They picked on the wrong person!

I was at the same school all last week, with no problems until the last lesson on Friday. Kids screaming and shouting at me - ‘Why do we have to do this work?’, ‘How old are you?’, ‘That’s not the seating plan!’, etc - plus kids from other classes running through my room and out the back door, some from the isolation room running in giggling and throwing stuff about, several girls drawing henna designs on their friends, and some sort of swear-word competition going on. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! The LSA did nothing to help so I made a ‘duty call’ and a woman came in (who I now know was an assistant head) and told them to get on with their work, as if it was that easy! This instruction was, of course, completely ignored. She then left me to go to an SOS call from a teacher upstairs. Wasn’t just me, then?!?

I managed to calm things down (somewhat!) but fast-forward to yesterday, when I was back at the same school, and I was called into the Cover Manager’s office first thing to be told that the assistant head had voiced concerns about my ability to control a class, plus insinuated that they didn’t really want me back but they were honouring the booking as it was already made. Absolutely horrifically humiliating and unjustified.

I just wanted to walk out but stayed, only to be called a ‘c***’, racist, sexist and told to f-off by different students in the first lesson. One of the black kids shouted the n-word at me and several then started singing ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ for some bizarre reason. Five boys then gathered round my desk, trying to intimidate me. Other random students kept walking in and some of mine walked out. I really did fairly quickly get everyone to work well and quietly but two boys were rude to the head of department, too, and she took them to the isolation room. When she came back, she said how brilliantly I’d handled the situation and that she was very impressed at how quiet and hardworking the students were, as they’re not usually! I asked her to please tell the school that, and told her what the assistant head had said. She couldn’t believe it, as she said she said I’d been great.

To my horror, I had the same class for another subject in the afternoon. Two of the boys had been excluded for fighting at lunchtime, which had resulted in a third student being rushed to hospital in an ambulance, so I only had two to send out - after nearly having my finger broken by an inflatable ball being thrown at me with great force. In fact, the duty person immediately took them out, before I’d even mentioned any names. I think you can imagine what I told the agency the school can do with their ‘concerns’!

Anyway, spent today at a lovely school in the same area, which was the polar opposite - nice kids, good cover work and their assistant head thanked me for how well I’d done.

I’m sorry this is so long but I thought it might make you laugh - or shake your heads in disbelief!