Discussions, Reviews, Opinions...

Five Things I Don't Like About My School - Moany Monday

Hello, I'm starting this 'book' for just general use, for example book reviews and opinions/discussions on various things. If you want a book review please message me with a link or if you want something for me to discuss/talk about, again, message me with what it is.

 My first upload in this is going to be about five things I don't like about my school.

I go to a secondary school which is split across two sites. At the lower campus we have year seven, eight and nine and a the upper campus we have year ten, eleven and two years of sixth form. My school is actually really small compared to other secondary schools, but because it's split between two sites it seems bigger.

In the UK, we have this inspection team called Ofsted. They basically inspect the school and write a report based on what they think of the school. This report and rating goes towards the ranking of the school and whether parents send their children to that school or look for another. The rating is out of five; one being the best and five being the lowest. Overall, in my school's last inspection in September 2013, we got a one, which means our school is pretty good.

You may be thinking; what's bad about Ofsted then? The Ofsted inspectors give the school like a days warning. This doesn't seem like much, but as my school have proved, it is long enough to hold an emergency assembly and point out a bunch of letters that all end up in the bin or littered around the school.

In the assembly my school had, they pretty much said that it's not the teachers who are assessed, it's the teamwork between the students and staff they're looking at, which explains why in the report it had like twelve pages about teaching and safety of students and none about teamwork.. The teacher running the assembly also told us that if our behaviour was bad, it would mean that the school would get a bad report and it would mean we can't get a job or get into a good sixth form or uni.

For the next two days that Ofsted were present in our school, we had teachers greeting us at the gates, making extremely fun lessons/lesson plans and just generally acting fake and trying their hardest to look good. Well that was a fun two days.

My second problem with my school is attendance. My school has this thing where they try to get everyone in for 95% of the time we have each year. They do things like give away vouchers for people with over 95% attendance, so basically, they're bribing us. But they also have this theory that for every five percent of our attendance at school we miss, we will go down by one grade. Thanks for the encouragement, school. I don't think it's fair how they try to 'scare' us into being at school, if the school was better, people would want to be there.

We also get no free time throughout the school day, apart from lunch and break, which they have to give us. Each day, we are suppose to get twenty minutes of break and thirty minutes of lunch.

However, the bell goes at 11, signalling break, and the teachers THEN tell us to pack up. By the time we have packed up and been dismissed, five minutes has passed. The bell then goes at 11:15 so we have time to get to our lessons on time, which has left us with ten minutes of break. Thanks school. Roughly the same happens with lunchtimes too, apart from the bell goes as the lesson starts at the end of lunch and then we get in trouble for being late for lesson, which sometimes results in loss of free time. We cannot win.

My forth hate about my school is homework. My school has recently began using a site called 'Show My Homework' if you haven't heard of it or your school doesn't use it, you are so lucky. It's basically an online way for teachers to record your homework, grades and attendance. If you do not hand in a piece of homework, they can record it as 'over due' or 'did not complete.' This seems absolutely fine, but, the site has a way of your parents logging in so they can see exactly what you are completing and working at.

I don't actually see the need for homework or revision since I'm getting my grades by putting minimal effort into homework and simply not revising and I agree with Emma Blackery when she talks about how school work is for school, not home and it's not our fault if the teachers cannot fit the work into the actual lessons. [I will link it to the side]

My final problem with school is the teachers and lessons. Is that two hates or one? I have gone through the past four or so years of school arguing with my teachers about my views and opinions in lessons such as math, PSHE and RE, which is brilliant, if you want to annoy your teachers, but not great if you're trying to avoid trouble. I don't actually take RE anymore, but I use to enjoy the banter I would have with my teacher, which was fun and he didn't get annoyed. However, my PSHE teacher, the head of the upper campus, does not find it funny or fun in any way, she just gets really annoyed, which honestly is amusing.

The thing I don't like about lessons/teachers is that, especially in maths, I will do the work and my teacher will be like 'it's wrong' or will blantantly ignore my work or if I have a question, she'll ignore it or ask what it is then walk off, I had this problem with my science teacher last year as well and the two things I hate most, which at least one of my teachers do for each, are being ignored and being accused of lying. Since I also manage to work out math problems by simply looking at the numbers, I also get accused of cheating, copying or guessing quite a lot, when I really don't.

My PE teacher/s frequently accuse me of lying. I have hypermobility in everyone of my joints, which for those who don't know what it is, it literally means 'more movement' in my joints, meaning my muscles are weaker and I struggle with physical things. It is also effected by cold weather so around this time of the year is when I get most trouble. Regardless of the pain I receive, I still do tennis and football, but this for some reason doesn't make my teachers see that I do in fact want to do the lesson. But if the teachers find out that I have hypermobility, they take an automatic dislike to me because they think I will be a pain or try to get out of lesson, which I really don't. So I stopped letting the teacher know that I have it and although I will try my hardest, if I get pain, I have to stop. When I do get pain, if I tell the teacher, they often think I'm making it up because I've coped up until then or I've never mentioned it again. Two years or so ago, I tried explaining how I had a really sharp pain in my wrist and arm and my teacher still made me do rounders and I ended up missing PE for about six months because I could not put pressure of my wrist. On the bright side it proved I wasn't lying, but I have just started getting trouble with my PE teachers again, which sucks, but I know from past years, walking out of lesson generally gets you in loads of trouble, but also causes you to be listened to because after lecturing you, they ask you why you did it then you can explain.

So, I don't like lessons/teachers because of being ignored or accused of lying.

Comment with five things you hate about school and if you agree/disagree with the points I've listen. Also, if you've got any school stories you have, share them below, I might do a 'Public School Stories' post and have a collection of school stories from people on it? I also might do five things I like about school, if I can think of any.

Thanks for reading