How Not To Teach by ‘Mr Read’
Life in the urban primary school

Published by Continuum October 9 2006

The heirs of M'Choakumchild
Why Charles Dickens, novel ‘Hard Times’ is such a useful guide to education today.

Some history
How did we get here?
Drowning Not Waving Teaching in an “economically challenged” (a.k.a. poor) school.

Autumn

Snake Oil -The Training Day
Children need lots of water and space to move about in. So hundreds of teachers are crammed into a hot stuffy hotel room.

‘A Local School for Local People’ –
How to start the new school year, pupils to look out for, love, care and avoid.

Not the Caine Mutiny
The Head finally throws her hand in just before there’s mutiny on board.

Guided Reading
The fog descends, I’m penning that resignation letter… another boring course.

The stretch limo and Prince Charles’ aide
We get nominated for a prestigious national award for making a film about the town. The children get transport by limousine, but what does one say about Prince Charles?

The One Armed Bandit
Some of the supply teachers who come in aren’t exactly the full shilling – don’t take offence most are brilliant!

Brian - a pupil I'll never forget
How to make a child happy – by giving them a role in the class.

A normal afternoon
Why inclusion of Special Education Needs children isn’t working.

Teaching Awards
A good idea, but at the moment the equivalent of giving a terminally ill patient a get well card.

The barbarians at the gate
The ICT lesson at the secondary school that went wrong – HELP!

Christmas Lights
The choir sings as the town lights are turned on, it rains, we get two mayors, it rains, the classroom assistant has her car broken into and it rains some more.

Spring

Reasons to be Cheerful
Some songs to help lighten the mood – Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down.

This is Your Flight Attendant
Why classroom assistants shouldn’t be expected to teach.

Help - I'm an ICT Co-ordinator
All volunteers step forward! Crickey! I’m on my own.

Literacy Planning
There is boredom, absolute boredom and Key Stage 2 Literacy Planning Meetings

How Miss Perfect Lost Her Smile
An ‘expert’ teacher arrives to teach my class – not.

‘I’m Bobby Charlton’
Billy Casper in his borrowed (four sizes too-big) kit, freezing cold hunched in the muddy goalmouth.

Luminous Green Snot
That boy with the plug of luminous green snot – why teachers fall sick.

The Play script
The lesson the DfES didn’t want to video.

The winding road from Ballysomething
We take the class to Ireland, but we miss the ferry and it takes 18 hours to get there – what the heck!

Nothing sacks faster
Advertising slogans in Literacy – some ideas for Chris Woodhead.

Hello! –
ICT Awards …some of us are just the mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed a load of…

Ten Things That Are Wrong With The Literacy Hour
I just feel sorry for those NQTs who have never known anything else but the Literacy Hour.

The file of files
“The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire.”

The leadership cult
Why is it so hard to find headteachers?

Summer

Stressbusters -
The LEA send in Stressbusters – it works for me.

'A quiet rural location'
What do those job adverts really mean?

A consultant calls
Someone else who can’t quite manage my class.

Let them eat marrow
That scene where The Blessed Jamie Oliver shows children what’s in chicken nuggets.

Looking down the barrel of a shotgun
Ofsted inspects us – dead men on borrowed time.

The Heart of Darkness
Testing, that rancid, malignant, cancerous tumour that spews forth its toxins into the bloodstream.

The icing on the cake
We take ten children to the House of Commons – Barry consumes six slices of cake.

Bill's New Frock
I get to dress up in a pink frock.

"Are we nearly there yet?" The school trip – “Is it alive?”

Moving On - I don’t get the job.

Recharging the batteries
It’s that end of the school year feeling the batteries are low, in need of recharging.

Conclusion

The road to Hull..
An endless vista of cabbages, lettuces, and sprouts, all set out in straight lines beneath an unforgiving metal grey unbroken sky. No trees or hedges break the landscape. You ache for valleys, hills or mountains to break the monotony. Even the rivers and watercourses have been straightened into conformity