My first proper job - in Mum's (RIP) old school. - Episode #78

Well I have now completed my first few weeks as a proper teacher! It feels strange to be working where Mum was working when she and Dad got killed.  

It looks like Fridays are going to be my easiest days so I might try writing by diary and blog then. When you are a student teacher colleagues are quite careful about what they say in your hearing but once you are a member of their team they feel comfortable saying what they are really thinking. I have been quite surprised how many of them don’t like teaching in the 6^th form (years 12 and 13) – some prefer the youngsters in years 7 to 9 (generally fewer behaviour issues and less pressure from external exams) while others relish the challenge of years 10 and 11 where pupils can be much harder to manage (especially the girls!) but where exams give a focus to what is being taught and where high quality teaching is more easily demonstrated through exam results. 

One of the reasons that I have more than my “share” of 6^th form work is because more senior colleagues don’t want to it and so it is just a lucky co-incidence that it is my favourite type isn’t it!  

There is quite a strict dress code for the pupils that is strictly enforced at the start of the school year and a fairly strict dress code for the staff that isn’t enforced but should be. Some staff show too much boob, belly or bum and I don’t think it creates a good impression that senior staff just sigh and then say nothing. Of course I just keep these thoughts to myself.   

I found myself using one of Dad’s phrases yesterday. I mentioned “stirring up a hornets nest” which would have made him laugh. What happened was that the ladies county cross-country champion got a brief write-up in the magazine that goes out to the various athletics clubs. She has won 21/24 races in the 12 months which is good but what wasn’t mentioned was that all three of her losses were all to a certain Sally Ellis. I mentioned it casually in the club house at the weekend and by Wednesday the County Commissioner was involved, oh dear. 

Our elderly neighbour is still in hospital. They want to discharge her but without a “Care Package” in place they are not allowed to. So her cat is living with us and if I cannot find the cat at meal times I have to wonder along to her proper home to find her. The cat seems happy enough, providing she gets food and a bit of attention everyday she should cope until her owner returns. By chance I noticed some people moving into one of the houses in our street. This happens a lot but what made it unusual was that one of the helpers was a girl who shares the same adult mentor as me. The last time I saw here was in Kidderminster so it was rather a shock to see her so close to my home.

Sorry but Facebook and Facebook Groups are not helping me move on!

I am trying hard not to sound passive-aggressive here but sadly, despite all the hype, Facebook and the associated Facebook Groups don't seem to be what I want or need in my life at the moment.

Most of the bereavement related groups on Facebook are, unsurprisingly, dominated both numerically and in terms of messages posted, by people who live in the USA and who are both older and more openly religious than me. I don't seem to have much in common with the typical group member and perhaps that is the source of my problem?

Recently I asked the members of all the bereavement groups I belong to for information on blogs that might be helpful for me - nobody bothered to come up with a single suggestion. Yet when I posted the same question to a much smaller UK based group I got 7 ideas from three different people. What makes it even stranger was that these 3 were complete strangers to me, none were my so-called "Facebook Friends" 95% of whom never comment on anything I post to Facebook or write in my blog.

I have made a few friends via Facebook and I am pleased and grateful for that but overall my experience has been deeply disappointing.

On the launch pad - ready for take off!

I suppose the most significant thing that has happened in the last few weeks is that Granddad has been moved to a different prison. I don’t know all the fine details or the reasoning behind it – and Nan isn’t saying – but it sounds like he has been sent to an open prison as an experiment and as a “concession to his age”.  

I am amazed that I am still receiving my monthly compensation payment from him. I had felt certain that he would try to wriggle his way out of paying me what had been agreed but so far every payment has been on time.  

After quite a long quiet spell the strange builder from the house at the bottom of my garden has now circulated draft plans for a revised building development to all his nearest neighbours. There is nothing on the plans to say that he doesn’t own the land he wants to build on and nothing to say that the houses he wants to demolish don’t belong to him. He sent his wife round to deliver the letters because he knew that I wouldn’t have opened the door to him!  

I had my strangest ever modelling session last weekend. It was for a group that like to draw science fiction and fantasy people. So I had a number of strange poses to do including wearing a set of wings like a fairy would have!  There were 3 models, Sally and me and a new girl called Davida. This was her first “paid for” session and she was rather nervous before the start but she coped quite well. She lives somewhere over on the west coast of Wales so she had a fairly long trip to the venue.  

We haven’t had any proper summer this year have we? We have had lots of cloudy and quite cold days but not much rain and some of the little streams on the cross-country running courses have no water in them at all which is very unusual. We got back yesterday from a short trip (Monday to Thursday) to Cambridge to see some friends. Houses are very expensive where they live and although they both have quite good jobs they have to live in a small flat on a rather noisy road. They work in industry so they don’t get the long holidays that teachers enjoy.  

The new school term starts on the 1^st September and the children will come back on the 3^rd of September. Although I am now a qualified teacher I get offered some extra support for my first year – this is called your NQT (Newly Qualified Teacher) year. I don’t have to teach quite so many lessons and I have an experienced teacher who acts as my mentor. I’m sure that Mum and Dad would be pleased that I have gone into the same job that they both had.  

We seem to have acquired a cat. We offered to look after her for a few days while her elderly owner (and Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator) was in hospital. The first day I went round to the house twice just to feed the cat but then she decided to follow me home. I think cats would love anybody who feeds them. Even a cat is quite a tie so I hope our neighbour comes back home soon.

Another year has gone - life after death

August 2015 - A year ago I was in that strange waiting stage where something I had been wanting to do for years (my PGCE) was on the horizon. Now the PGCE has been, gone and passed and I am ready for the next stage of my life. 

August 2014 - I went across town to clean Mum and Dad's grave this morning (Sunday). It is supposed to be summer at the moment but it was really cold and also thinking about raining. Most unusually there were other cars in the car park and at least four other groups of people either tending or just looking at graves. I wonder if this was because this is a Bank Holiday weekend? 

August 2015 - With every year that passes I visit Mum and Dad's grave less often. It is just the way it is, nobody could cope with the full-on mourning that happens in the early days for years at a time. The wounds heal and you learn how to cope.

August 2014 - What surprised me the most was that there was somebody tidying the grave next to my Mum and Dad's. In all the many times I have visited the cemetery over the last 4+ years I have never seen anybody doing this to my "next door neighbour's" grave. The old man - perhaps late 70s - introduced himself as Edward. The deceased was his wife but since he moved away to be nearer to his children he doesn't visit her very often. He has decided that he is too old to drive so he came by train, visited the grave on Saturday then stayed at a local guest house before making a second visit to the cemetery on the Sunday. He looked sad and very tired and as it is quite a walk to the station I did my good deed for the day and offered him a lift in my car. He seemed very grateful so I was glad I had thought to do this.

August 2015 - Although I haven't seen Edward again he left me a note under a stone on Mum and Dad's grave. This was in mid June. He says he is still well enough to travel on the train but he phones for a taxi when it is time to go back to the railway station from the cemetery. I suggested this to him in 2014 so I'm glad he remembered.

August 2014 - I didn't get much of a look at the other visitors but I did notice a lady in her 20s in the newest section of the cemetery. From the back it looked like the shape of a child's grave so that was upsetting.

One mixed emotion event that happened this week was the effective “closure of the file” on Granddad by the Crown Prosecution Service. I’m happy that the legal side is finished but I did rely on them for free advice and support.

August 2015 -  There has been no further contact with the CPS in the last 12 months so that part of my life is over. Good!

August 2014 - I now owe my solicitor a fantastic sum – which I haven’t got – so I am going to have sell some of the shares that Mum and Dad left me. I don’t really understand why I as the victim should end up out of pocket and I will have to double check if the solicitor was joking when she said I could claim the money back off Nan and Granddad. 

August 2015 - I took legal action for compensation and they settled out of court so financially I am better off than I had expected to be.

August 2014 - Since Mum and Dad died so many people seem to have assumed that I already knew things that no normal teenager would ever need to know. It has been quite annoying and frustrating when legal and financial people imply that I’m stupid not knowing things that they regard as really obvious or really simple.

August 2015 - This is getting better. Now I have graduated, finished my PGCE and got a fulltime teaching post I feel like a proper grown-up and the emotional and experiential gap between me and other people of the same age seems to have shrunk.