Teaching in different classrooms....the little things that annoy me

catmother · 07-11-2014 1:27pm #1

As a secondary school teacher, I am travelling around a very large school and working out of 12 different classrooms. This in itself is a major logistics nighmare as consecutive classes are often at opposite ends of the building.
We do not have computers in the room but have a latop so I have to haul around the laptop, school bag, resources, copies ... Up and down stairs, through rush hour traffic in the corridors. So when I get to my next classroom one of two things is usually the issue:
1) I'm late because I've had to trek my way to the room
2) The teacher who is in the room before me is still in there and takes thier time leaving.

In the case of 1) & 2) above it then takes time to get set up and get sorted so at least 7 minutes are used up before we even begin class.

On top of this then I regularly come up with the following issues:

A)The teacher whos room I'm in will complain that they are out of thier room and huff and puff about having to take their few bits for the 40 minutes and go to the staffroom .

Some teachers will continually interrupt the class to come in and out for bits and pieces throughout the class, waltz right in wfithout knocking or apologising.
C) Some have such a messy desk that there is nowhere to leave books down or to even take out a laptop.
D) Every inch of the white board was used in the last lesson and when you get to the room they walk out and leave it covered so that after all the time youve spend getting to the class, waiting on them to leave, find a space on the floor for your own stuff, set up the computer, you then have to go and remove every little piece of writing off the board.

Anyone else have these little things that annoy them?????

evolving_doors · 07-11-2014 7:10pm

jeez I move quite a bit but its mostly teacher based room system. If a teacher who owns a room interrupts or stays to long its profuse apologies on their part.

Common courtesy to get your stuff off the board for the next teacher.. at the very least they could delegate to the 'class pet!'.

But yes the junk on the table annoys me, sometimes there isnt space to put a pen (despite having presses)..sometimes I re-arrange it a little out of petty malice

, and rob their markers if im short.

Every year there is a general housekeeping reminder at staff meeting. And the issue of teachers with no base room is highlighted. As well as clearing the table out of courtesy.

Also if I get to a room and the teacher is inside 'loitering' I give the nod to the students outside to pile in ... rather than me going in first having to politely tell them that I need the room. If they get given out to I remind the teacher that 'theyre timetabled in here now'. The sense of entitlement gets on my goat though.

If its causing you grief then get some support from other 'wanderers' and bring it to management to be raised at next meeting. I bet its probably causing others grief too

Pinkycharm · 07-11-2014 7:40pm

I had a major row last year with a sub teacher who was sharing my room- I was in it for 20 classes a week and she was in it for 6. So I arranged the tables to suit the 31 leaving cert students I had for Irish (which was my biggest class in the room for the week) rather than her 12 2nd years for music.

Everyday she changed my seating plan. Everyday there were more instruments lying around. All the free classes she would sit inside it and not let me in- we were the only two in and out bar two resource classes a week. When it was me in the room she would insist I be out early but she could walk freely into my classes to get a book or take her god given time leaving the room. She insisted that she was told it was a music room and took down all my handmade posters and put up her ancient music composer ones. My books/class copies that were arranged neatly on desks at the back of the room were thrown literally into a pile in a filing cabinet which she had the key to. She took the projector box key with remote and markers and forgot to give it back at the end of the year,

Nightmare.

What was predominantly an Irish/Geography classroom with a "visiting music class" who only used it for theory, turned into a concert hall with choir practice etc over the 5 months or so.

She was only covering a maternity leave and in our school whoever is in a shared room the most can set the tables but wall space is divided equally. She didn't understand this and didn't want to but I drew the line fairly quick and ended up with my seating plan and her posters on the wall.

When I was a sub, I would never have dreamed of doing that to a teacher who was there full time.

RealJohn · 07-11-2014 8:51pm

That's terrible behaviour Pinky. Whatever about putting her own posters up, taking yours down is completely unacceptable, as is repeatedly rearranging your classroom layout. If you're using someone else's class, you try not to disrupt them too much. Obviously you have to run your class the best way you know how but that sort of behaviour isn't on.

catmother wrote: »

C) Some have such a messy desk that there is nowhere to leave books down or to even take out a laptop.

I'm guilty of this. Apologies on behalf of my fellow desk hoarders.

dory · 08-11-2014 1:19am

We've been talking for ages about creating a rooms system like this. Right now the whole school are wanderers. I'm damn glad we have the system we have now! WE all have our own work spaces in the work room and that does us fine.

evolving_doors · 08-11-2014 1:23am

RealJohn wrote: »

That's terrible behaviour Pinky. Whatever about putting her own posters up, taking yours down is completely unacceptable, as is repeatedly rearranging your classroom layout. If you're using someone else's class, you try not to disrupt them too much. Obviously you have to run your class the best way you know how but that sort of behaviour isn't on.

I'm guilty of this. Apologies on behalf of my fellow desk hoarders.

On behalf of all wanderers I'm going to... mix up your books, steal your markers (and leave the dud ones), and deface the pictures in your books so you'll have to leave the class in tears of laughter while the students are puzzled, dusters above the board...then whoopee cushions ..the works.

The Hdip incident above is strange too, maybe that 'obliviousness to courtesy' will get them far.

Pinkycharm · 08-11-2014 2:06am

RealJohn wrote: »

That's terrible behaviour Pinky. Whatever about putting her own posters up, taking yours down is completely unacceptable, as is repeatedly rearranging your classroom layout. If you're using someone else's class, you try not to disrupt them too much. Obviously you have to run your class the best way you know how but that sort of behaviour isn't on.

I'm guilty of this. Apologies on behalf of my fellow desk hoarders.

I know she was a few years older than me so felt I couldn't give out to her even though it was mainly my room

gaeilgebeo · 08-11-2014 7:52pm

Oh the memories...........:cool:

gaeilgebeo · 08-11-2014 8:09pm

Pinkycharm wrote: »

So I arranged the tables to suit the 31 leaving cert students I had for Irish .

Why were you teaching over 30 students?

rainbowtrout · 08-11-2014 11:30pm

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

Why were you teaching over 30 students?

It's not uncommon at the moment. There are classes in my school with 32-33 in them.

I'm also a wanderer and experience a range of the issues in the OP. I find when teachers area assigned classrooms or in my case labs they do not ever want to move. They don't even want you in there when they have a free class. The sheer ignorance and sense of entitlement I have dealt with over the years is unbelievable. I have been one step away from telling them that if they drop dead in the morning someone else will be teaching in their room, on many occasions.

gaeilgebeo · 08-11-2014 11:34pm

rainbowtrout wrote: »

It's not uncommon at the moment. There are classes in my school with 32-33 in them.

Really? I am shocked at this.
Is it not against union directives to take over 30 in a classroom?
Would you be covered if something happened?
Even for insurance reasons?

Don't mean to go off-topic!

I have my own class-room and would never treat teachers using my room like the examples mentioned above. I remember how hard it was being a nomad.

Pinkycharm · 09-11-2014 12:38am

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

Why were you teaching over 30 students?

Only one pass class for senior Irish so i was lumped with them all. The other higher level teachers just wanted higher level students in their classes but ended up with some anyways. This year ive 28 but i know it will be back up after xmas exams.

Boober Fraggle · 09-11-2014 12:09pm

I think you shouldn't be asked by management to teach over 30 but you can offer.

Sometimes works out that way in our school too. I'd rather have 31 in one year than be dealing with mixed levels in every year.

Cups of tea left behind by nomads are my gripe. One in particular leaves a half cup every week during the same class period.

A bit of consideration on all sides and there should be no problem with sharing rooms.

byhookorbycrook · 09-11-2014 10:46pm

Boober Fraggle wrote: »

I think you shouldn't be asked by management to teach over 30 but you can offer .

No choice in primary!!
My pet peeves: stuffy rooms, bags not under tables- trip hazard and children leaving chairs out when they move and then PUSHING them in instead of lifting them.
Yup, I'm officially old and cranky.

Red Alert · 10-11-2014 11:31am

I'm in an IoT so nobody really "owns" any of the rooms. But my big bugbears are people who leave the PC logged on, adjust the screen resolution and then don't put it back, and especially who don't wipe down the whiteboard after use.

spurious · 10-11-2014 12:59pm

Red Alert wrote: »

I'm in an IoT so nobody really "owns" any of the rooms. But my big bugbears are people who leave the PC logged on, adjust the screen resolution and then don't put it back, and especially who don't wipe down the whiteboard after use.

Or people for whom the PC 'just breaks' and they don't bother to tell you or anyone else.

mirrorwall14 · 10-11-2014 6:17pm

I will admit I am one of the messier teachers, no matter how often I clear my desk I seem to have stuff on it

I will say though that I'm not in anyway pedantic and my sharing teachers know to just shove stuff out of the way. 99% of the time I remember to have the room desks back in order for any teacher coming in but the odd time I will forget. The desks usually go back for practical classes in music. Again however I will apologise profusely to whoever it is!

aunt aggie · 10-11-2014 6:48pm

Red Alert wrote: »

I'm in an IoT so nobody really "owns" any of the rooms. But my big bugbears are people who leave the PC logged on, adjust the screen resolution and then don't put it back, and especially who don't wipe down the whiteboard after use.

I'm a wanderer and usually just get on with it and try to stay out of other peoples way. Make a real effort to leave the place like I found it. The kids complain more about the moving around than I do.

But today I went into a classroom after waiting patiently outside for several minutes. No duster to clean the board. I tried using my scarf cause there was nothing else to hand, but this text taking up the whole whiteboard must have been there since last Friday and wouldn't just rub off. Sent a kid to get a duster and with a lot of elbow grease I got it all off. What a waste of ten minutes.

The teacher who regularly uses that room had been in there before me. The hand over between our two classes is getting very sloppy as my kids are used to waiting for her to leave the room and I usually turn up to find them behaving badly in the corridors. Really starting to get on my nerves but as other posters have said there isn't much you can do.

catmother · 11-11-2014 10:27am

you don't know how good it is to hear of others suffering out there too!!! I was having a bad day and needed to vent it all but I feel much better that there are people in worse situations than me! The ould "sure we all had to do it" line really irritates after a while doesn't it!!!

Meangadh · 13-11-2014 11:09pm

I think I love this thread! It is so annoying having to move about. I'm in my 5th year teaching in my school and I really should have my own room by now after retirements and all that but for one reason or another it hasn't happened.

I'm mostly based in one room but for about 12 classes I have to move. One teacher in particular takes the absolute piss and can take up to 10 minutes to organize herself before she leaves and I have to just carry on teaching with her in the room. Then students always interrupt because another teacher sends them down to get stuff. Aaaagh! Rant!

Just on the large classes, a few of the classes in our school have between 30-34 in them. Crazy really, trying to do Leaving Cert higher level subjects with that many in the room.

Anyway, yeah- roll on having my own room!

gaeilgebeo · 13-11-2014 11:31pm

Meangadh wrote: »

Just on the large classes, a few of the classes in our school have between 30-34 in them.

Why are people breaking union directive?
Why are we not pushing this back on the dept. if resources/staffing aren't there?
If this creeps in, sure they could up the pupil teacher ratio.
There is not a hope in hell anyone in my school would take over 30 in a general subject or 24(not sure of the exact number) in a practical subject.

joebloggs32 · 13-11-2014 11:41pm

Meangadh wrote: »

I think I love this thread! It is so annoying having to move about. I'm in my 5th year teaching in my school and I really should have my own room by now after retirements and all that but for one reason or another it hasn't happened.

I'm mostly based in one room but for about 12 classes I have to move. One teacher in particular takes the absolute piss and can take up to 10 minutes to organize herself before she leaves and I have to just carry on teaching with her in the room. Then students always interrupt because another teacher sends them down to get stuff. Aaaagh! Rant!

Just on the large classes, a few of the classes in our school have between 30-34 in them. Crazy really, trying to do Leaving Cert higher level subjects with that many in the room.

Anyway, yeah- roll on having my own room!

My pet peeve as a wanderer is the computers and projectors. I have about half my time in one room and as soon as there is any IT issue I log it and follow it up to make sure it is sorted fairly quickly. However in some rooms I go to inhabited by shall we say the non IT literate staff problems can be left lingering for weeks.

joebloggs32 · 13-11-2014 11:42pm

gaeilgebeo wrote: »

Why are people breaking union directive?
Why are we not pushing this back on the dept. if resources/staffing aren't there?
If this creeps in, sure they could up the pupil teacher ratio.
There is not a hope in hell anyone in my school would take over 30 in a general subject or 24(not sure of the exact number) in a practical subject.

More and more people are not unionised so directives mean little to them

katydid · 14-11-2014 12:32am

catmother wrote: »

As a secondary school teacher, I am travelling around a very large school and working out of 12 different classrooms. This in itself is a major logistics nighmare as consecutive classes are often at opposite ends of the building.
We do not have computers in the room but have a latop so I have to haul around the laptop, school bag, resources, copies ... Up and down stairs, through rush hour traffic in the corridors. So when I get to my next classroom one of two things is usually the issue:
1) I'm late because I've had to trek my way to the room
2) The teacher who is in the room before me is still in there and takes thier time leaving.

In the case of 1) & 2) above it then takes time to get set up and get sorted so at least 7 minutes are used up before we even begin class.

On top of this then I regularly come up with the following issues:

A)The teacher whos room I'm in will complain that they are out of thier room and huff and puff about having to take their few bits for the 40 minutes and go to the staffroom .
Some teachers will continually interrupt the class to come in and out for bits and pieces throughout the class, waltz right in wfithout knocking or apologising.
C) Some have such a messy desk that there is nowhere to leave books down or to even take out a laptop.
D) Every inch of the white board was used in the last lesson and when you get to the room they walk out and leave it covered so that after all the time youve spend getting to the class, waiting on them to leave, find a space on the floor for your own stuff, set up the computer, you then have to go and remove every little piece of writing off the board.

Anyone else have these little things that annoy them?????

I have the same problems in terms of moving around, but apart from science rooms and the likes, no teacher has a room of their own, so there's no issue with someone coming in and interrupting your class.

I think that is very rude, and it's surprising that a fellow teacher would be so inconsiderate.

Maybe you could bring it up at a staff meeting, or ask the principal to put in on the agenda so the issue isn't focused on you. Just to ask people to be considerate to their colleagues in this regard.

It might reduce one area of stress. Not much more you can do about the rest of it.

What I had is that I give out to the students when they are late, but I am so often late, even though it's not my fault, so it's hard to maintain credibility in this regard.

katydid · 14-11-2014 12:35am

Pinkycharm wrote: »

Only one pass class for senior Irish so i was lumped with them all. .

You don't have to be. Just put your foot down. There's a union directive...that means if you're a union member you must refuse.

katydid · 14-11-2014 12:40am

Boober Fraggle wrote: »

.

Sometimes works out that way in our school too. I'd rather have 31 in one year than be dealing with mixed levels in every year.

.

It's not about what you'd "rather". You are undermining your fellow teachers whose union has directed them not to teach over 30 students. If you're a union member, you should go along with the union directive, and if you're not, you should respect it.

Of course it makes things easier in the short term if you go along with small infringements, but the whole point of the directive is to reduce class sizes for everyone eventually.

the_syco · 14-11-2014 1:37am

I'm thinking the subs and new teachers who fear being let go, do the 34 student classrooms because they want to keep their job? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the unions can't help you if you're let go the next year.

Meangadh · 14-11-2014 1:44am

So what happens to the students who want to do higher level but there isn't room for them? Where do they go? Like if the department aren't willing to pay another teacher then what are we or they supposed to do? I suppose in the case of my school we are really really lucky in that there are really few discipline problems so at least we don't have to deal with that even with the big numbers. But definitely correction loads are huge and space is a massive problem.

...don't want to derail this thread though, if someone wants to start a new thread about it I'll post there!

katydid · 14-11-2014 12:27pm

the_syco wrote: »

I'm thinking the subs and new teachers who fear being let go, do the 34 student classrooms because they want to keep their job? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the unions can't help you if you're let go the next year.

I know long serving teachers who break the directive. I fully understand subs and part timers doing it, but anyone with a permanent contract should refuse.

katydid · 14-11-2014 12:29pm

Meangadh wrote: »

So what happens to the students who want to do higher level but there isn't room for them? Where do they go? Like if the department aren't willing to pay another teacher then what are we or they supposed to do? I suppose in the case of my school we are really really lucky in that there are really few discipline problems so at least we don't have to deal with that even with the big numbers. But definitely correction loads are huge and space is a massive problem.

...don't want to derail this thread though, if someone wants to start a new thread about it I'll post there!

What happens is that if union members are consistent and refuse to cooperate, the Department will HAVE to come up with the goods. Why should teachers carry the slack for the Department? Class numbers are already too big at thirty as it is.

It's nothing to do with discipline problems, or even corrections for the teacher, but about the learning experience for the students. Of course one student extra in a class is not going to make a huge difference, but it's the principle of the thing.

gaiscioch · 15-11-2014 4:10am

catmother wrote: »

Teaching in different classrooms....the little things that annoy me

In fairness to you, you're doing grand if moving around classes like a spáilpín is only a "little" thing. In my first job, in what I now see was a very poorly managed school, I was not only moved all over the place, but most of the time I had to bring my 30 students into one of the science labs which held only 24 students. A newly qualified teacher in a school trying to assert himself in that environment can only end in failure when you realise the school management gave that "timetable" to a newbie. After eight weeks of 33 classes per week doing that I quit. Two months later I got a better job in a better school having spoken frankly in the interview about what conditions I would expect. I was not prepared to work in any school which would treat me like that. And neither, in my view, should any Irish teacher sell out their mental health and happiness to any school "management" like that.

implausible · 15-11-2014 1:04pm

This thread has been an eye-opener, I might start tidying my desk and room a bit!:o

Teaching in different classrooms....the little things that annoy me

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