The RQT Thread (Recently Qualified Teachers)

Pro-tip: save all your reports into a file categorised under Key Stage, time of year, whether or not it's a report after an exam, underachievers, the evil ones, the good ones etc. Build up a bank of comments over time, and your report writing will do itself in a trice after a while. All you have to do is remember a kid who was like one you've taught in the past and paste the comment in. For the first eight years of my career I prided myself on making every report I wrote unique. Then I realised that was a complete waste of time. When I moved to a school where I had to write three reports a year for every kid, I would have lost the plot entirely if I'd carried on at that rate. I know every kid is a special snowflake and all that, but there are only so many ways you can describe how good/bad they are at what you've set them. Make your life easier with copying and pasting.

How's everyone doing? Really enjoyed half term this time. Knowing I'm leaving at the end of the year is such a great feeling; can't wait to start afresh in September.

7 weeks to get through first! I have 3 extra free periods due to year 11 being gone now but they were my most enjoyable class if truth be told!

Is it really 7?.... I thought it was 6...

So my first ever GCSE class did their exam today. I felt quite relieved but at the same time sad that I'll not be seeing them at all anymore. They were an extremely challenging class but still the bonds were made.
Onwards and upwards!

This year I'm just relieved to see the back of my Y11s, to be quite honest.

Last year I had an all-boys class with a wide range of ability (final results were A*-F) and quite a lot of silliness. They drove me up the wall, but actually a fair proportion of them genuinely cared how they did, and we got on well most of the time. I still kind of miss them.

This year, I've had the most apathetic Y11s ever. They are much better behaved than last year's group. I can get them silent quickly, they don't call out or talk over me, there's very little silliness. But they just don't care. They have spent the last year going through the motions and whilst their books look better because they've followed my instructions, most of them haven't actually taken anything in.

I've found teaching them incredibly depressing and have flagged up at every opportunity the fact that their results are not going to be good. I don't particularly feel like going in on results day this year, whereas last year I couldn't wait to find out how my class had done.

I feel like there's something wrong with me, but then my Y10s are doing amazingly well and I love teaching them. It's just this particular group where we didn't click at all. But I get the impression they were like that around the school.

Most schools should have got those references prior to interview tbh but I wouldn't worry unless you're not confident of your references? All teaching jobs are on the basis of satisfactory references.

Yeah I was surprised they didn't. I'm not worried about the references, more the time remaining before the end of term. The deputy did say he'd like me to go in for a day or two before team summer holidays.

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Not a lot to point trying to second guess them - I suggest you ring them up and ask if they still want you to go in for a day before the summer.

How to guarantee you do NO work during the holidays - get engaged and spend every waking minute planning a wedding and honeymoon.

Hope you're all having half as good a summer as I am!

Planning a wedding myself now - the reason it's not all that fun is because it has the dreadful word "planning" in it!

Congrats! I'm loving it! We've got a meeting tomorrow with our venue to try to finalise our costs, menus etc. Aiming for July next year, so trying to get a fair start on the planning now while I've got the time.

Do you have a date?