6th December 2009

Employment

In a shocking development, I now have a god damn job. The significance of that cannot be understated. For a start it brings to a close twelve months of unemployment-themed blog updates.

Since September I have been volunteering at Cawley Lane Junior Infant and Nursery School in Heckmondwike, i.e. my old junior school. The rumours of extra Educational Teaching Assistant (henceforth abbreviated to ETA) hours started to surface a few weeks into term. Gradually the rumours became more detailed and it became apparent that the hours would be special needs-related and in year four. Eventually on September 28th, the job appeared on the Kirklees Jobs website and I was able to request an application form; complete it; and return it to the school. Given that the deadline was the week before breaking up for half-term, I had the impression that there would be interviews during the last week before half-term and that the job would commence on the monday after half-term. Naturally, things didn't play out this way.

It came to half-term and there had been no word on the job. It came to the first week after half term and still no word. In maybe the second week after half-term I found out that things had grinded to a halt with regard to the job. I'm not entirely sure over the details but the delay was in part caused by someone who was due to return from maternity leave but who then resigned, also I think there was the possibility of a special school getting involved, so the hours could be disappearing anyway. None of this was particularly reassuring, though I continued volunteering in Year One. Sometime in the first or second week of November it became clear that the short-listing was likely to occur in time and that I would be pretty much assured to be short-listed, which would be the first time that's happened for any jobs I've applied to.

I started to become frustrated with the lack of progress with the job and started complaining at various times. I also started to get a head-start on whoever else might have applied for the job.

I joked to ████ █ that the group were discussing whether ███████ was a light source after one of them said that light comes from his eyes. Ho ho ho. Chatted with increasing frustration to a sympathetic ███ ███████ about being messed around on the job. At some point today, possibly before lunch from ███ ██████, I found out that █████ ██████ wasn't one person, that it was █████ (a girl) AND ██████ (a boy).

I'm not sure we all fully understand the meaning of 'light source'.

Tuesday 10th November. One afternoon in Year One I finally saw the first real progress forward with the job and thus began panicking.

Near the end of the lesson, ███ ████ came in and asked me if I had two minutes ('shiiiiiiiiit') Job info followed. I was asked if I could help out with █████ to prove I was up to it, there was some mention that they ideally wanted a punjabi speaker. I said yes, that I could come in to do it this thursday. 12 hours a week was floated around. I confirmed that I'm not signing on or anything so I'm an entirely free agent without constraints of that kind. This seemed a positive step. I became dismayed that I wouldn't be able to work in year 1 and would leave them in the lurch somewhat. It was mentioned that I would have to do mondays to wednesdays with █████ voluntary still. I'm not quite clear why this would need to be a long-term thing. I'd prefer it if they'd just pay me for being in year 1 like I am at the moment.

What followed would be a period of non-specific work shadowing. One impression I had was that it was a kind of trial period to see whether or not I was up to the job at all, but at the same time it also felt like more of an induction period. After some initial frustration "If they wanted someone bi-lingual for the post, they should have advertised for it." The issue of whether or not bi-lingual support was necessary melted away when it became clear that the school wanted the two children weened off bi-lingual support as they'd had up to now. Either way, I had to once more up my game. I thought that I had already been firing on all cylinders since getting the wednesday guitar club rolling, but now I had to be really on top of things. Naturally, this all started rather falteringly on my first afternoon for the shadowing.

In ██ ████'s class they were having some sort of African Drum lesson with a Kirklees Music School teacher that I could swear was the drummer who used to be in junior/intermediate band at Whitcliffe Mount. ███ █████ explained briefly what was happening over the afternoon and got me to stand over with ████ and help him whilst she was with ████. I stood around kind of awkwardly looking to ███ █████ for hints as to what I should be doing. She was being more general ETA-ey than I expected so I relaxed and tried to keep order with the rest of the class as well.

Gradually I became more competent at the job, but I also became concerned about the people I'd be going up against in any interviews and was waging a constant battle against complacency. Last week the shadowing was extended beyond into something else and I had to take the children, my two hopes for employment, for a lesson on my own ("Shiiiiiiiiit"). This was initially daunting but was also good as it meant I would be able to show I could actually do stuff on my own. Of course, I found out that I would be taking a lesson on my own halfway through the lunchtime prior to the actual lesson.


I gradually became more competent at the job.

Went to ██ ████'s room. ███ █████ asked if she could see me outside which I was initially worried about. She just said that she had prepared some literacy and numeracy stuff for ████ and ████ to be doing and then complained about the short notice that had been given. I tried to sound as organised and competent as I could.

I found out that interviews were likely to happen in the first week of December. On the thursday before Eid I finally got the letter informing me that I had an interview on 3rd December at 10:30am. This pleased me greatly but was also cause for concern, specifically, it could still all go wrong in the interview if some hero-teacher had applied for the job. The fact it was Eid the next day meant that there would be practically no children in the school, this would give me an opportunity to get my paperwork in order as well as get something resembling a plan for the next week before the interview since I had been told that I would be taking A&A (the two children the job was for, also referred to as The Munchkins, my meal tickets) for the afternoons all week. Thus began what would be the final phase of Operation: Get Paid.

More esoteric terms: IEPs - Individual Education Plans, which basically have targets individual children need to work toward.

Hopefully, I'll be able tomorrow to photocopy IEPs as ███ ████████ suggested, look over A&A's previous work in more detail, be able to come up with some ideas for future lessons, find where the numeracy work sheets and other useful things are stored. I could do with talking to ███ ████ about co-ordinating with ███ ██████. One way to approach this would be to pick up what she said about how ███ █████ and ███ ██████ keep their own seperate books, perhaps air concerns that I don't want my books to be a third parallel record of the work their doing. 'A co-ordinated approach would surely be the best way?' This could also let me rip-off ███ ██████'s hopefully superior organisation and experience so I won't have to bullshit as many 'makey-uppy' lessons. I could also ask ███ ████ and staff tomorrow about PGCE interviews seeing as it won't be busy with it being Eid. I need to be on the fucking ball for this job interview.

The hours would be part of a job-share, where one person does mornings and the other afternoons. I was applying for the afternoon hours. The morning timetable is mostly numeracy and literacy where A&A are generally taken out of class, whilst the afternoons feature more of the topic lessons, where it's sometimes best for A&A to do work in class, other times not. I hadn't actually met the woman who worked in the mornings at this point and I became concerned about the need for a 'co-ordinated approach'.

Friday, 27th November

Eid Mubarak. Panic, as well as preparedness, gradually increased over the course of Eid ul-Adha (a.k.a. 'Big Eid').

I went to see ████ ███████████ at some point [before morning break] for one of the days various chats. She had a load of sheets for me and advice which I didn't thank her for profusely enough. I basically got some sheets, I also made the half-joke that I thought Sparklebox was some sort of sparkly box in the shared area. It's a website. It's also banned on the internet by Kirklees because of some paedophile activity on there according to ████ █.

I eventually asked ██ ████ where the SEN folder with ████ and ████'s IEPs were. I looked over this and the accompanying progress sheet things and went over to photocopy the IEPs, making an initial hash of this after a photocopier error. I got back and filled out my log thing in more detail trying to copy the format from ███ ██████'s log book or whatever it was I was able to look at. I found out the punched plastic number things are called numicon. I also filled out the IEP progress sheets for A&A for what I did with them on thursday.

Concerned about what random psychedelic shit might happen in the interview, I asked one of the teachers I've been working with in Year 1 for her advice.

She was quite methodical and I suddenly had a sense of how out of my depth I was. She said something like 'So what strengths do you think you'd bring to the job' and I mumbled '...Organisation' 'Okay so you need to demonstrate how' '...I filled out IEPs.' It was quite awful, I just ended up looking at the floor, and this was just ████ ████ asking questions. I need to get a fucking clue before this interview, either that or prepare myself for spectacular failure (it won't be spectacular.)

Psychedelic shit; Interview panic.

After more help from the other Year 1 teacher for lesson ideas I went to the IT room to find and print out a massive fifty-page PDF from standards.gov chock-full of 'hands-on' lesson ideas.

Started printing out the Standards thing, all fifty pages of it, from the perplexlingly slow laser printer that only seemed to want to do one sheet at a time. I joked and spoke with ███ █████ in the IT room, she showed me some 'Computer Club' badges that ██ █ had dug out for her from the past and I joked that 'you might as well give them 'Geek Club' badges'. I joked about 'Mr Barrowclough's Cool Guitar Rock 'n' Roll Circus'. ███ █████ worked in some web design company prior to the school, so it was interesting being able to talk to her about that and talk about my own web design a bit, 'I like to keep it hardcore and do it all in Notepad.'

I've actually started using Notepad++ too.

With the paperwork mostly in order and with the addition of a load of lesson plan ideas and something approaching a clue about what might happen at the interview, the Eid day had been a success. The objective for the following week, prior to the interview was to get in a load and arts 'n' crafts lessons as well some kind of more 'physical' or 'hands on' lesson that didn't boil down to grinding through letter and number formation sheets. The proper term for it seems to be 'multi-sensory'.

Monday, 30th November

The ICT lesson went well. I had knocked up a letter grid on Crick [a programme that lets you click on squares containing letters/words to help forming words/sentences] during lunch and set A&A doing this on my login. Trouble is, ████'s computer didn't have the new Crick software so after a failed attempt to get them to share the same computer, I moved ████ back onto her computer to type some words up for me on Word. This went reasonably well though ████'s attention was wandering towards the end.

The longboat lesson went fairly well for A&A at least. ██ ████ was getting very stressed when the class were making an almighty mess, using too much glue, taking too many straws etc. By the end I was kind of laughing at this with ██████ ██████. ██ ████ said afterwards that he wasn't sure if he'd do the work with the class again and he was dismayed at how much better ████ ██████'s class had been on the task.

After the lesson it was assembly, I went to talk to ███ ████ who was standing in the hall. She said she wanted a word with me and taken me back to the class. I asked about the 12:15 start thing and she said somewhat surprisingly that this was '███████ interfering again' after this she said that I'd need to start at eleven on two days or do a full day on another day or something. I asked about what I might need to know for the interview and she said that she couldn't tell me what the questions were but when I said what I'd thought of preparing already, she basically told me what I'd need to know, mostly. 'What's your experience working with children' (directly related to the job, presumably) was apparently an obvious inclusion as a question.

The 'longboat lesson' isn't some strange segue into nautical-engineering. I should probably refer to them more accurately as Longships anyway. Basically, Year Four's current topic is Vikings and for Art/DT they've been making models of viking longboats longships, making the hull shape out of card and then gluing art straws along the sides like planks before adding a mast, sail and shields etc. Surprisingly, A&A were quite good at this task, so I didn't have to take them out to the shared area like I would for numeracy or literacy. My own first foray into ship building ended disastrously. Seriously though, making a ship's hull out of card isn't as easy as it sounds.

Tuesday, 1st December

On tuesday I decided to roll out the arts 'n' crafts collage lesson I'd been thinking about. The basic idea was to have a load of shapes arranged on a sheet (I did this in Word) which I then blew up to A3 on the photocopier. The shapes (which I could talk/ask questions about, thus covering numeracy objectives also) would then be cut out using scissors (so that's the co-ordination objective covered) and then glued onto a large sheet in order. So there'd be one square, two triangles, three circles etc. Blowing the shapes up to A3 proved unnecessary as it just meant it taken much longer to cut out and colour and I couldn't get through as many shapes. Still, it looked like proper work, and I felt pretty pleased with myself that my first properly self-planned lesson hadn't been a total disaster.

On the way out, bumped into █████ coming out of the entrance to the upper yard. He seemed totally awestruck with surprise to see me and shouted loudly to his friend (████ from 1█ I think) '██████!! LOOK ITS MR BARROWCLOUGH!' Needless to say, this was quite hilarious.

Wednesday, 2nd December

Wednesday is when I run Mr Barrowclough's Cool Guitar Rock & Roll Circus, or alternatively, Guitar Club. The idea for the guitar club came about before half-term as a way for me to make myself more indispensible when it came to considerations for the job 'Well if I go, my guitar club goes too!' It is also an opportunity to try and indoctrinate the youth and win support for the noble cause of METAL. So far, the most metal thing I've been able to cover is the main riff to Enter Sandman, more will follow. It's basically Rock School crossed with David Brent's guitar recital from the Training Day episode of The Office. 'Okay everyone, today we're going to learn...'

Did power chords, they were impressed with Smoke on the Water, will have to do that one again.

My rabbi in Year 1 suggested I take some photos of my lessons to wave around during interviews. This seemed a very good idea. I also taken the opportunity to roll out some kind of lesson not involving writing/colouring.

I then proceeded to conduct a largely improvised numeracy lesson using the floor tiles and large dice, which by the end of it, was resembling an actual lesson, though ████ was just messing around by the end. I still managed to get a decent photo of this activity though, which make it look like it was working. I also got a photo of them both holding up their shape work with them smiling.

With photos proving how awesome Mr Barrowclough's Curriculum was I was able to finish off my preparation for the impending interview.

It's 1am and I still need to have a bath. Fell asleep and messed around/watched TV/went on guitar, so didn't start the interview preperation until late. Got the Austin Reed suit down, the preparation is two sheets where I've highlighted specific examples of where I've done something as opposed to the rest of the text where I'm blowing off about things or approaches I *could* use as opposed *have already*. Updated the CV too. Feeling more prepared for the interview.

Thursday, 3rd December

The day of the interview. Whilst getting ready, the significance of it almost being a year since I last wore my fancy suit (at the MA graduation) was not lost on me. Over the course of the day, I went through a familiar routine of pre and post Important-Event rituals.


Before the interview I had to carry out a sequence of careful preparations and rituals.

Got up at 8:30 and flapped around nervously until about 9:30. [...] Got the suit on and listened to Left Hand Path, felt more confident. Got a taxi to school for £3. Turned up at 10:15, fifteen minutes early, it was raining slightly, taxi was a good idea. ██ ██████ said the interview would be in a few minutes and commented on how smart I was dressed, shiny shoes. Handed over the P45, Birth Certificate, maybe the CRB and also driving license. Sat nervously next to the bobbing wicker reindeer reading the same two or three sentences from my notes. Whilst waiting, everyone who walked past wished me luck, everyone seemed to know what was going on. The new receptionist presented me with a new development that there were additional hours offered up and asked if I wanted to apply for that too, 'Yes, I would.'

"The guy in the sixty three hundred dollar suit! Come on!"

███ ████ appearred and said 'it's launch time' and I mumbled something and smiled nervously. In the interview was ██ ██████, ███ ████ and a governor I've not seen before who might have had something to do with child protection or something. First question was from the governor and was on my previous experience working with children. I answered this rather shortly and had an awkward pause. ██ ██████ reminded me that I had to treat it as though they didn't know me and I think I might have recovered and gone over my experience in more detail. The questions after this went much smoother, as expected there was one on what other ways I could plan lessons not necessarily involving writing down, to which I was able to say things I *have* actually already done with Asia and Adib. I think this way worked, if it was a normal interview I'd just be focusing on things I've done anyway without having to go vague and start talking about things I *could* do. Either way, I was able to bang on fairly easily about ways I could do various things without trailing off or sounding too retarded. I was asked why I wanted the job and I mentioned looking to get on a PGCE for September next year and seeking experience, I felt kind of like I was about to shoot myself in the foot when I said I also 'needed the money [to save up for the PGCE]' but this seemed acceptable as they knew I was voluntary.

Other questions included how much I could use IT, and again I was able to talk about how I've already worked with ████ and ████ getting them to use Crick, Word and Paint with good results. Also, I was asked what other skills I could bring to the job which I had sections for on my planning sheet 'ART' and 'MUSIC', this was where I was able to wheel out my photos from the cutting out shapes exercise from yesterday which I think was impressive, I also talked about what I *could* do with regard to percussion for counting and co-ordination and mentioned about the African Drumming lessons here. I used the photos to demonstrate how I can ask them questions as they're doing the work, pointing to the shapes to get them counting etc. which I think was received well.

"Did I also mention that I can make a really good tree-themed display?"

A somewhat unexpected question was along the lines of 'if you thought that there was a child protection issue with the family, what would you do?' This caught me off guard and I had to think, I ended up guessing that first I'd approach the classroom teacher and seek their opinion and after that, perhaps the head teacher, I said that 'anything like that would have to go through the school' and I *think* this was what they wanted to hear. I talked about IEPs and how the experience working with special needs children in year 1 was relevant to that and how combined with the experience in Key Stage 2, this gave me an idea of the size of the steps that I could expect them to be making. There was a discipline question which I muddled through emphasising that 'shouting wouldn't really be very productive.' There was a question on keeping lessons stimulating where I was able to talk about different approaches. My little speech about different approaches became a series of saying 'different angles' in many different ways. I banged on about how ████ and ████ were much more able at IT and French and about how sometimes it would be beneficial to keep them in with the rest of the class, which seemed to be received well. The final question was from the governor, along the lines of 'if you were successful in the interview would you be willing to do the job.' 'Yes, yes I would.' smiling.

I was able to have a few questions to raise for the 'any questions' section. I brought up the lack of lower-case keyboards, which ██ ██████ said was 'a relevant issue I'd raised the other day' or something, they said this could be allocated in the budget. I also had some question about not being able to meet with ███ ██████ yet, I was worried when ██ ██████ looked concerned but relaxed when I said 'well she's been off ill this week'. I blowed off about a 'co-ordinated approach' and there being several sets of exercise books and things, this seemed to bounce off ███ ████ well. I also mentioned about my PGCE appointment and this wasn't brought up as an issue. I shook hands with everyone and collected in my 'rubbish', the notes and the photos. They said that one of the other interviewees would be late or something and would be coming at two, so that I would find out if I was successful after this. I said that I would be in school anyway (with ████ & ████, no less) so it was said that someone would come and find me come the time.

After exchanging the Jewish Conspiracy Secret Handshake and leaving my briefcase with my bribe under the table, I left the interview. Also, I know the left/right is mixed up on that picture.

I felt I left the office rather quickly. It was eleven o' clock and I briefly considered making an appearance in a class somewhere before remembering my shirt alone cost more than the whole of my normal work clothes combined. I signed out and walking through the lower yard worried that I'd dashed off before needing to fill out some form or something. I marched back home to the triumphal music of Death - The Sound of Perseverence. ████████ rung up, I thought at first it would be the school 'You haven't got the job! HaAHAHAA!' but ████████ was asking about the interview to which I replied positively and was wished luck.

I didn't see any of the other interviewees which was probably a good thing as it would have just made me more nervous. I felt pretty pleased about how the interview had gone, all my preparation had paid off and I managed to ride the crest of the addrenaline and nerves wave. Wipeout! I didn't really feel that the interview could have gone much better in any of the areas. I remembered a few things on the way back from my notes that I could have talked about but I had brought some other stuff up in the interview anyway and hadn't waffled too much.


"This is the girl."

At home I talked about the interview, still felt nervous, had a Cuppa Soup and listened to Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around. I decided on doing something with magnetic letters with Asia & Adib after the African Drumming and French lessons (the literacy side of what I've done was rather weak in comparison to the numeracy side.) I got dressed and marched back to school. ██ ██████ had to let me in at the main entrance and I joked that 'apparently some guy was here before who looked like me.' and he retorted 'yeah, you look really scruffy.' In the staff room, ███ ████████ and ███ ███████ asked about the interview and I explained that they hadn't interviewed everyone yet.

'Apparently some guy was here before who looked like me.'

It was rather strange going back to the school after the interview still as the volunteer. Especially seeing as it would be an afternoon working with A&A doing the exact job I'd just applied for. I had already decided that if I didn't get the job that I'd start turning up drunk, not bothering have a shave or anything and swearing at the kids. The afternoon started with a French lesson.

Back in class, ██ ████ forged ahead with either some sort of finishing off maths lesson or something to do with the norse gods. When I was asking earlier whether it would be good to take A&A out he dryly remarked 'unless you want to explain the Norse gods to ████ and ████.' [...] Naturally, I taken A&A out of the lesson and to ███ ███████'s room to embark on another awesome lesson. I had the idea during the French lesson to practice the french school vocabularly they had been learning. I asked ██ ████ for some vocab sheets and he found the sheet in the French folder. I went over to the resource room to photocopy this. In the resource room I bumped into ███ ██████ who also asked about the job. I was feeling increasingly confident in my performance at the interview by now.

Mr Barrowclough's French Lesson proceeded like some sort of power meeting with everyone stood up and me holding up a pen and loudly proclaiming 'Un stylo! Ecoute! Repete!'

Near the start of the French lesson, ██ ██████ appeared. I didn't have time to become nervous, he said something along the lines of 'Now the formalities are out of the way, I can offer you the job.' at which point I just started smiling and mumbling 'cool' and 'thanks'. Formal letters will be sent out apparently but I had the job. He left and as it sunk in I told ████ and ████ that I had a job and that I'd be working with them for the rest of the year. They seemed pleased about this, it was like a very low-key version of the end of Return of the Jedi. After Monsieur Barrowclough's French Lesson, 'Un crayon! Un stylo! Des feutres des couleurs!' With about twenty minutes left I got them sorting out magnetic letters into the alphabet. Morale was boosted, this all went well and it could even go on the IEP.

Bonjour, Monsieur Barrowclough

I went back to class and then sat through assembly. The assembly was Year 3/4 and ██ ████ was taking it. [...] The assembly was adapted from an old class assembly or something and was on the theme of achieving great things if you keep trying. Gradually, I started feeling like I was in some corny scene in a film where the moral of the story is hammered home. 'So you're saying that if you volunteer for six months then you'll get the job? Golly gosh!'

After the assembly I filled out IEPs for what I'd been doing that afternoon and then radioed for the chopper.

Feeling increasingly pleased with myself I moved out into the hall. In the hall, I bumped into ████ ████. She asked me how it went and I said I'd got the job. She said it was good that I got the job on my first interview and I joked about volunteering for six months prior and summed up the year since graduation '3 months not really doing anything, 3 months pretending to be a journalist and 6 months of this'. I also finally managed to thank her for her interview tips and tried to get across how it had got me to book my ideas up.

I joked that tomorrow would be my last day as a 'fake ETA' ho ho ho. On my way out I did a strange about turn outside the staff room

[...]

After this, signed out, again, and made my way home rather pleased with myself, a nice setting sun and more Death - The Sound of Perseverence, how picturesque.

[...]

The morale high now shows how low it was before, especially during the doom-laden conversation with ████ ████ regarding the interview last friday.

Friday, 4th December

I had been signed up for the trip to Eden Camp by the Deputy Head on Eid the previous friday. This would have been a really fucking miserable day if I'd not have gotten the job. Eden Camp is somewhere on the far-side of York and is built in an old prisoner-of-war camp and is a museum mostly about the home-front in the Second World War. This falls pretty close to what I did my entire dissertation on for the Military History MA, so I was the designated expert for the day.

By the main entrance to Eden Camp as well as dotted around between the huts are lots of WW2 vehicles such as a bit Spitfire/Hurricane model, a T-34 tank (which look amazingly small up-close) and a V-1. Upon seeing these, I remarked to the Deputy Head, 'it's quite sad, I know the names of most of those.'


'It's quite sad, I know the names of most of those.'

Walked around Eden Camp giving a massive winding history lecture.

Eden Camp, besides being sited at an old prisoner-of-war camp is also incredibly cold. All the huts have the doors open all the time so you can move between the exhibits so you're basically stood outside for the entire day.

██ ██████ commented that ██████ had sent a rather strange reference [for my job application] saying odd things like 'Yes, I recall that Barrowclough lad.' 'Haha, well he was only my personal tutor.' Strangely, ██ ██████' impression of what he thought he'd sound like was exactly what ██████ does sound like. He suggested I perhaps not use him as a reference again and I agreed then complained about the lack of tutors at uni able to give me a reference.

After a freezing cold half hour for lunch in one of the mess halls, it was time for the puppet show in the music hall hut. It's quite a stretch to arrive at precisely how this was 'educational'. Amusingly, during the various songs, the guy behind the curtain held up signs saying things like 'RUBBISH' and 'LOUDER' to get the children to participate more/shout louder. Naturally, instead of doing this they instead shouted 'RUBBISH' and 'LOUDER'. All this whilst being hosed down with water/dog urine.

Beware the Judderman my dear, when the moon grows fat.

After lunch it was the puppet show. Very sinister, the first puppet looked like the Judderman. ██ ██████ warned me the front rows would get wet, I flapped about a bit before being cajoled to sit down with my group. I did get quite wet. The most hilarious part was Sweep the Dog urinating profusely on a lamp-post and then into the audience. This went on for quite some time. George Formby had a sinister puppet as well. Utterly bizarre.

RUBBISH


Extar, over, out.

At lunch I managed to talk maybe at the beginning then went into a contemplative banana sandwich silence.