Day 3: A day in the life

Yesterday was the most boring of all possible days!  I swear my life is usually more interesting than this...

6.15am
My alarm goes off.  I press snooze.  It continues to go off, at 4 minute intervals, until about 6.35, when I finally wake up properly and drag myself out of bed... after checking Twitter, Whats App and Facebook on my phone, of course.

A quick wash, brush teeth, then make-up and hair.  I throw some clothes on - usually a dress and a cardigan - then pick up my laptop and lunch and get in the car.

7.15am
Arrive at school*.  Look at the huge pile of worksheets, marking, paperwork and general crap on my desk and want to cry.  I make sure my lessons for the day are all planned, then quickly check The Guardian website and my emails, before heading downstairs for a cup of tea, a breakfast bar, and a natter with colleagues.

* Insert obligatory rant about bloody Gove and his assertions that teachers don't work hard enough. I wonder if he's at his desk just after 7am every day?!

8.10am
The bells rings for the start of school.  I go and register my tutor group - sorting out letters from parents, helping them with homework, reading out notices and talking to the lads about their defeat at football last night - then start teaching lessons at 8.35am.

This morning Year 9 are getting ready for their GCSE Controlled Assessments, so even the naughty kids are calmer and more focused than usual; they recognise the fact that this assessment is pretty important.  Next, Year 8 are 'doing' Romeo & Juliet, which I love.  I possibly get slightly over-excited when talking about the balcony scene, but they don't seem to mind and produce some lovely work, writing a diary in character as Romeo. 

After breaktime my Year 6 class tackle a practice SATs paper with great effort, if not much actual ability.  It breaks my heart to see 10 year olds sitting silently in ranks, brows puckered as they try to figure out a long text about the Great Plague (way to keep kids engaged by using contemporary materials in English tests, QCA!).

Finally, after an hour of non-contact time in which I meet with a pupil and then mark books, Year 7 arrive high as kites and I have to send one boy out of the room to calm down.  Three children haven't done their homework so need sanctions; half of the class misunderstand the instructions (despite being told them verbally, shown a copy on the board and having a worksheet in front of them) and need to start again; after twenty minutes, one boy has managed to draw a single line in his book and has to be moved away from his friends so he can concentrate.  I keep most of the class behind - an extremely rare occurence for me, as I expect and generally receive excellent behaviour  - but we're all out of the classroom by 2.55pm.

Some days I'm lucky enough to be away from school just after 3pm (still an 8 hour day, bearing in mind my start time), but more often than not I'll have a meeting or lots of work to get on with, and so will stay at school until 4 or 5pm (if the meeting is a late one).  Today's a good one, and I manage to escape quickly.

4pm
Home, after taking some clothes back to GAP and buying a couple of things in Boots.  A quick shower and wash my hair, then I start packing my bag for a trip to visit my boyfriend in the Netherlands this weekend.

5pm
I sit on my laptop at the kitchen table to catch up on reading blogs and to write my own, while listening to the Steve Lamacq show on 6 Music.

7.30pm
I make dinner - reheated lasagne, from a batch I made last week - and sit down with a glass of wine and watch How I Met Your Mother while I eat, before relaxing with a book for a couple of hours before bed at 10pm.  After all, I'll be travelling for about 6 hours tomorrow, so I need my beauty sleep!