An Inspector Calls

and again it's been a while but not been in the right frame of mind and all that...anyway thought i'd fill you in and let you know that I have the dreaded OFSTED inspectors in school next week.

Now for any unsuspecting non-teacher out there what you do not realise that this is the week (well two days actually, but feels like a week) where the school pretends to be something it's not. It's all smoke and mirrors, as my good friend Sharondie and I used to say. I got the email on Friday afternoon just as a lovely class of mental 12 years olds were about the sit down for a lesson on Shakespeare. This 'lesson' turned into, 'right sit down, books out, finish your leaflet on Shalespeare and colour it in.' Not entirely the wholesome educational lesson I was aiming for but I had stuff to sort out! So as they coloured and sharpened away I quickly made some speadsheets, detailing all my classes assessment data and predicted grades. Thank the lord that my new school actually has such thing as computer files, if I was at my old school I would be digging around in floppy discs (note to Sharondie: i hope they don't still do that!)

At the end of the lesson I had it, a nice assessment folder full of SEN data, gifted and talented data, you name it, I got it! Now if the inspector asks me, I will of course refer to said file, that has been on my desk all year, honest, and he will be very impressed and mark me as outstanding. ha as if it's that easy!

So for the next few days I will be planning and tweaking my lessons to perfection. All singing , all dancing, of course the type of lessons that I teach 6 times a day. In my dreams! In fact recently, we had a department review, based on Ofsted and I was observed by the headteacher. I was just mildly nervous to say the least. I was teaching a poem called 'Limbo' to my class of 35 year 10s. I delivered this lesson to a tee, including music, dancing, singing; everything! I can still see the sea of 35 15year old faces staring back at me, each one of them thinking, 'what the hell has happened to her? She's not normally this enthusiastic.' Bless them though they did go along with me and the next day I brought them all cake!

I'm sure you are all thinking that this is not the way that education should work but look it does ok, get over it, and hopefully I will still be in one piece come Friday! Oh and must remember to buy some cake...