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Making comparisons against various teachers has been something that youngsters have been doing for donkey's years, and when it comes to supply teachers, many of these comparisons made are more than worthwhile. Everyone who had gone to school has had a stint without their regular class teacher and they indeed had a succession of supply teachers in such a short space of time (or even "surprise teachers" as some youngster once referred to them as). After all, supply teacher often come in all different shapes and sizes, and abilities, and there were good ones and bad ones, which I had found out for myself back in the day. It often happened like this: the regular class teacher is off sick for at least three weeks during term time; or indeed, a regular class teacher is on maternity leave for the final part of the school year, and thus, it would probably be the last time that the class has her for their teacher, for when she comes back, at least a couple of years have passed by, and not only would they be in a new year and have a new teacher, but the probability is that they would have moved onto another school by virtue of turning 11. It was fascinating to see different sorts of handwriting appearing on the familiar blackboard, usually with the Miss X or Mrs Y as being one of the first words written on the board, not to mention the differences between them all; the conservative one wearing the grey pencil skirt versus the more liberally modern one wearing blue "keep-fit" leggings. Variety is indeed the spice of the life, and the different people in charge up-front certainly livened up school days and almost made up forget what our regular teacher actually looked like; after all, three weeks is a very long time to a 10 or 11 year old. I didn't think back then that having different teachers at once was an interruption to one's own education; after all, when it came to Comprehensive School just over a year later, one had a different teacher for each subject. I didn't want to wish ill on my regular teacher especially as she was under the weather anyway, but I really enjoyed this assortment of teachers who had came to us, and was keeping the seat of our regular teacher warm for when she eventually returned.
As a child I really enjoyed the children's book The Class That Went Wild, which was written by the late Ruth Thomas, a former Primary School teacher in which one assumes she is satirising her former job by writing about a class in a Junior School in which had a succession of supply teachers after their official teacher went on maternity leave prior to the start of the book, almost as a sort of side-lined memoir of what she had to put up with. In addition to being a former teacher herself, Thomas was actually born in Somerset in 1927 to two Primary School teachers. The spirit of Thomas' fiction is almost in true sub-Three-Seven-Eleven primary-phase rather than the long-standing Grange Hill secondary perspective, thus the chapters are presented in a nice soap opera-alike continuity which spreads itself across the 200-odd pages of the book, and no doubt that it would have made a 4.45 pm great TV drama if it had been adapted for such media. The story is written from the perspective of the Rundell twins, Gillian and Joseph, and it often gives the thoughts of Gillian via written letters to her teacher. The book explores issues such as shoplifting and bullying, and was set in around 1989 when it was written - this coincided with the year that I left Junior School myself, and so one could relate to a lot of the storylines in the book. Illustrations of characters in the book can be seen on the front cover of the original versions of the book; if one reads the inside, one can match the name to the person. This was Thomas' second children's book; her first one, The Runaways, had won the 1988 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.
That book had an influence on me after it was purchased in a Parents' Evening school book sale, and in particular the book is a strong focus of the subject of supply teachers, and the frequent change of supply teachers; the first one we meet, Mr Er-Er - his name is never given because no one knows it, probably not even the supply teacher himself. Then came Miss Croft who introduced a Project of homes around the world. She was nice and very popular with the boys such as Top Dog Sean Adams, and Croft seemed to be soft in a "Mr Scott from series ten of Grange Hill" sort of way. After four days, the children got bored with her project, and Croft makes her exit via her emotions. After a day of staying in other classes, and a period of being off school, an elderly teacher called Miss Beale arrives, an old colleague of the Headteacher's, becomes the new supply teacher, and as it was close to Christmas, the class was given a nativity play to rehearse. Unfortunately, Beale had family problems and was unable to return, and was soon replaced by Australian Miss Kennedy who lasted longer than the other supply teachers; beyond Christmas. Then, Kennedy takes her leave after a cruel practical joke is played on her. The timid Mrs Burnett, usually an infant School teacher, takes over, and even she leaves the same day. Then the Headteacher herself becomes the class teacher. And then Joseph goes missing. The book ends with the teacher's baby being born, as announced through Gillian's letters.
Thinking about my own school days in comparison to the book, there have been many instances that my class has had supply teachers. One of the first that I can remember was a woman who was Polish, and this was when my year didn't know much about Poland as we would have wanted to. The last year of Junior School, mirror imaging the year featured in Ruth Thomas' book, our regular teacher was off sick for three weeks prior to the half-term break, meaning that it was four weeks before we had her back again. Each day we more or less had a different teacher with our class, and most of them were "outsiders" and not incumbent members of teaching staff, although many of them had been in the school before and knew the repetition of how the school was run. Thursdays was the teacher's usual day off (not truanting of course!) and so that wasn't affected for her usual Thursday teacher was there instead. But it was fascinating that we had so many teachers in one week; one assumes that we only had the same teacher for no more than two days in a row for they were freelance and so had to go to another school the following day, and so another teacher had taken their place. My favourite was one who was quite nice (obviously) but was not too strict. The Deputy Head had a go as well. One teacher was one of those who I couldn't do right for doing wrong, but as I found out, she was a teacher at the same school before I started there, and she took maternity leave and was still on her leave when I started there, and so when she came back, she gave me an illusion that she was a new member of staff. When our regular teacher came back after the half-term break, she had a bit of fun writing down the names of all the supply teachers we had in those three weeks on the blackboard, before adding her own name to the list at the bottom.
A similar situation happened when an English teacher went on maternity leave and was off for at least a couple of years. We had a range of Base Cover teachers who were free at the right time, and even the odd supply teacher as well. She officially took her leave and we had a "permeant" teacher who was there for the remainder of the school year. Prior to this, we had s student teacher for the spring term and she had helped bridge the gap and allowed our regular English teacher to take time off. Other permeant teachers were hired for the next academic year, although she returned around two years later in time for my Year 10 GCSE English Literature period. The supply teacher foray made one want to go to school even more just to see who was in the chair, teacher-wise - a slight irony that the absence of the teacher encourages the pupil to be more present than usual. This "break from the norm" made school a bit like what it would be in the run up to Christmas or the end of the school year; it made school exciting and interesting, even if it was not intentional.
Did any of you have points in your school careers when your regular teacher was absent and you had a host of successive visiting supply teachers in around a couple of weeks? A regular class teacher's illness or maternity leave, perhaps? Are there any distinctive ones that you remember - were they mostly strict or soft, and did they stay very long? One never forgets their favourite teacher, and I don't think that people forget their favourite supply teachers either.
As a child I really enjoyed the children's book The Class That Went Wild, which was written by the late Ruth Thomas, a former Primary School teacher in which one assumes she is satirising her former job by writing about a class in a Junior School in which had a succession of supply teachers after their official teacher went on maternity leave prior to the start of the book, almost as a sort of side-lined memoir of what she had to put up with. In addition to being a former teacher herself, Thomas was actually born in Somerset in 1927 to two Primary School teachers. The spirit of Thomas' fiction is almost in true sub-Three-Seven-Eleven primary-phase rather than the long-standing Grange Hill secondary perspective, thus the chapters are presented in a nice soap opera-alike continuity which spreads itself across the 200-odd pages of the book, and no doubt that it would have made a 4.45 pm great TV drama if it had been adapted for such media. The story is written from the perspective of the Rundell twins, Gillian and Joseph, and it often gives the thoughts of Gillian via written letters to her teacher. The book explores issues such as shoplifting and bullying, and was set in around 1989 when it was written - this coincided with the year that I left Junior School myself, and so one could relate to a lot of the storylines in the book. Illustrations of characters in the book can be seen on the front cover of the original versions of the book; if one reads the inside, one can match the name to the person. This was Thomas' second children's book; her first one, The Runaways, had won the 1988 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.
That book had an influence on me after it was purchased in a Parents' Evening school book sale, and in particular the book is a strong focus of the subject of supply teachers, and the frequent change of supply teachers; the first one we meet, Mr Er-Er - his name is never given because no one knows it, probably not even the supply teacher himself. Then came Miss Croft who introduced a Project of homes around the world. She was nice and very popular with the boys such as Top Dog Sean Adams, and Croft seemed to be soft in a "Mr Scott from series ten of Grange Hill" sort of way. After four days, the children got bored with her project, and Croft makes her exit via her emotions. After a day of staying in other classes, and a period of being off school, an elderly teacher called Miss Beale arrives, an old colleague of the Headteacher's, becomes the new supply teacher, and as it was close to Christmas, the class was given a nativity play to rehearse. Unfortunately, Beale had family problems and was unable to return, and was soon replaced by Australian Miss Kennedy who lasted longer than the other supply teachers; beyond Christmas. Then, Kennedy takes her leave after a cruel practical joke is played on her. The timid Mrs Burnett, usually an infant School teacher, takes over, and even she leaves the same day. Then the Headteacher herself becomes the class teacher. And then Joseph goes missing. The book ends with the teacher's baby being born, as announced through Gillian's letters.
Thinking about my own school days in comparison to the book, there have been many instances that my class has had supply teachers. One of the first that I can remember was a woman who was Polish, and this was when my year didn't know much about Poland as we would have wanted to. The last year of Junior School, mirror imaging the year featured in Ruth Thomas' book, our regular teacher was off sick for three weeks prior to the half-term break, meaning that it was four weeks before we had her back again. Each day we more or less had a different teacher with our class, and most of them were "outsiders" and not incumbent members of teaching staff, although many of them had been in the school before and knew the repetition of how the school was run. Thursdays was the teacher's usual day off (not truanting of course!) and so that wasn't affected for her usual Thursday teacher was there instead. But it was fascinating that we had so many teachers in one week; one assumes that we only had the same teacher for no more than two days in a row for they were freelance and so had to go to another school the following day, and so another teacher had taken their place. My favourite was one who was quite nice (obviously) but was not too strict. The Deputy Head had a go as well. One teacher was one of those who I couldn't do right for doing wrong, but as I found out, she was a teacher at the same school before I started there, and she took maternity leave and was still on her leave when I started there, and so when she came back, she gave me an illusion that she was a new member of staff. When our regular teacher came back after the half-term break, she had a bit of fun writing down the names of all the supply teachers we had in those three weeks on the blackboard, before adding her own name to the list at the bottom.
A similar situation happened when an English teacher went on maternity leave and was off for at least a couple of years. We had a range of Base Cover teachers who were free at the right time, and even the odd supply teacher as well. She officially took her leave and we had a "permeant" teacher who was there for the remainder of the school year. Prior to this, we had s student teacher for the spring term and she had helped bridge the gap and allowed our regular English teacher to take time off. Other permeant teachers were hired for the next academic year, although she returned around two years later in time for my Year 10 GCSE English Literature period. The supply teacher foray made one want to go to school even more just to see who was in the chair, teacher-wise - a slight irony that the absence of the teacher encourages the pupil to be more present than usual. This "break from the norm" made school a bit like what it would be in the run up to Christmas or the end of the school year; it made school exciting and interesting, even if it was not intentional.
Did any of you have points in your school careers when your regular teacher was absent and you had a host of successive visiting supply teachers in around a couple of weeks? A regular class teacher's illness or maternity leave, perhaps? Are there any distinctive ones that you remember - were they mostly strict or soft, and did they stay very long? One never forgets their favourite teacher, and I don't think that people forget their favourite supply teachers either.