do reports etc on. They used AA batteries and were always running out of power! You'd have to send a kid down to the office for batteries if you didn't keep a secret stash).

No projectors, the odd Smart board which was regarded as the very height of technology (even though they were utterly shit to write on). Mobile phones weren't an issue as hardly any kids used them and even then they were basic ones. No name badges, no passes, no lanyards, all doors left unlocked all the time and half the site was barely even fenced.

People used to go to the pub on Friday after school and on my last day of teaching practice the department took me to the pub at lunchtime and we had a drink!

[EmilyAlice]

We had a head who suspected some wrongdoing (can't remember what) and hid in the gym horse in the hall to catch the culprits. 😀
When you taught in the mobiles a child would arrive at 9.30 and ask if you wanted tea or coffee. One day the Head was covering and an edict went out that we were not to "partake of beverages" in the classroom.
Pub on Friday lunchtime and staff croquet on the lawn in summer.

[elephantoverthehill]

Oh and telly set up in the staffroom during Wimbledon fortnight if you had a 'free' lesson.

[missmapp]

A years notice for Ofsted.
Blackboards and bander machines
No PPA, no tas and no observations
Friday afternoons 'finishing off ' with a big let of who had what to finish
Carousel literacy hour, wearing a daft hat for ' guided group'

[missmapp]

When I was on teaching practice , two girls in my year six class would leave the lesson early to go to the ships to get milk and biscuits for the teachers at break !

[mineofuselessinformation]

When I first started, you were allowed to smoke in the staff room and lunch was long enough to play bridge...