Letting the cat out of the bag!

Tonight, I’m going to treat you (Well I say “treat” but I’ll let you judge for yourselves!) to two posts. The first is by way of an update and the second post is to pay tribute to some very special students.

This is the first of those two posts … brace yourself … this is tough for me to write … I have written, rewritten, deleted and deferred writing this for so long … so I’m just start at the beginning and see where it goes … I’m letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak …

As a team, Seager, Fize and I meet regularly and over the last year we’ve slowly come to the conclusion that after 4 years of doing JustMaths it had grown far larger and faster than we ever dreamed or even expected. This is a good thing in that we’ve been able to support 1000’s of schools in this time and this has always been our driving force. We reached a milestone … a sort of tipping point where we could see that there was so much more that we wanted to do but to do anymore meant having “chunks” of time that we just don’t have available.

By way of explanation let me use the teacher workload situation. Were anyone to ask me as a teacher what could be dumped from my workload I’m not sure there is anything I would choose not to do. I think I’m a pretty good judge about what is effective and what is a crock of sh1t … the issue for me is …ummm …  every “big” job takes so long because it’s being slipped into snatched chunks of time and so takes longer than it should, because by the time you’ve found where you were and got the data to hand etc and THEN got in the zone, at least 10 or 15 minutes have passed. The next thing you know you need to get ready for your next class and you’ve probably only done 30-40 minutes on the job in hand. It’s the same with every PPA hour – the start and end just isn’t a good use of time and makes your “available” time less than the actual hour you have. By the way … one of my solutions to the workload challenge is to timetable some of the PPAs that we get timetabled back to back so that at least once a fortnight every teacher gets a 2-hour chunk of time to get big jobs done! Now there’s a thought! Oh flipping ‘eck .. I’ve gone off on a tangent haven’t I?

It was/is the same with JustMaths … we have so much more that we want to do … but need chunks of time. Doing stuff in the odd hour, here and there just isn’t enough … it’s not productive and everything takes more time than it should.

Anyway, I think you get the gist of it … we needed more time … SOOOOOOOOO …  to cut a very long story short .. after tears, tantrums and a lot of soul searching I agreed that I would take a year out of the classroom and review the situation next Easter. I am really struggling with this idea … I am a teacher. Just a teacher. I came to it in my 30’s and define myself as a teacher … the only way I could entertain the idea, at the time, was on the basis of knowing that it was only for 9 months.

Subsequently, in March I handed my notice in. Some of you are aware of this and will know that I’ve battled with the idea – I’ve swung from thinking it’s the best thing to it being the worst idea in the world. I’ve worked alongside Seager for a long time and I worry about breaking up the partnership (more on that at some point too!)  … it won’t change a thing by the way! It’ll just mean that when we do meet weekly we’ll have to be more productive. The plan is to carry on working with Edexcel one day a week and then focus on developing JustMaths to the point where it could then be tinkered with and I could hop back into the classroom somewhere (if they’d have me! … yep .. there’s another worry just there!)

Part of my reticence and the source of many of my tears, stems from having been subjected to CPD and advisors who haven’t been in a classroom for years. Yes, they know more about maths or their specialism than I ever will but part of my credibility in what I do stems from being a teacher … just like most of you that are reading this right now. I also like to think that I’m OK as a teacher …

We sat down and formulated some plans about the direction we want to take JustMaths and what is achievable and I started to get quite excited by it – I think the real decision was made for me during Feb half term when I went away on holiday for the first time during a half term and spent 3 weeks prior to it worrying about the amount of work I needed to do before I went and I was sat in the bar one evening with my laptop out emailing out log in details (I am not complaining and yes it could have waited!). I then spent 3 weeks trying to catch up on emails and paperwork and still haven’t had time to work through emails to this date (610 and counting!!!) Shortly after this I spoke to someone wise who told me that it will be like tearing out your heart for the first couple of weeks but once you realise that what you do with JustMaths matters it will get easier. I was also told to think about being able to help and affect hundreds of thousands of students given time to develop a support package further rather than the smaller circle of influence I had on my own students.

So, the deed was done. I then only went and bought a puppy and I pick “Murphy” up on Friday. After all, I’m going to be working from home .. it would be perfect. I was happy!!

It never is perfect though is it  …  I saw a job that fitted my situation perfectly : a 0.3 timetable. I could spend some time focussing purely on my teaching and spend the rest of the time developing stuff for JustMaths. Anyway, I applied for it, got an interview but didn’t get the job (DON’T SAY A WORD!!) I know!). Damn!!! Up until this point I’d resigned myself to the fact, (and by then was getting very excited) that I was taking what I called a sabbatical and it would be amazing but after this I knew I needed to teach. I want to teach.

So, we fast forward a few weeks and after the usual proceedings I can tell you that I will be starting my new job at Colmers in Birmingham. Its only 2 days a week but it keeps me in the classroom which is the important thing for me right now – unsurprisingly I have one year 10 and one year 11 group – it’ll be ace! The hours are perfect and for now I want no responsibility (but that could change in ten minutes … I’m still fighting demons about this one but I’m trying to chill about it!). On one shoulder, my angel is saying “you have nothing to prove … look at your track record!” and then the flipping devil pipes up “but Mel … can you lead a department on your own?” None of that matters at the minute if I’m honest and they’re my millstones that I’ve been dragging around with me for too long … it’s time to drop them! It’s the kind of school I can see myself teaching in and I’m excited about having a fresh start too.

This week therefore marks the end of chapter so to speak. It’s going to be a tough one. Wish me luck but also be excited and happy with me!