To teach: “To impart knowledge or skill to somebody by instruction or example.”
Increasingly, (sometimes with joy and other times despair,) I have come to realise I am not a ‘teacher’. According to the Government that is what I am. If I am to fill in a form under occupation I would write ‘teacher.’ I get paid a ‘teacher’s’ salary and the Tax Man thinks that’s what I do.
When someone asks what I do though, I find myself saying “I work in a school.” I think I started to say this because my role within Education has changed quite a lot, but increasingly I find that saying “I work in a school” is more apt than “I am a teacher.”
It (teaching) has become just one part of the job (and I do try to do this!) The pastoral side, (particularly in inner city schools where there is often high levels of children with SEN, children living with difficult home situations, etc) is becoming increasingly important, and I would say, increasingly more challenging.
In the school I work in there is a high level of young people presenting challenging behaviour, children with communication difficulties and children experiencing emotional situations which are negatively influencing their ability to have a positive attitude towards their education.
There are fundamental issues that I see in the children on a daily basis which are preventing them from going through the day having a positive experience of the education system. The same children are seen outside of the classroom lesson after lesson. The same names appear on the day sheet, which monitors a form’s progress throughout the day.
But I don’t believe that as subject teaches we necessarily have the training or ability to cater for these most vulnerable children. We have excellent and very hardworking staff, (and we have those who have this additional training and experience in child protection and mentoring,) but given the number of children roaming the corridors, (and the exhausted expressions on the staff members’ faces,) I’d say they’re stretched to their limits right now.
When I first trained to be a teacher the buzz phrase was ‘Every Child Matters’. This has now moved into ‘SEAL’ (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning.) Within my school I am part of the SEAL working party and working alongside Educational Psychologists from the local authority we are hoping to implement a six week ‘Social Skills’ group for the year 7 and 8 students, focusing on positive experiences, interactions and reframing and managing difficult emotional situations. I am excited about this prospect and hope it will prove beneficial to the students we teach.
Right now we just need to find a timetable slot, a room, some funding, a member of staff to run it.....