Happy New Year (slightly belated!)

Woo!! It's 2012 and everything is... well pretty much the same as 2011 actually.

Term is underway although thankfully there are mocks for 5th and 6th form this week so we get to ease ourselves back into things gradually. Once the exams are over though we'll have to hit the ISAs, especially for the 6th form.

The other headache on the horizon is that we are expecting an inspection this term. Word on the grapevine is that it'll be the week after next so the first signs of headless chicken syndrome are starting to appear. For my part, I shall attempt to carry on as normal although I may spend a bit of time making sure the notice boards look pretty. That always seems to make teachers happy.

Is that my job?

Every day I get asked to do a wide variety of stuff, some of which is very clearly a part of my job, but some of which really isn't. So, I present:

Stuff that's my job

• Preparing equipment for practical physics lessons and ensuring that it's in the right room at the right time.
• Repairing any bits of equipment which get broken. (Mainly changing batteries and fuses, sometimes a bit of soldering)
• Sourcing new equipment and dealing with ordering.
• Managing the budget
• Trialling new experiments eg ISA practicals
• Helping out in the lab during practicals
• Demoing experiments during lessons
• First Aid

Stuff that's not my job, but which I still get asked to do

• Booking plane tickets
• Invigilating exams when they can't find anyone else
• Contacting kids' parents
• Entering exam results onto the system
• Photocopying
• Setting work when a teacher is away but hasn't sorted out any cover
• Taking phone messages from my HoD's wife

And today's prize example - find out where the course is which my HoD is supposed to be on. Seiously, he called me at 9.15 to ask me to log on to his e-mails and check the venue for his course because he'd forgotten to write it down. Sometimes I despair.

Overheard

There's an English Literature exam this morning, and there's a queue of kids outside my prep room waiting to get into the computer suite next door.

Girl 1: I can't believe I was called stupid right before my exam.
Girl 2: What happened?
Girl 1: (boy) said I was as thick as 2 short planks.
Girl 2 (happily): Oh, that's a simile!

Just weird

As I mentioned before, my HoD is away at the moment and everyone jokes that I am running the department in his absence. Ho ho, very funny ( and mostly true!).

No one told me that I was responsible for his tutees though! I've just had an e-mail from a parent asking me to chase up some details regarding her son being allowed to use a laptop in his A-Level exams. This is so far beyond anything in my job description that I don't have an adequate metaphor for it.
I know the teaching staff seem to think that I do the HoD's job for him most of the time, but I didn't realise that had filtered down to parents too.

I forwarded the e-mail to the exams officer an hopefully that will be the end of it. They really don't pay me enough to deal with parents!