Well, first day has come and gone and here I am sitting in the living room fully exhausted by one whirlwind of a day. It has definitely been an amazing experience to start off and the day had its ups and downs but it’ll only get better the more I do it ha ha ha.
The day started out pretty crazy before I even got to the school! I woke up hella early (5:30am) to make sure I would have enough time to shower, dress, eat, and generally take my time in the morning. I was all set to go (packed my bag last night) and gave Protocol a ring at 7am to see what the dealio was. Sarah (Protocol consultant) took my info and told me that someone would contact me as soon as they had something for me. Great. This wasn’t exactly how I wanted to start my first day. I’ve been hearing a lot from my flatmates and others that there hasn’t been a lot of work the last few weeks (September after all) and I really didn’t want to have to get all dressed and pumped up and then not have any work for the day…that didn’t last long though. Protocol called me back 7:30am and told me I was to head to Sutton in Surrey for my first assignment. The only problem was that it’s a solid 45 min travelling time and lessons begin at 8:25am…needless to say I was going to be late and Protocol told me they’d call the school to let them know. I surfed onto TFL and found the root I needed to take and Sarah was really helpful to text me the directions to the school once I got to the station there. I threw on my coat and grabbed my things in a hurry and out the door I went.
From home I had to walk to Tooting Rail Station to hop on a train westbound to Sutton. I hadn’t ever been there before but looked up the route online and managed to make it there without much issue. Here’s the kicker however, because of the Tube Strike today there were MASSIVE delays for the rail services including a couple of cancelled trains. I ended up having to wait at the station for a solid 35-40 minutes before a train finally arrived going to Sutton Station. I kept in solid contact with the Protocol office to update them on my situation and they made sure to let the school know.
The school I went to is called Overton Grange and it’s a secondary school located in Surrey. This is a fully dedicated secondary school with all age groups from Year 7s (Grade 6) all the way up to Sixth Forms years (Grades 11 and 12). It’s a little odd sometimes for schools to include the upper years but it was an interesting atmosphere to see so many age groups represented in the school at the same time. Especially when the Sixth Form students don’t need to have uniforms but all of the other students do. I arrived at the school at approximately 9:15am and went up to reception to sign in. The secretary there was really pleasant and knew exactly who I was. She gave me a Visitor’s badge and walked me to the classroom where the lessons were taking place. I missed the first period class (needless to say) however there was a TA assigned to this class who handled it for me. The bell rang 10 minutes later for period change and I was suddenly thrust into the world of teaching with little to no warning.
Now…unfortunately to compound with all of this I was assigned to two subjects for that day: maths and science. According to Protocol these subjects wouldn’t be showing up in most days but of course they had to be in my first. Luckily, the teacher who I was covering for had left thorough details for each of her classes as to what they were supposed to be working for that period. All of the classes consisted of reading a section of their textbooks and then working through questions. The question sections were long enough to take up the entire time of the period so that worked out well.
The students themselves were quite interesting and I didn’t really have enough time to mentally prepare myself for the classes of the day. I ended up having a Year 9 class, two Year 10s, and a Year 11 class through the day. A broad age range and each one was as challenging as the last. It’s a bit of a battle to get them all to settle down when they walk into the classroom (especially when they see it is a Supply that day) but it was quick explanation on what they were assigned and getting them to begin working. All of the classes were very talkative and there wasn’t really a point in trying to get them to be completely silent because I would have wasted my voice on my first day constantly telling them to be quiet. Instead I allowed them to discuss the work with their neighbours as long as they kept it to a low volume. From here it became much more of a classroom management exercise for the entire day. For the most part the students were doing their work and answering the questions while talking to their neighbours. I just needed to make sure that they stayed on task and that the conversations didn’t get too loud or too off topic from what they were doing while also helping those that had questions. It was a bit frustrating to have those subjects because I could only help so much before having them just skip over questions if they were getting stumped.
The rest of the staff were quite friendly and I ended up having good conversation with a couple of the teachers there. They were very helpful in making sure that I had everything I needed and answering any questions I had about policy or students. Overall, it was a good experience at the school but really exhausting by the end of the day after needing to be on students to stay on task for the better part of most periods. It’s funny, I don’t want to start complaining about work on my very first day obviously but after today I realize just how much I need to make sure that I don’t get too frustrated or run down. As a supply teacher I’m only going to be a blip on the radar of these students in terms of their whole learning careers so as long as I can finish the day knowing that I kept them on task for the most part and didn’t have many issues with any students than I can be happy. It’s a bit frustrating not being able to build a consistent rapport with students or building on lessons because I only see them for a day and maybe never again. I left the school today satisfied with it as a first foray into the teaching world. Every day is going to be different and tomorrow is going to be full of different students, different subjects, and different experiences. The goal is to keep learning from each and every experience and applying them to the classrooms.
Hopefully I’ll have a little bit more time to prepare myself tomorrow.
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