Drama Teacher!

In keeping with my promise of more regular updates here is what’s been going on across the pond so far this week!....it’s a lot.

First off, I’m booked into Bishopsford right now Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. The first couple days were, again, quite trying and long days. On Monday I was covering the RE classes for most of the day and had a spare first period to be able to get everything prepared for the lessons. I had the opportunity to plan the lessons this time around and really wanted to give the kids an opportunity to talk about the material instead of drowning them in the endless “read this and answer these questions” work they’ve been getting a lot recently as a result of the constant presence of a supply in that classroom. I was unfortunately way too optimistic about how this was going to go. I mainly had Year 11 classes and when trying to facilitate discussion with them about material before moving into some book work I could not get ANY of them to speak! Either they would say nothing, ignore me, or give me the standard “I don’t know” answer and shrug it off. I knew that these classes liked to talk a lot but as soon as I try to turn it constructive they immediately shut down. It was quite a frustrating day and not because of behaviour issues but I just really wanted to try and get something out of these kids and really teach them something but they were giving me nothing in return. One of the other teachers in the department talked to me about it and told me that it’s difficult because I haven’t built any kind of a relationship with them from not being their normal teacher so it’s difficult to really get them out of their shells. He told me it would be easier to try to get discussion going for a bit and then move on to book work. At least this way the students who are keen to learn the material and get something out of it rather then watch me beat a dead horse. It was deflating for sure but also beyond my control.

When I got home Monday evening I was, deservingly, a little down. That is I was until I received a lovely phone call from Protocol. It turns out that a long term Drama position had opened up in an outstanding school and I was to be booked in for Wednesday and Friday as trial days for the job! This is exactly the type of job and school that I had been looking for and immediately my mood went through the roof (as my flatmates can testify). I was absolutely ready to go and started researching heavily through the school’s website about what to expect and the types of facilities they offer. More on that in a bit.

Tuesday was quite a turnaround day for me going back to Bishopsford. Knowing that I had this trial day lined up for Wednesday I just went in with a good attitude and didn’t let any of the really disruptive behaviour get to me too much. I got through the day unscathed and actually had a couple good lessons (and one nightmare one) but overall no problem. Even more, last night I headed over to Stamford Bridge to watch another Chelsea Champions League match with Neale and Stephen.

The match itself was alright. It was friggin cold but I bundled up and was alright. The Blues ended up going down 1-0 in the first half and SLOWLY worked their way back to a 2-1 victory with the winning goal coming in the 85^th minute. Neale, Stephen, and I ended up going to the pub before and having a couple pints and chatted football for about an hour. It’s nice because they have such a big knowledge of football and are impressed y my own. Plus they ask me a lot about what the fan base is like in North America and I tell them a lot about Toronto FC and how the game is growing in Canada. It’s a great time and once they dropped me off I mentioned that I’d fire them an e-mail in a couple weeks and we’ll get together for drinks around the holidays. They were all for it! It’s kinda funny that we’ve really hit it off and become mates when there’s an age gap but it’s great times so why not?

Today was finally the first trial day at the new school. The school itself is called Cheam High School and is located in Cheam, Sutton. The website for the school really laid out how amazing it is. The school has brand new facilities in almost every department and holds multiple specialist statuses including one for Performing Arts. The OFSTEAD (school ranking board) gave them “Outstanding” ratings in almost all categories including teacher-student relationships, teaching efficiency, student behaviour, and overall effectiveness. Needless to say I was excited to get into this kind of a teaching environment. Once I got in I met the other two Drama teachers in the department who usually work alongside the colleague I’m covering. They are both absolutely fabulous! They’re not much older than myself and clearly have a passion and knowledge of Drama much like myself as well so we definitely hit it off famously. They’re both very open-minded and absolutely hilarious as well. The department is amazingly organized and I actually received a booklet that lays out every lesson for the units all the way to the break! There’s a ton of support and the friendliness of the other staff is outstanding. The students themselves were mostly well behaved. I am going to be teaching mainly Years 7 and 8 so there’s a lot of energy in the room when doing Drama. I’m definitely going to work on being able to manage them when they’re doing their group work. I had some students in the classes that the other Drama teachers found slightly difficult but they observed that I actually had them well under control and engaged which they didn’t expect. A bunch of the students do not have a male role model or influence in their lives so they think that I might actually do a lot of good running that classroom. I also had the opportunity to work with a Year 11 class of only seven students. We were working on characterization through script reading and I ran them through an exercise to get them into the mood and we had a lot of fun. I was able to participate in the game as well to get them motivated and did a lot of modeling to show them what I mean when I’m talking about certain things. They all didn’t have any background in Drama so they found it helpful when I described but also showed them what I meant. They gave me a lot of feedback later to another teacher about how “awesome” I was and that they really enjoyed the lesson. I just feel like there was so much pent up expressive Drama teacher in me that I let it all out today and it felt great! I seemed to make an amazing impression on the department and I had a wonderful day so they decided to keep me on until the holidays! It’s going to feel really good waking up in the morning and looking forward to work. Plus, I’m booked every day for the rest of the term which is wonderful. I’m just excited to finally doing something that I love and have wanted to do more of since I had my practicum experiences at Queen’s. They are also currently working on a musical production and other various extracurricular activities that they welcomed me to get as involved in as I wanted, which I definitely will!

I have to return to Bishopsford tomorrow but I’ll take comfort knowing that I have a great long-term job lined up that I couldn’t be more excited for! I’ll update later on about how the rest of the week goes but until then:

Cheers and tons o’love!!!!

Erik (Mr. Smith the Drama teacher!!!)