The twitter conversation in the PREVIOUS POST got me thinking and my curiosity was sparked when a colleague tweeted saying that, today was his first time of doing Saturday revision in 18 years. He sent me the below and I offer it as a counter argument as to why some people are doing extra stuff for their students.

But before I let him loose, let me put this in context for you. Seager and I have worked together for a good few years now and in the last 6 years we had seen only one of our team leave and one join us – all of us having done our NQT years at our school – our team was all “home-grown” and stable. Together we moved to Alcester Academy last September and the original plan was for us to have two assistant heads (both previous HODs), an NQT, a Physics specialist on a one year contract who was able to teach maths and a HLTA. Before we’d even started our NQT backed out of his contract (yes! In the Summer term too!) and one of our Physics teachers who was thinking about leaving teaching after his first year agreed to step into the breach (he now wants to stay teaching Maths by the way **waves**).

Some schools that don’t have the benefit of a stable maths team will understand the importance of the “we’re in this together” spirit, and others of you that have never experienced what it is like to have a massive turnover of staff will probably be thinking “what’s the fuss?”. Either way, after eight months I’m touched that one of our team has written some of the comments below – given how tough the move has been (especially for me, Ian Hollis has seen me at my worse and taken it on the chin .. not literally!) that its dawning on me what a journey this year has been.

So here you go … totally unedited and I didn’t say it was for a blog post when I asked him to write down his reasons! (I can almost hear my gaffer taking a breathe in  … thinking “oh no! What’s he going to say?”)

The reasons I did a Saturday School…

There are quite a number of reasons why, after 18 years of teaching I have worked my first Saturday school ever! For one, the opportunity and idea had never been there before this year, therefore I have never been asked, or thought about for that matter the concept of opening up the doors of the school to support students in their final months before GCSE, on a “non-school day.”

Secondly this year is different… for the first time in a number of years I feel like I am part of a Maths team that are all working towards the same goals (MEL: awww shucks!!) . That is, that they all want the best possible results for the students and for the school. The hard work and dedication that goes into ensuring resources for the team are “just so” and that everyone is supporting each other to the maximum has been far greater this year than I have known it for a good number of years. Therefore I feel that doing a Saturday school session is simply “what the team is doing” and supports the ethos of what is being built as every day passes. I hope that this team continues to flourish and gel as we progress into the coming years!

Thirdly and most importantly… this year group are just different… The students in this year have matured early (well most of them anyway!) and this has meant that since teaching them in Year 9, but even more so in Year 10, they became a group of young adults that it was a pleasure to share skills with and watch them develop their love for Mathematics, bear in mind that this was whilst I was teaching set four of six, not top set! In Year 11 I have been privileged to have taught the most gifted bunch of Mathematicians I have ever known at the school, because of the sheer number of them in the class. Take the same maturity that I mentioned earlier, then add to it an aptitude and determination to only accept and work for the highest possible grades, and you are not far off. This group of super Mathematicians have always had a thirst for a challenge, and therefore even when faced with the hardest geometry in Further Maths, they have never given in, and have worked to be the very best that they can be at all times. So… when the question then comes, (when they are facing their second GCSE paper in the space of 5 days, and it is first thing Monday morning, so I would not have seen them since Thursday to check in on how they are) can you spare a couple of hours Saturday morning? The answer is… “hell yeah!”

I just hope that they get what they deserve now!

MEL: So could it be that maybe some of us actually get a kick out of doing maths with talented mathematicians? I know I do!