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Teaching: The Worst Things About Christmas Half Term

Recently, I wrote an article about the fact that this time of year is nothing short of arduous and painful for us teachers. I know it’s difficult for a lot of people at this time of year, but having done other jobs in my time, I’d definitely say it’s tougher than most places in education. I haven’t worked down a pit or anything, but I’d hope you take my point. With this point in mind, I got to thinking about the kind of things I dislike the most about my job at this time of year. And so, in no particular order and with more than a hint of sarcasm and tongue firmly tucked in cheek, here you go!

The constant question – “Can we just watch a movie?” For starters, we call them films where I’m from, so no, we can’t. However, from week 1 right the way up until the last week before Christmas, at least one of your classes will think that the time is just right for watching a film. They’ll cite the number of days until Christmas, the terrible weather and tout the blatant lie that all the other classes are watching films…anything that might just make you budge. And the cherry on top of this particular cake is that when you finally do put on a DVD – on the last day, bosses – your students will generally sit and talk through it! Well my wonderful students, I’m afraid you’ve just met DVD Scrooge and instead we’ll be doing that far more traditional English Christmas half term activity of writing lots and reading a bit. Bah humbug indeed!

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

The other popular question – simply because the first question wasn’t annoying enough, students will then turn to another, genuinely more offensive question. And all in the name of Christmas. And it’ll often be the first thing they ask as they walk through the door. In fact, sometimes, as a Christmas treat, they might ask you it before lesson as you’re passing on a corridor. The question? ‘Are we doing anything fun today?’ Now there are several levels of offensiveness to this question. Firstly, is there a veiled accusation here that our lessons aren’t fun? Task-wise, I might take their point here at times. Maybe writing an analysis of how a writer creates tension isn’t that much fun in a world where we have the internet, X-Box, Love Island and erm…fidget spinners (look it’s spinning on my finger…), but we’re in an English class; what did you expect? Secondly, I try to run a relaxed ship. I like a little bit of a lighter atmosphere and a bit of a joke now and again (a bit of ‘daft carry on’ we’d call it where I’m from), so the suggestion that my lessons aren’t fun is actually a personal affront. Or maybe I’m just not that entertaining? *Dismisses such a ridiculous notion with a smug little chuckle and moves on.* And of course there’s the fact that the study of English has been pretty much a constant in my life. It was an important GCSE for me, then an A-Level, then I did it as my degree! Fun? Bloody fun? Bollocks to fun, pal. Appreciate my expertise! Feel my love for the subject! Then get your 18th analysis of the half term written up! And look forward to re-writing it, in PURPLE PEN no less once it’s marked and I’ve demanded improvements! Then, if you’re really lucky, you’ll get to write a diary entry from the point of view of one of the characters in the play we’ve been studying! Don’t worry though, I might just dress up as a clown and do some juggling for you if the fun’s really getting ramped up as well. (I won’t. Ever.)

Christmas Cards – it’s not that I don’t love getting them; I do. I think it’s a lovely traditional gesture and I always enjoy taking them home to put up round the house. However, I am utterly rotten at remembering to write my own and send them/bring them in to school to give out. Cue a cringeworthy few moments every time I get one while I meekly explain that I keep meaning to write mine, but I’m an utter shambles of a man. Cue also me rushing around on the final morning of the half term delivering my cards – if I’ve remembered to get them out, write them up and then put them in my bag – like some kind of apologetic, pathetic Christmas loser. Oh, the yearly shame!

The final lessons before the Christmas break – it’s not the lessons themselves. They’re fine. Granted, I’m practically on my knees by this point, exhausted and steeling myself for finishing work and heading home to face the onslaught of pre-Christmas jobs that will inevitably only get finished some time mid morning on the 25th. No, it’s the fact that even though I’ve finally relented on the film question, my classes are still not satisfied with such wonderful Christmas benevolence. And why? Because my colleagues – God bless them, every one of them (to paraphrase Dickens) – have brought in snacks – snacks I tell you! – and are holding some kind of bloody party in their rooms! Well sorry kids, but ‘The Ghost of that Shit Christmas When All You Got Was Socks and Pants’ here didn’t get that memo. You know the drill…altogether now…Bah Humbug!

Christmas Jumper Day – or as I see it, the chance to look like a tw*t for a full day. That might not be everybody, by the way. Some people can look quite cool in their Christmas jumpers. Allegedly.

Can you turn the heating on?/It’s so cold! Another question that makes my internal, scarcely dormant volcano start to rumble. Not a day goes by at this time of year when I don’t have to go through my early morning in-school routine with a class. And they’re always told that the very first thing I do when I unlock the door and come into class is to put the heating on. If only they could remember. They also always fail to notice that the heating is actually on, despite the lit up display which again, is pointed out to them every day. Come in at 7.45am kids, I’ll allow my room to demonstrate cold for you! As for the fact that it’s cold; of course it’s cold. We live in northern England and our school is on the top of a great big hill; of course it’s cold!

So there you have it. The bane of my life at this time of year. Just as I’m feeling like I could sleep for a week, tweens and teens are busily digging the same old ways out in order to make all of our teaching lives just that tiny bit more stressful. Christmas can’t come soon enough!

I hope you enjoyed the blog and if you have any irritations at this time of your work year, whether you’re a teacher or not, feel free to let me know in the comments.

I’ll end on a big thankyou to the friends who got in touch to remind me of some of their own personal lowlights of teaching at this time of year in order to help with this blog. It’s late in the year, I’m tired and was flagging in the ideas department. Not for the first time the English Department at our school helped me out. I work with some truly wonderful people (although they always forget to bring me cakes and biscuits when they’ve been left in the staffroom as a reward for our hard work), so once again, cheers!

Poetry Blog: A Bracing Start to The Day.

I wrote this poem very recently after a drive to work. The title seems fantastically relevant now, given that we’ve just had our first snow, brought by a storm that featured some frightening 40 miles an hour winds.

It wasn’t the drive that prompted me to write, but the weather and just the way my world looked on that morning. It was the kind of morning that I’ve always really liked. Bright, crisp, dry. Quite still too, so ideal as I’m really not a fan of the wind. The kind of morning that I’d love to have gone for a run on. But instead, I was off to work to spend the day indoors, missing out on a beautiful day.

The first thing that struck me was spotting the moon still up in the sky, despite the daylight. I noticed it as I was getting into the car and then kept spotting it as drove. It prompted a series of thoughts and observations and I was suddenly really keen to write. But that’s a bit difficult at the wheel of the car and even trying to dictate into my phone would have been out of the question. So, it was a case of scribbling things down in a notebook as soon as I got into my classroom.

I worked on putting the notes together as a poem once my day of teaching was over with. Here’s the result.

A Bracing Start to The Day

The moon, still high in the sky,
suggests night rather than the bracing start to the day
that this early light informs us of.
Vapour trails from soaring planes scratch the blue
from a near perfect sky, like claw marks
down a freshly painted canvas.
Scan the horizon and a coral banner announces 
the sun, while frost on windscreens
defies its very existence.
Crisp air takes the breath away and begins 
to numb the fingers and toes as every
breath spray paints a fleeting pattern in the air.
Winter is creeping towards us.

I can see the weather influencing more writing in the weeks to come, especially on those early starts. I’m up early every other Sunday setting up goalposts, nets, corner flags and everything else that goes alongside matchday for the football team that I coach. I always find it a lovely peaceful, calm time of the day and usually quite look forward to it. Even in the worst of weather it’s nice just to be outside and alone with my thoughts and watching things come together.

I hope you enjoyed reading the poem. It’s a little shorter than they usually are, but it’s one that I think I quite like. Feel free to leave a comment below.

Grassroots Football Coaching: I think we’ve reached rock bottom.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog you may well know that I coach an Under 13s football team. I volunteer; it’s not my actual job and really the only reason I got involved was that my son plays for the team. Around 5 years ago now the club decided that they weren’t happy with the efforts of the previous coach. Coincidentally, I’d just stepped in to take the team for 3 games while he was on holiday and after those games I was asked if I’d take over. As one of a number of parents who were unhappy with the previous coach, I more or less had to say yes. And so, a bit of an obsession began…

This season, we’ve moved to playing 11-a-side games on full size pitches, so it’s been quite a big step up. We’re also working without an actual goalkeeper – our keeper is now one of the squad who stepped up and said he’d do the job. Having struggled at one point over summer for numbers in the squad, we finally managed to get 18 players, but unfortunately that number features several players who’ve had little or no experience of playing football. In fact one boy had never kicked a football before when he turned up to train with us. So, this season was almost set up to be a struggle!

We started quite well, beating our first opponents 5-2 in a home game and managing to involve 16 of the squad, some of whom were getting their first ever taste of competitive football. There were things I noticed in that fixture that alarmed me somewhat though and I was conscious of the need to work on specific areas of play. So, despite the win, I didn’t walk away kidding myself that we’d perhaps cracked it.

And it turned out that I was right to be so cautious. We lost our next four games, conceding 29 goals and scoring just once. I took heart from the fact that in 3 of these games we’d been competitive until late on, before just getting overwhelmed by stronger and fitter teams. Our lack of experience and fitness was really starting to show, but also I think it’s only natural to throw in the towel when you’re 12 and your team is getting a bit of a thumping! It didn’t change the fact that we had a big, big problem though.

The problems have continued. There have been several games where we’ve struggled to get a team out, as kids have been either ill or away. I guess it’s just that time of year and of course there’s Covid, which has affected a few of our group. And of course, getting beat week in week out probably doesn’t make kids want to turn up either. But we’ve battled on.

Sadly, we’ve only had one more win this season. It was a brilliant occasion as we were playing a team that were above us in the league and were 2-1 down at half time. But we knew we could win. And even with a team affected by illness and other absenteeism, we knew that a real effort would blow our opponents away. So we encouraged hugely them during that half time talk, telling them that the game was there for the taking and when they took to the field with a huge cry of ‘C’mon lads!’ at the start of the second half, I knew we were in with a chance. Thirty five memorable minutes later, we’d won 6-2 and it was a thrill to see my son scoring a couple of goals and winning the Man of The Match award.

Since that point though, we’ve suffered again with absence of players on match day and have lost games when exhaustion has set in because we have regularly only had one substitute! It’s difficult to operate like this when your opposition turn up with 4 or 5 subs and can rotate players every 10 minutes or so to keep legs relatively fresh.

Going into our game last Sunday we only had 9 players on the Saturday! I was forced to call up the two lads that had barely kicked a ball just to make up the numbers. These were two players who I’d said were best off just training with us for the time being. With no experience of playing football I didn’t want to throw them into games and find that it was some terrifying experience. I wanted them to feel comfortable with a ball at their feet before then drip feeding their experience of games as substitutes. It turned out that this was no longer an option.

We managed to get another of our players making themselves available and so thought we were going into the game with a full team and one substitute and although that would mean fielding some really inexperienced players, I felt that we might just have enough quality to snatch a win, as we were playing the bottom team. On the morning of the game, however, another player dropped out, leaving us with no substitutes and 11 players faced with 70 minutes of football and no chance to give anyone a break!

I suppose it was reasonably predictable when we got beat. Our opposition were able to rotate players as they had 5 subs, whereas we had to rely on our 11 and just keep them going. We were always in the game and I genuinely think that with a little bit more luck we could have won with the players we had. Sadly though, tired legs took their toll and we were missing a couple of our more important players too. Even more sadly, our opposition being the team below us in the league meant that their win took them above us in the table.

There’s a long way to go in the season, but I’m quite worried that we’ll end up finishing in last place in the league. We won’t deserve that. Even this season coaches have gotten in touch after games and praised our passing and movement and I can honestly say that there have only been two games where I’ve been genuinely disappointed as we’ve let ourselves down.

I felt low after Sunday’s game though. I was disappointed, not in their performance, but that they didn’t manage to get anything out of the game. We were obviously up against it, but I still thought that we could sneak some kind of result. So, it left me frustrated that things had gone the way they’d gone. But I guess this is what grassroots football can be like; it’s not always the best team or the team playing the more attractive football that wins. Which of course brings up the question of whether winning is important at this level. It is to me, but I also want to combine that with enjoyment and the feeling of being part of a team for my lads. The sense that we support each other and that we’re all in it together is really important, in my opinion. But of course, winning helps with all of that!

So now we’re left picking up the pieces. There’s part of me that can see us winning no more games all season and of course this would most likely mean that we finished bottom of the league. No one really wants that.

It’s clear that some players have lost confidence. We’re quite a small team and have been up against some teams where the players look like grown ups, so it’s easy to be fearful when you’re 12! I think some are doubting their ability as well though and where before, when we’ve been doing well, they’ve wanted the ball now they don’t. Some of the lads are happy to pass on responsibility to someone else, so we’ll have to work on getting that confidence back.

We don’t have a fixture this weekend, so I’ve decided to offer a training session instead. I’m testing levels of willingness and enthusiasm in one way. Those that show up, early on a Sunday morning are demonstrating their commitment to the cause, their need to get better. Those that don’t? Maybe they’re confirming what I already know, in that I can’t rely on them. We can’t rely on them. And it seems churlish to write that given that this is Under 13 football, but it is exhausting organising things like training and matches and so when it feels like I’m not getting much back, it starts to grind me down. When you’re spending large chunks of your Saturday glued to a phone making calls and sending texts, just to get 11 lads on a field, it’s frustrating as there are other things I could easily dedicate my time to.

So, this Sunday is really important. I’d like them to know my fears and what they’ll be up against for the rest of the season. In short, nearly everyone we’ve played have hammered us. While we may well have been competitive for long periods of time in games, we’re not picking up points. In fact, we’re just picking up beatings.

While I need to get a serious message across, I also need to keep spirits up. My team know that they’re a really capable bunch, but they need to know that as coaches, we have the belief that they can do better. They need to know that although things are going to be difficult – let’s face it, every team we play can see how many goals we concede and will expect to beat us easily – we can overcome it all. So Sunday will be hard work, but by the end of it all I’ll hopefully have an even better idea about my squad and know the direction that we need to move in.

I’ve got no doubt that our next few months will be very difficult. Not only do we have league games to play – and currently every other team will feel they’re better than us – but the spectre of cup games lies ahead in the new year too. With cup games comes opposition from higher leagues and therefore, much bigger challenges. The question is, can we rise to the challenges ahead? Can we get more points on the board? And can we lift ourselves off the bottom of the table? Well, we’re about to find out!

So, I got boosted

Last night I went to a local hotel, where part of it is serving as a vaccination centre and received my Covid vaccine booster jab. Today I have a full day’s teaching. Class after class after class. So I thought I’d document my day.

I wake up feeling groggy. Not the usual middle-aged-can-I-retire-yet groggy, but a grogginess that feels like I’ve been hit by a truck and then while I lay there, miraculously recovering, someone took a hammer to my left bicep for an hour. I am a shambling mess. More so than usual. And it’s painful to lift my left arm. Today is going to be a bit of a challenge.

After a quick shower, breakfast and time spent getting dressed, I’m heading for the door. The grogginess hasn’t subsided and to make matters worse now I feel sick. My legs ache like I ran a marathon yesterday and my head is spinning. Not literally – what a boon that would be for the anti-vaccers – but I’m dizzy and it’s decidedly unpleasant. As if commuting through the bandit country of deepest , darkest Dewsbury wasn’t hairy at the best of times, today I’m attempting it while feeling in the same headspace as Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider.

There’s lots to do at work and handily I’ve written a ‘To Do’ list the previous evening so that I wouldn’t walk in and forget the urgency of certain things. Unusual foresight for me, but it’s a good job I have. Without it I may well have just sunk into my chair, flopped my head onto the desk and stayed there until someone burst in to wake me up and tell me that my class were outside.

I busy myself entering data onto a tracker, which as all teachers know, is easily one of the most beloved parts of the job and very much the kind of thing you do to give yourself a morning boost…

It’s a wonder that I can put anything like the right numbers in the right boxes, but miraculously I manage and hope that this little exercise has focused my mind a bit. It hasn’t though, as I’ll soon discover.

Before I know it, my Year 7 group are lining up, so I get the date, title and learning purpose on the board for them to copy and the Do Now task onto my other board. They can stay busy while I’m doing a register. And this way we can have a calm start to the day while I try and work out where I am and who is responsible for this cruelty.

It starts calm and stays calm. I’m very lucky with my Year 7s and even though the group has changed in recent weeks as the sets were shuffled round a little, the atmosphere in class has stayed purposeful and just all round pleasant. The group seem to like me – that’ll change – so it’s a nice way to start what promises to be a really hectic day.

What I do find is that I’m calling people by the wrong name quite often though. Feeling this dizzy is really not conducive to teaching!

During Period 2 I continue to refer to people by the wrong name and it becomes worse, if anything. Sometimes it’s the name of another student in the group, but at others it’s just a random name that pops into my head. It’s a surprise when I don’t refer to any of them by character names from the text. Imagine how bad you’d feel as your teacher responded to your hand up by asking, ‘Yes, Scrooge?’ or ‘Go on then, Tiny Tim.’ And heaven forbid I might try to wrap my mouth round Bob Cratchit’s name in this state.

At one point I reach a pretty early low when I realise that I’m writing about a character on the board, but it’s a character who doesn’t actually feature in the text that we’re studying. Little tip for you; neither George nor Lennie appear alongside Scrooge in ‘A Christmas Carol’. Luckily for me, my students just diligently copy the notes out seemingly unaware of any problem. Me? I just quickly rub out the name and carry on. Once I’m finished I decide that a sit down is required while I contemplate whether anyone will spot that error in the next book scrutiny. At this moment in time, I don’t care.

I summon every ounce of strength I have to give my form a very stern talking to when they arrive for Study Skills. They’re also my English class and I finally finished marking their mocks last night, while struggling to keep my eyes open. My own fault, I suppose. However, their exams reveal the need for a renewed focus and lessons where we work at breakneck pace between now and Christmas. Four of my group decided to answer not only their Shakespeare question, but all of the others too. Actually, that’s wrong; one of said four wrote the title of the right one, left the page blank and then answered all the other Shakespeare questions instead. Aside from this absolute brainstorm, several of them clearly haven’t revised or just didn’t really bother putting effort in. It felt like every bit of advice was ignored and with the added bonus of feeling like I’d like to curl up for a nap, I’m in an awful mood. Our motto is ‘Be Nice, Work Hard’. Well they didn’t work hard, so I won’t be being nice for a while. God knows I have to work hard enough at being nice in the first place. I’ll save it all up for my Year 7s!

One of the delightful foibles of my timetable this year is that I have bottom set Year 10 group for 2 hours either side of a break. Someone called, Gemma Sillyfartpoo (not her real name, so she’ll never know this is her…) does the timetables, and now every Friday feels like she’s personally hinting that I should retire. I often wonder what I’ve done to make her hate me so!

For the next hour I continue in the same vein as before, forgetting names, talking nonsense and losing my thread in the middle of sentences. Some would say the booster has had no effect at all. At one point, as the students are working, I head back to my desk intent on doing an important job, but when I get there I have no idea why I’m there. I sit and stand a couple of times, stare into space a bit and mutter to myself before wandering off. In the words of the quite wonderful Inspiral Carpets, ‘this is what it feels to be lonely’.

At lunch I decide that the only course of action is to stuff as much food into my mouth as I can in order to build up some strength. I have two teaching hours to go. I go for a walk around school, primarily to keep myself awake but realise as I come up towards the Science department that if anything’s going to send me to sleep it’s the Science department, so I do a shuffling, mid paced u-turn and head back to what I lovely refer to as my cave.

My Year 8 group Period 5 are relentlessly badly behaved and it takes almost all of my energy to get them through and keep on getting work out of them. With 20 minutes to go I could weep. How has this only been 40 minutes so far? Time appears to be wading through treacle and I’m shambling around like a drunk at the back end of a wedding disco, just pointing and muttering to myself. I refrain from hoisting an imaginary bottle of strong lager into the air and singing ‘Sweet Caroline’ in favour of getting 80% of students’ names wrong while cajoing them to finish an answer. My support assistant smiles at me sweetly. I’m not sure she’s really noticed a sea change in my behaviour, to be fair.

It is a blessed relief when my final lesson of the day goes smoothly. The kids work hard, probably suspecting that their English teacher is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and before I know it, it’s 2.45 and time to send them homeward.

I slump at my desk, pondering a nervous breakdown, before realising that I still have work to do. At 4 0′ clock I’m finally heading home back through the Mad Max territory that is Dewsbury town centre. I need to buy something for tea and will no doubt attempt to pay with Post-It notes, but it doesn’t matter; I got through.

Disclaimer: Some of this is a little bit exaggerated. None of it though, is fictional and I truly felt rotten all day, regretting waking up from…well, the moment I woke up. Apologies should go to Gemma Sillyfartpoo (not her real name); I know you just press a button on a big machine and it churns out all the timetables for you, so it’s not your fault. Similarly, a big sorry goes to the Science department who are lovely people. They just teach a really dull subject that has the ability to make me sleep, making them the envy of any hypnotist. I’m sure you were bored by English at school as well though. Weirdos.

Feel free to leave a comment. I’ll read them when I wake up from a deep, deep sleep.

Poetry Blog: ‘As he fell…’

As someone who lives away from their home town and family home, I find it difficult to keep in touch. Sometimes that’s down to having quite a busy life. Family life can take over at times and then there’s work; having a job that is regularly the wrong side of hectic can mean that it’s tough to find time for a moment to relax, let alone time to think about who I need to get in touch with.

Sometimes though, I have to admit that my lack of phone calls home is just down to sheer laziness. When I finally get the chance to slump on the settee in front of some mindless television the last thing that I want to do is pick up the phone and make the inevitable and somewhat awkward small talk with my dad, asking and responding to the same questions that we always ask each other. A lot of our chats are just us counting down the minutes until we can tick a box marked ‘Chatted with dad/Graham’ and pass on the baton on to my mam.

A recent phone call got me thinking about the relationship I have with my dad though. Although I don’t think I’d ever describe us as being very close, my dad has always been a bit of a hero to me and always been someone that I’ve wanted to impress. My dad has always seemed invincible to me as nothing ever seems to really stop him in his tracks. He’s a typical Northern bloke, not given to outbursts of affection or praise and so it’s always felt like I haven’t really impressed him very much. That’s not me reaching for sympathy, it’s just the way things have been. I can’t say it’s ever stopped me from getting on with life.

There have been sporadic moments of affection and expressions of pride along the way but I think it’s best not to be greedy or needy. I’ve learnt to be happy with myself or proud of my own achievements and my relationship with my dad has been largely based around chatting about the football, something that I don’t imagine it’s unusual to build a father son relationship on!

A recent phone call led to my dad revealing that he’d fallen off a ladder and hurt himself quite badly. It was almost a throwaway conversation for him. No fuss, no need for sympathy, just very matter of fact. But it shattered my thoughts of him as being somehow invincible. He’d managed to hurt himself quite badly and had to go to hospital – of course he’d driven himself there – to get stitches in a leg wound and everything else checked over. He’s in his eighties now though and the incident and the way he reported it in our phone call made me think about him and I suppose his life expectancy a lot. And so, I wrote about it.

As he fell...

As he fell it was nothing that flashed before his eyes
and after the whump of the ground
and the surge of air that left him
all that remained was one, over ripe question mark.
Lying voiceless, his only thought formed as slowly 
as a child colouring carefully to avoid breaching the lines;
if this is how it all ends, was there ever really any point?

Flat on his back, doing whatever it is
one does when you cannot even manage to gasp,
he relaxed, rather than gave way to panic,
revelled almost in the moment that told him to do nothing,
prone in the hinterland somewhere between life and death,
looking serenely skyward while the now fallen ladder
balanced awkwardly across his chest
and wondered what was meant to happen next.

A faceless nothing seemed to silently gaze, take him in,
measure him up and contemplate his place in the world
before deciding that the time was not yet right
and placing him back carefully, like one would a
freshly unhooked trout spared the pan
and allowed to feel a freedom that would for now
be marked by the pain that besets the old fool
who overreached and fell from the ladder.

Breath returned, he gathered his thoughts,
dusted down his creaking bones
and swam tentatively back through the lake 
in search of not just sympathy and the inevitable scorn,
but a familiar face who would narrow her eyes 
and pass her shaken headed judgement ,before gently tending his wounds
and share not just his tale of woe and bloodied laundry,
but everything that life had, could and would throw at them
for their eternity together, and now for at least another day.

In order to write this poem I tried to imagine how my dad must have felt. All he really told me was that when it happened he lay there for a while to kind of gather himself before getting up and making his way slowly home. So for a bit of an uncomfortable while I had to try and inhabit my dad’s mind and think about what he’d have done, how he’d have felt and kind of join the dots about what had actually happened, because he’s very much an octogenarian of few words. Has been since he was about 40, I think!

He was actually in his allotment pruning a hedge and overreached. Subsequently, he lost balance and over he went. But given his time of life I imagined that he’d have felt quite bewildered by it all and having fallen from quite high up on the ladder I thought it might have knocked the stuffing out of him and left him not only in pain, but groggy, confused and possibly…possibly, even as a big tough, gruff Geordie, a bit scared.

Speaking to my dad that day he was resigned to more or less giving up on his allotment, admitting that it had gotten too much for him. He’s 82 after all! But there was a definite sadness in him about that as it’s something he’s toiled away at for probably well over 20 years now, since they moved from the family home to where they live now.

I ended the poem with a little bit about my mam. They’ve been married for around 60 years and it’s always funny to watch them together. For every small tender moment there seem to be a thousand gripes and snipes and they argue like, well like an old married couple. But I know that she worries about him and as an ex nurse, I know that she’ll have tried to clean him up and get him to just sit down and take it easy. There wouldn’t have been a great deal of explicit sympathy, but I think she’d have been scared by it all too. He actually managed to slice his leg open and only noticed a while later when his leg felt damp and he thought he’d had another kind of accident altogether.

I hope I’ve done them both justice with this poem. I wondered what must have gone through his mind as things failed him again. He’s always been so strong and just tough, so I think this latest age episode must have been strange for him.

As ever, I hope you enjoyed the poem. Feel free to leave a comment. It’s always good to read people’s thoughts, particularly when what I write is as personal as this poem.

Teaching: The road to Christmas

As a high school teacher of over two decades I think I’m qualified enough to say that we’ve just entered our toughest half term of the academic year. I think we’ll all agree that the 7 weeks from the start of November until nearing the end of December is like swimming in sand at the best of times!

We started our half term this week and although nothing major has gone wrong and none of the so-called ‘red flags’ have been raised, it’s still falling into a familiar pattern.

For a start, the weather has been predictably dreary. As we blink our way into Wednesday, I can safely say it’s the first time I’ve viewed a blue sky all week. And even that is being flanked by ominous clouds. So although the blue sky is a welcome sight, I’m aware that the weather could break at any given second and bring with it that predictable grey that bleeds into a charcoal, so often found in the UK. It does nothing for morale!

On top of the clouds we have the wind; there never seems to be a still day at this time of year. Unless of course we get a bright autumn day where I might get some washing out to dry and then the gale becomes a breeze, becomes a veritable vacuum where literally nothing moves! It’s the time of year when sometimes you feel like nothing will ever go right for you. And that’s a feeling that can quickly multiply as a teacher.

The wind, the rain and the general feeling of an almost permanent mist hanging over the season can be a terrible combination for your classes. I’ve certainly learnt over the years that if it’s windy and raining I’ll get at least one class who are completely off the wall for the hour. They come in, soaked because they didn’t feel the need to get undercover, and then complain about the weather. This will often then morph into complaints about whatever it is we might be doing and however we attempt to do it. And it would seem that once they’ve been knocked about by a windy day, kids can’t help shouting out and making daft noises, which will inevitably lead to fits of giggles. Not ideal for the flow of a lesson!

Sitting at a desk going through what should be a familiar routine can prove impossible. You might as well present them with a pair of mittens and a Rubiks cube each. And all this because it was blowing a gale, the rain was travelling sideways and my students didn’t have the common sense to stay out of it as much as they could.

The dark mornings and dark evenings also make the winter term a real pain. It shouldn’t make a great deal of difference really. But it does. It’s no fun leaving the house in the dark and it’s even less fun getting to the end of your day and driving home to find, light wise, it’s night time! It does strange things to your state of mind. Being greeted by a dark classroom that resembles the inside of a walk-in freezer doesn’t help either. I imagine it’s a bit like living in the far north of the planet near the Arctic in Sweden or Finland and having either almost permanent daylight or long, dark days, depending on the time year. Probably an over-the-top comparison, I know, but please feel my pain. Sometimes, the only daylight I see is through a window and it can start to get you down. Add in the weather and how that can disrupt the commute and it’s quite the pain in the rear end!

Speaking of the commute brings to mind the simple fact that it can be awful at this time of year. A few parts of my journey into work are prone to flooding and we get more than our fair share of rain here in West Yorkshire. I think our monsoon season is between January and December. There are a couple of places where it can be a real hazard and times when I wonder if some sort of amphibious vehicle might be a better option.

And then there’s the snow. Now, I’ll preface this with the fact that the UK can come to a complete halt if there’s a centimetre of snow and that looking at other countries who cope admirably with far more, we’re a bit rubbish really. However, it doesn’t change the fact that snow always makes me shudder about my commute. Over the years I’ve had multiple journeys to and from work that have involved sliding around roads and spending what have felt like endless hours getting to the end of my journey. Last year, I managed to get into work on a snow day only to find out that the school was being closed and that I faced a long journey home. Little did I know however, that it would take me over 6 hours to drive home! So any snow this year will be approached with dread!

As I write, we’re a week into the new half term. Just 6 more to go until it’s almost Christmas and a blissful two weeks off! In the meantime though, I’m hoping for less of the wind, rain and snow that will lead to the inevitable terrible in school behaviour from some of our students. I’m hoping for less moans and groans about the temperature in my room. Amazingly, there are many times where I have students complaining that it’s cold while others are asking to take their blazers off and claiming they can’t work because it’s too hot!

There are other daunting features of the next six weeks to come too. These include marking mock exams, data collections, avoiding secret santas, avoiding having to take part in our department production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ and avoiding colds, flu and COVID!

One thing’s for sure…this next 6 weeks will feel like years!

Poetry Blog: Lost

This is the latest in a long list of poems that I’ve written and then forgotten about. It was one of about half a dozen that I discovered in a notebook a couple of weeks ago.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to place these type of poems simply because firstly they’d been forgotten and secondly because often I write a poem and don’t give it a title. In the case of this poem the title was just a question mark, which didn’t seem very helpful at first!

Once I’d read through the poem the subject matter became a little clearer. For the record this is a poem about my state of mind at a certain time. I still feel this way at times now and it’s been a feeling I’ve had throughout my life. I think it affects lots of us though. Having read this poem through a few times and had a bit of a think I think it’s about just everyday life and the sense that this might be all there is. Certainly, I look at what I’ve achieved in life and often wonder if it’s enough. I suppose it’s a sense of slight dissatisfaction at how things are. There are lots of reasons for it as well. It might just be wanting to impress people, like your parents or it might be linked to the dreams you had as a kid. There are definitely references to self esteem in there too.

Whatever the reasoning this is a poem about a moment in time. It’s about looking back and regretting decisions, but it’s also about simply wondering whether you’re satisfied with your lot. I guess that in my case, it’s about getting to the verge of a milestone birthday and just reflecting back or having a good old think about things. I think when I wrote the poem I felt quite down about a lot of things, but mainly about me and my worth as a person.

Lost

Imagine not knowing how you got here.
The feeling of a half life, 
the wondering behind a thousand what ifs
and the nagging feeling that it all somehow won't matter.

Imagine the lack of identity.
The uncertainty of what you are
and who you are and whether you matter
tugging at your sleeves, like restless children.

Imagine the sense of loss.
The statelessness, the weightlessness,
the sense that however hard you swim, the tide has 
other ideas, a plan for you more powerful than dreams.

Imagine that this is all there is
and not understanding how that feels.
That the child lost among a crowd of unfriendly faces
is you, for the rest of whatever this is.

There’s also a sense of not really feeling like an adult here. When I was a kid and I’d hear adults saying how they still felt like they were 18 in their heads, I’d roll my eyes and think the worst of them. Now I’m very much an adult, well I often don’t feel like one! When I’m joining in training with the team that I coach, I still feel like a kid. My body is quick to remind me that I’m not, but I still feel that way. It can be the same in my job, teaching in a high school. Sometimes it’s all too easy to get off topic and just resort to making jokes, which was all too often my problem as a pupil in school!

Finally, the poem is about growing old. Lately I’ve been thinking about the future and I guess what we’d call the next stage of my life. I’m tentatively planning for retirement or possibly a change in work or working hours and I think all of these thoughts and ideas are in the poem too.

I hope this is a poem that people can relate to. It feels like a much broader topic than just me worrying about me, that’s for sure. As ever, feel free to leave any comments about the poem as I always enjoy a bi of feedback.

Thanks for reading.

How to unravel at half term.

I didn’t realise how tired I was until the first Saturday of half term. As an early riser I’m normally fine with being out of bed and able to function at the very least. But not on that Saturday. I still dragged myself out of my warm bed, but in truth I could have stayed there for a few more hours at least.

I’ve spent the rest of the week, from that point onwards, slowly unravelling. It’s the following Friday and I can’t recall having felt more like my age than I do now! My knees ache, my shoulder is still sore – a now months old injury that still hasn’t quite healed – my back hurts and of course I’ve managed to develop the traditional teacher’s holiday cold on top of all of this! With a list of jobs to go at, it’s been just great to feel so terrible!

One of the jobs on our list was to have my daughter’s bedroom painted. It was something I’d started a few months ago, when she was away for the weekend doing her Duke of Edinburgh expedition. So, the hope was that finishing it off wouldn’t be too big a job. Turns out that hope was – and pardon my turn of phrase here, but in my defence it couldn’t be more accurate – a load of bollocks.

Years ago I’d vowed to just steer clear of my daughter’s room. It was, in short, a shit hole – again, the most accurate term I can find – and I just got to the point where asking her to sort it out or trying to do so myself was causing too much conflict, so I stepped back. I also vowed never to have a hand in decorating it either, such was my level of dissatisfaction. But, in a moment of weakness I stepped up to the plate and began the task. Now I needed to get it finished.

I’ve tried. And I’ll keep trying. But short of taking every last bit of furniture and tat out of said room and then just painting non stop for a good couple of days, it can’t be done. If you could see said room you’d understand my reluctance to move everything out as well. I have a genuine fear that I’ll reach to get something and be bitten by some kind of small animal. Or become trapped in a giant hair ball, ending up feeling physically sick, but with a great idea for a B-movie. So, let’s just say that progress has been slow. Slow in the sense of the movement of the glaciers as well, rather than just walking pace.

Stuff has got in the way as well. You know stuff, don’t you? Cleaning ,walks, trips to deliver things to charity shops or pick up prescriptions, that kind of stuff. Not to mention ridiculous shopping trips where you stand in a shop debating whether to buy a 6ft tall light up, inflatable snowman before leaving with no snowman but the bonus of three Christmas gonks and a mirror. I mean, we’ve all been there…

I must admit that my body and mind unravelling and shutting down has made ‘stuff’ unavoidable. So, as much as I’ve reminded myself that I need to finish decorating or I need to mark books or plan some lessons for Year 11, my aching shoulder or the fact that every time I get up I get shooting pains through one of my knees, makes shopping for Christmas gonks or family sized bags of crisps all the more appealing. And before you know it you’re 4 days into the week and nothing’s got done! But your Christmas gonk game is the envy of all of your friends, who are now frankly playing gonk catch up.

On Thursday we went to a theme park in a desperate attempt to inject some fun into our week. And it was fun…for three quarters of the family. However, it felt like purgatory for me. In short, I’d prefer to spend the day working in a Siberian salt mine than being at a theme park, but sometimes you’ve got to bite the bullet and go along to please the family. And I couldn’t get a flight out of Leeds/Bradford airport to Siberia at such short notice anyway.

I’ve never understood the thrill of theme park rides. To me it’s just a terrible feeling of being completely out of control and deliberately making yourself feel sick. There is no thrill. And if there is – and there isn’t – you have to stand in a massive queue for ages for the dubious pleasure. Add in that this was a theme park in North Yorkshire on a cold and windy October day and the fun was even more minimal than usual for me. I even wandered into the zoo section of the park at one point, while my family were queueing for yet more thrills and having wandered around for a good 10 minutes, I made my way back into the park having clapped eyes on not one solitary animal. Everything was sat inside where it was no doubt warmer than me. Meanwhile, my mind was unravelling, just like my body had been for the previous few days.

We did manage to order a cooker earlier in the week, so a major item was being ticked off a list there. But then we had to refuse delivery this morning when we discovered that new gas fitting regulations would mean that we couldn’t actually have it fitted! So just when it looked like we’d achieved something quite major, we had to reverse our decision at literally the last second, as the delivery men were unloading the cooker from the van! And as I stood explaining myself to them at the bottom of our drive it began to rain heavily.

All in all, it’s been a fairly forgettable week. Instead of a glass of wine at night, or a beer, I’ve sat in front of the telly more than once nursing a cold and flu drink. My daughter’s room still has work to do. And it’s still a shit hole, whatever the colour or state of the walls. We couldn’t replace the cooker but managed to waste a good 10 hours or so researching one and then buying it. And , of course we also had that day at a theme park which three of the family really enjoyed while the other member slowly froze while getting ever more bored and confused. But there were gonks…Christmas gonks. So you know, it’s swings and roundabouts isn’t it? Isn’t it?

As a kind of post script to this post and week, let me tell you about the latter part of my Friday afternoon. Determined to shake off the feeling that my body had been broken by 7 weeks at work, I went out for a run. It really hurt. Towards the end I could feel pain in my right ankle, my asthma was kicking in and making me wheeze a little bit and my hamstrings were beginning to cramp up. I was fine with this though as I had ran the furthest I’d ran since the middle of August when my shoulder injury kicked in and stopped me altogether. I was delighted. So delighted that I decided to cook a fresh pasta sauce for my tea in the spirit of health and fitness. Fresh garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, some sausage and some fresh chillies. The week was finally taking a turn for the better. And then, while chopping the chillies I managed to squirt quite a bit of it into my eye. So now that doesn’t work either…

It’s not been the week I expected.

Poetry Blog: Age of Innocence

This is a poem that I had the idea for while teaching my Year 7 English group. I decided to publish it as it is, but am thinking about turning it into something about that age group in general and the state of their education over the last couple of Covid blighted years. It’s certainly something I’ve been able to witness first hand.

I wrote part of the poem while my class were working silently. It was just their approach that struck me; their diligence and their keenness, dare I say it for fear of cursing myself and finding that we come back after half term and they’ve turned into monsters, a real desire for knowledge. The more I thought about it the more I thought about the fact that this group of people have had their education disrupted terribly by Covid and that maybe, their energy and enthusiasm was just a direct reaction to all of the disruption.

I have a son who’s a year older than my group and I know that various lockdowns, school closures and enforced periods of isolation have affected his attitude and approach towards his education quite noticeably. He’s definitely not the same kid that started Year 6, just before the news began to filter out of China about this terrible virus. It seems that as much as we tried to keep him engaged through lockdown and a combination of home-schooling and online lessons, he’s changed into someone who simply gets things done as quickly as possible in order to open up more ‘leisurely’ opportunities. There’s still a diligence about him, but we just don’t see the same thirst for knowledge that he always had at primary school anymore.

Teaching this particular Year 7 group has been really refreshing for me. They’ve responded to me and the curriculum and tasks put before them in a way that I haven’t seen in a group for a good while. Their enthusiasm seems boundless, but their general niceness is also very welcomed. So here’s the poem.

Age of Innocence

Circulating around the room leads me to ponder.
How wonderful you are at this age on this stage.
Earnest, diligent, keen,
still without the air of cool detachment that will inevitably spoil you for a while.
At this moment in time though, I'll enjoy the patter of the rain on the roof
as you work on in an un-asked-for silence that is only 
broken by peppered questions from one or two from time to time.
The brows crinkled in concentration,
the eyes narrowed as you sit in the middle of an epic quest
to find just the right word
and the tongues allowed to escape from the corner of the mouth
as you perfect the curve of a capital letter, the wording of a sentence,
or the shading of a heading.
But for now, amidst the hum of the air conditioning
and time ticking on
it seems like nothing could divert you from this task.

My group will change after half term as we set them more accurately using data gained over these past seven weeks. I’ve already had sneak preview of my class and this glance told me that there aren’t many of my original group left. Fingers crossed that things aren’t going to change too much. As an experienced, grizzled teacher of over twenty years, it’s felt nice not to have to deal with the deliberate disruption that some classes seem to revel in. Let’s see how things are panning out in about three weeks time. There could be a very different poem ion the way by then!

A new guilty pleasure – Blind Date!

No Cilla Black, no TV appearances, no answering a set of three questions with pre-prepared wacky answers and no sneaking round furtively while essentially being unfaithful. Don’t worry, I’m not that bloke. These are not the blind dates I refer to. Let me explain…

I think it’s safe to say that we’ve probably learnt a lot about ourselves over the last 18 months or so. A global pandemic – previously exclusive to Hollywood – has made a lot of us sit up and have a good old think about who we are, what we do, where we’re going and such like. Although the ‘where we’re going’ part of that last sentence was pretty much restricted to round the block or within a mile radius of our houses during lockdown, so I suppose it probably didn’t take a lot of consideration.

Still, people discovered facets to their personalities that they had never realised were there. The resilience and resolve that got people through hadn’t always been evident before. Some discovered that with time on their hands they could create art or explore an imagination that probably hadn’t had its door opened since childhood. And others became past masters at hoarding and are probably still using toilet rolls and pasta that was stashed in a loft or garage in May of last year.

I went big on fitness. Like evangelically big. Exercising daily, running like my life depended on it and – oh, the horror of admitting this – staring at my newly toned torso in our bathroom mirror for minutes on end and like never before. Going back to work put pay to this, but for a while there I was…well, I wasn’t a skinny, out of shape middle aged bloke anymore!

I found time for other things too though. I dabbled with my ancestry online, I made all manner of garden improvements and I read a lot more than usual. And it was the reading that provided my new found guilty pleasure; The Guardian Weekend magazine’s ‘Blind Date’ feature!

At the start of lockdown, with an obvious chunk of extra time on my hands and set to stay that way for a little while at least, I upped my reading material. I’d flirted with The Guardian and The Observer before, but never committed to anything. However, when lockdown meant I’d be a lot less likely to get my hands on a Sunday newspaper, I plumped instead for Saturday’s edition of The Guardian. It was within these pages that I found my new guilty pleasure, the Blind Date feature.

The premise is simple. Two people – who presumably have taken part in some sort of application process – are matched up and sent on a blind date. Afterwards they answer some questions and said questions, together with a quick photo make up the feature. They go on a blind date and we get to read about it. So far, so not really of any interest to me whatsoever. Except it was.

I read the Blind Date feature every weekend in the magazine section of the Guardian. Always two different people, but always the same set of questions. And I found myself addicted pretty quickly.

Every week I’d look forward to getting towards the back of the magazine and getting a look at this week’s two potential lovebirds who would be faced with the following questions.

What were you hoping for?
First impressions?
What did you talk about?
Any awkward moments?
Good table manners?
Best thing about_______?
Would you introduce them to your friends?
Describe ________ in three words.
What do you think they made of you?
Did you go on somewhere?
Did you kiss?
If you could change one thing about the date, what would it be?
Marks out of ten?
Would you meet again?

I’d start by having a look at the picture accompanying the article and invariably I’d be intrigued. Within seconds I’d be making a mental prediction as to whether these two would match well. As the weeks went on I’d be willing them to get on, like I was one of their grandmas commenting on the nice young gentleman or lady they’d brought to visit. Maybe it’s an age thing or maybe I just have a nurturing/caring side that I was otherwise unaware of, but it didn’t take me long to really care about the individuals put in front of me on a weekly basis. This really wasn’t like me, but still week after week it was how I felt. Clearly, lockdown was taking its toll!

Initially these blind dates took place via a Zoom call and I found myself intrigued by the idea of getting to know someone on the other end of a camera. It also meant that the final question – ‘Would you meet again?’ – was often an anti climax as the restrictions made it nigh on impossible to meet anyway. Thus, I’d be left feeling let down as couple after couple gave their date an 8 or 9 out of ten, then followed it up by saying that they were unlikely to meet up again. And thus, my cupid complex began to feel rather fruitless and it made me quite sad, really.

Some were sure that they’d meet up in the future and looking back at some of the clippings I kept I think I need closure. So if The Guardian would like to contact Huw and Charlotte from some time in Spring of last year, I’d be eternally grateful!

It was still interesting however to find out peoples’ first impressions and the topics of conversation and it got me wondering what directions I’d try to steer a conversation. Sadly, I concluded that it’d most likely be date after date spoiled by me droning on about football! Good job I’ve managed to burden my wife with me really! That lass is a saint!

When I read through the questions posed to the blind daters there was sometimes a hint of sadness, although maybe disappointment would be a better way of putting this. It might start when a dater was asked to sum up their ‘partner’ in three words. While one of them would be complimentary, on the other side you could sense the coldness with words like ‘interesting’ and ‘different’ and at this point I’d be preparing myself for a disparity in their marks out of ten for the date. The answer to the last question, ‘Would you meet again?’ would be all too obvious then and I’d be left somewhat pining for the next edition of Blind Date and at least a hint of romance between two strangers.

I still open the Guardian magazine every Saturday eager to read about another blind date. It’s been this way for probably over 18 months now and my enthusiasm shows no sign of flagging. Isn’t it strange what a global pandemic can bring into your life?