Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Year 8 are still awful!

Just need to put my feelings down on (cyber!) paper again.

Year 8 absolutely wore me out again yesterday. They are so completely and utterly childish, they make stupid noises and complain when I give them one minute to write down one short sentence.

I kept 17 of them into lunchtime to repeat the classwork they did on Friday as it was awful. Most of them improved but two girls walked out after having written in their books how much they hate me! I don't really care if they hate me - I'm just trying to make them learn that they won't get away with doing nothing in my classes, no matter how hard they try. They waste my time in class, I waste their time at lunch and after school. I put those two girls in department detention for next week and got through to one of the parents who was totally supportive and said her daughter has a similarly bad attitude at home, which was good to hear. Am hoping to speak to the other one today. I think if they are still being awful at the end of the week I might call all the parents en masse about it, play the "I'm worried about your son/daughter falling behind" card, as well as inviting them in to sit with the child and observe their behaviour!

Have decided with Julia (fellow Enlish and Drama-ite) that I need to introduce some routine into their lessons, so we're going to go through the Master Your SPellings books on Wednesday with a view to using them as a starter every lesson for ten minutes. They need the practise on their spellings anyway, and I was going to do a spelling rule with the whole class once a week, but this way they can use the books that are tailored to their individual spelling ages.

Well, I've rambled on and on - thanks if you're still with me! At least today I don't have to teach them and I've already planned tomorrow's lesson. for them. Today I get to work with my lovely Year 7s and film them doing their circus acts, which look like they could be really good fun :D

4 comments:

Claire said...

Sorry they're still giving you such a hard time. Sounds like you're doing everything right. I imagine they expect young and new teachers to be a pushover. {{hugs}} Hope you get through to them soon

Tracy said...

Jen,

Sorry to hear your year 8's are still causing you a problem. Nice to see you have become 'scary teacher' though!

I suppose tyou're not allowed to lock them up are you? *LOL*

Liz said...

Must be somethign in the water that year - my year 8's are JUST as EEEUUUGGGHHH - and I have bottom set year 8 last thing on a Friday - What a nightmare! As it's my NQT year I'm still struggling to find the right approach - play good cop bad cop is my current approach - merits for good behaviour and time owed for bad. Feel free to PM me if you want to share experiences! LJRN on UKS

Eleni Gratsia said...

Children are the same all over!! I teach english a foreign language ... my students pay to be at the institute ... do they care? No!!! I swear, I think the newer generations are terrible!!!!