Overheard in the staffroom

20th October 2006, 1:00am

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Overheard in the staffroom

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/overheard-staffroom-14
The TES online forums are a hotbed of debate. Here is just a taste of what users are saying this week. Join the discussion at: www.tes.co.ukstaffroom

BEST AND WORST OF TEACHERS

eha: Best: Being able, every September, to dredge up from some forgotten source some residue of energy left over from a lifetime of rolling the boulder uphill, and starting all over again. Worst: So many teachers survive so near the line, they have no energy left to support those who are struggling.

NuffSaid: Best: A complete optimism that perhaps, one day that little sod will actually do something positive in your class! Worst? Determination to have the last word and stay on top of that castle! Correcting mistakes in grammar at parties.

Sevena: Repeating everything at least twice to get the point across. After all, unless we say things in different ways someone might not understand.

IRRITATING SAYINGS

Whiskas: Excellence. We are part of an ‘Excellence’ Cluster. We are a bunch of city schools trying our best with a creative curriculum. Innovative, brave and a little entrepreneurial, yes. But excellent? At what?

Cym: We all know that these sayings mean little or are reinvented labels.

People complete the same insets and courses yet these phrases still exist and grow.

HOUSEHOLDS WITHOUT BOOKS

Cariadwch: The only book in my nephew’s house is the Argos catalogue.

Cuteinpuce: Some people never read a book from one year to the next but are still successful and fulfilled. It is possible to have fully rounded human beings in whom literary skill is peripheral.

Jubilee: In an English class last week, I quickly read the relevant chapter so I could help the pupils with the set work. One boy commented: “Who’d be a teacher? Imagine having to read when you go to work! You only read at school because you’re forced to!”

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