I don’t know how it’s happened, but we are almost in April! This year really is flying by. In fact, there are only around 13 weeks of school left in this school year. For me, that means I only have 13 weeks left in my current school as I will then be leaving at the end of the year. Although I of course will miss my school, I am excited for the challenge of being the ‘new teacher’ again in my new school in September.

I have been honest with the students I teach at the moment and so most of them know that I will be leaving at the end of this year. It was kind of like a cliché break-up, with me explaining it was not them but me and I am moving to a completely new area so therefore will be unable to stay at the school. Although I’m sure some students will be disappointed to see yet another teacher leave, as there have been a fair few teachers leave since even I joined, some students’ only disappointment was that I am staying until the end of the year and not leaving any sooner. Tough luck kids, you’ve got to put up with me until the summer.

It’s hard to know what to write about when I have three months’ worth of teaching dramas since my last post, but I will say that I am a lot happier now than I was this time last year. I no longer have the Sunday night dread to go to work because actually, I do find myself enjoying it. Sure, I don’t enjoy every lesson and at the end of some days I do feel mentally and physically exhausted after so much of my energy is spent dealing with difficult behaviour, however I do still enjoy it and I am trying to hold onto the positives.

What I will quickly discuss is the realisation of how much older I am than the kids I am teaching. I know it sounds silly, as I am between 10 and 14 years older than them so of course I’m a lot older. But I guess when I started teaching it was scary as it felt like I had not long left secondary education myself so I did not feel prepared to educate the next generation. Also, when the majority of students tower over you in height, it does make you forget the age difference. But the reason I am writing about this is there have been a couple of things recently where students have ensured I know that I am ‘old’.

For example, I will occasionally use phrases like “beef” or “totes” when talking to them, half joking but also half because sometimes those are just the best words for a situation. Before continuing, here are the Urban Dictionary definitions for those not in the know:

These are normally greeted with horrified faces and “Miss please don’t say that again”, which fair enough is probably because neither of these words are showing proper use of the English language. But imagine my dismay when in response to something I had said, a year 7 told me to “Stop trying to be down with the kids.” In my mind, that is something you say to embarrassing parents who are trying too hard to use slang, not a 25-year-old teacher just using words that are already in her repertoire. So that put me in my place and reminded me of the age difference.

Another reminder of just how young my students are was when a girl in my form was asking “Who was born in 2005 in here?” and that was the year that I started year 7- bizarre.

On a different and final note, marking books and tests is a good way to pick up on any misconceptions that students have. But this year 7 student, whose test answer is below, had one pretty interesting misconception which I had not anticipated when explaining that one use of ultrasound is in medical scanning for example to see babies:

Looks like he will be learning a lot when we come to the reproduction topic. Still, at least he remembered that it is called ultrasound!