More time in class?

So, the TA thing.

Just before the half term break my HoD took me aside and asked if I could help another year 9 set. We have a chemist teaching 2 year 9 physics groups this year and it is becoming clear that she is struggling. I was already TAing with one of those classes so it sort of made sense for me to take on the others too.

I just heard today that our scarily-efficient physics teacher is unwell, possibly long term. There is a chance she may be missing all of next term. Obviously we're concerned for her, but also we have concerns for the department as that would be a lot of lessons to cover. We had a similar situation last year when action man was off and it was massively stressful for everyone.

HoD has been saying for months that he'd like to see me make the move into teaching and I'm wondering now whether he might see this situation as an opportunity to push me further in that direction.

If he asked me to take over a couple of her sets, I don't know how I would respond.

Interesting times

Teaching

Yesterday was unusual.

My colleague who used to be our nqt (who shall henceforth be known as Action Man on account of his military background) was ill and unable to get to school at short notice. We managed to arrange cover for his morning lessons, but Thursday afternoon in science is really busy and there weren't any free teachers. The lesson was for one of the classes that I work with when I have my TA hat on, so HoD asked me if I could just watch them while they did a test.

When the class turned up they were distinctly unhappy about the whole test plan. Apparently Action Man had said they wouldn't have the test until next week. I checked with HoD and we agreed they could revise quietly instead.

It turns out that bottom set year 10 don't really get the concept of quiet revision. Almost immediately they started asking me to explain concepts that they were having trouble with and within a few minutes I was more or less teaching them. I drew diagrams on the board, helped them define terms and made up some example calculations. HoD popped in at one point, expecting to see a quiet room and instead found me demonstrating transverse and longitudinal waves with the aid of a slinky!

By the end of the lesson a couple of the girls said I was a really nice teacher and asked if I could take them for chemistry.

I don't know that I'd want that to happen too often, but I actually really enjoyed myself. Those kids had better pass the test now, after all the effort I put into them!