Post graduate conference at the University of Birmingham

Yesterday, I attended the post graduate conference at the university of Birmingham. It was my first time over there. I really enjoyed every aspect of the day, be it, the posters, the interesting presentations and most of all the keynote address by Professor Diane Reay from the University of Cambridge.

Professor Reay spoke about the habitus, Bourdieu and  English working class students. How these students are at a disadvantage, as they do not have enough cultural capital when compared with their more middle-class peers. We must take away the competition and work more on collaboration.

The posters were all of a high quality (including mine!) which can be found below. The subjects ranged from students perceptions on their alternative education to apprentice ship learning, from Algerian and Chinese students mental well being to the well being of first year undergraduates.

I also attended several presentations, which, although not related to my area of studies, were also highly interesting and informative. These included those about the history of grammar schools in Manchester, Pupils premium, Syrian refugee children and also others about ontology and discourse.

I would like to thank the organisers of this conference. Well done and I hope  to see the University of Birmingham students at the PG conference which will be held at the University of Warwick next 11^th May, 2019.



The poster which I presented yesterday at the post graduate conference organised by the School of Education, University of Birmingham.

Preparation for Half Yearly Exams

Exam preparation is a crucial thing in our system. In fact, SMT have started collecting the half yearly papers since the end of October. The Half yearly exams are held in February, with the next session due to start in mid-February 2019. The exams will last two weeks.

Apart from collecting the scripts, we as SMT, have started preparing for the amount of photocopies of exam papers that need to be ordered. This is done on an excel sheet and next week will be sent to the persons concerned. 

Before the Christmas recess, my colleagues in charge of year 10 and 11 have to work together to finalise the exam timetable. This will become available to the students when we enter back to school in the first week of January. After giving out the timetable, then we will work on the invigilation schedule, and who is marking whose exam papers.

 Exams are a normal process in schools, taken for granted by everybody. As a teacher, I had never realised that it involved so much preparation. These new experiences are helping me to grow and are also making this year more and more memorable.

Are psycho-social services working in schools?

The psycho-social meeting  at our school was held this week. What should have been done at the beginning of October, was done in the middle of November. My first impression was that something was not on. As the assistant head of the year 9s, with the latter being new to the school, I should have been alerted to these most sensitive cases immediately. In fact, the other way has happened.

The meeting consisted of me telling them who I know about and what I have done, in my capacity to support these students. When I told them that I should have been alerted first, especially since this is my first year as assistant head and also as the students have started a new school, I was met with blank stares.

Such meetings should be held at the beginning of every school year, so that the assistant head in charge does not stumble upon the person with problems, by chance, as has happened to me. I have come to know these students and their problems quite by chance, as I have described in my previous blogs.  Knowing about these students before would have helped in handling their cases better.

To add insult to injury, psycho-social services cannot help two particular students, as nothing else can be done for them. So what is the exact role of the prefect of discipline, counsellor and other staff? How come that other students are being deprived of their learning because these students refuse to learn. Are these students going to have to put up with these two particular students for the remaining years of their secondary education? How come this resistance about talking to John (mentioned in a previous blog)? He is already known by the psycho-social services that he has problems at home. Can he be supported? Why do I have to fill referral forms when he is already known to them?

A solution needs to be found and quickly. When I stated this opinion aloud, I was met with a wall of silence. 

Anonymous phone calls at school

Last Thursday dawned a fine day. It was also one of those hectic days where I felt rushed off my feet.

My office is in a big room situated in the middle of the corridor, where I can have a view of the going about of the students. I share my office with my colleague who is in charge of year 11. 

The first thing that struck me, when I was first shown my office was the view.The view is brilliant as you can see different parts of Malta as far away as the sea. However, my colleague quickly told me that I would not have a lot of time to mull over the view. How right she was!!

So on Thursday, my colleague called in sick. This was a huge blow for me. It was the first time that I was going to handle both the year 9s and year 11s. This was double the work, but I was up to the challenge.

Then at around 10 in the morning, an anonymous phone call came in, reporting a teacher. I made it clear that I did not accept such types of phone calls and that she has to identify herself. The woman replied that she would not as it did not make a difference to me. A short battle of words ensued, where she threatened to report me higher up, that is to the higher echelons in the Education Department, that I was not doing my work and that I did not care about my students. I told her that she would still need to identify herself to report me. At that point, she hung up.

I must admit that her attitude really got me down at that moment, but then, I realized that I had a multitude of things to do and continued with my chores. All in a day's work!

The view from my office

The Christmas Crib Competition

Now, that mid-term has passed, all educators look forward to the next six week block. This is an exciting time for us at school, as it leads to the two-week break connected with Christmas. A myriad of events are organised in our school. One staple feature of the run-up to Christmas is the Christmas crib competition. The poster is shown below.

The main point of this competition is that besides making the students think about the significance of Christmas, they also use a variety of recycled materials.  In addition, the school is decorated with the cribs that the students themselves would have done. This enhances in the students their sense of pride and ownership of the school.

The competition opened this week. My year 9s showed a lot of interest and asked a lot of intelligent questions about what they could use or could not, to build a crib. The staff and I are looking forward to the end of this month to be see what the students would have created.

How mental health is affected by the situation at home: a student's example

This week, while patrolling the corridor, I came across John (not his real name), crying all alone in the corridor. It is very unusual to find somebody outside the classroom during lesson time. I have been drumming into my year 9's that a forty minute lesson has to last forty minutes and they have to make the most of it. They are following this maxim to the hilt.

So, I was immediately concerned when I saw John all alone. I ushered him to my office and let him calm down. He took a glass of water which I offered and slowly, his crying subsided. When asked what happened, he said that there was nothing amiss. Everything was fine both at school and at home. He would not explain his sudden outburst of crying, which occurred when he was going back to his class after visiting the bathroom. He said that recently he started having these fits of crying. The latter comment started the bells ringing. He asked leave to go back to the lesson and I accompanied him there to show the teacher that he had been with me.

On my return to the office, I phone home. The person who answered was his grandmother, and when asked about John's well-being, a whole sad story tumbled out. John's mother had him when she was only 15 years old. She does not know who the father is. John also has a younger brother, also from an unknown father. The grandmother, a widow, is doing her utmost to bring up the two children well. 

However, she admitted that John was suffering mentally, possibly even from depression, as his mother was aggressive towards him and his brother. In addition, the mother left the siblings all alone while she went out partying in the weekends. All these things were affecting John badly. His grandmother added that in middle school, he had been followed by the college counsellor. I promised that I would do my utmost so that John benefits from this service in our school and hung up.

Next Wednesday, there is a scheduled a meeting with the college psycho-social team. John's name is going to top the list.

My Ph.D studies

This year we had five days of mid term holidays, including Saturday and Sunday. In Malta,  up till a few years ago, on the 1st and 2nd November, we celebrated All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. Now, these feasts have been superseded by Halloween.

These days have helped me to unwind from the school and also to concentrate on my Ph.D. Currently, I am in the fourth year of my studies, which I am doing on a part-time basis with the University of Warwick.  I am studying the perceptions of students who are involved in an alternative education programme. This means that these students follow a different curriculum than their peers, even though they attend a mainstream school.

Thus, my main research question is: How do students who are on the verge of early school leaving, and who have a track record of absenteeism perceive the alternative education provided to them?

I gathered the data last scholastic year between October 2017 and June 2018. The methodology used was of a qualitative nature.Twenty students were interviewed out of their free will. These were chosen at random and asked about their perceptions on the education that they were receiving. The interviews were conducted one to one at a time which was convenient to both of us. Each interview lasted between 15 and 20 minutes. The interviews were held in Maltese, the students' native language. 

During the interview, the students were asked a series of semi-structured questions, which the students expanded upon. All interviews were digitally recorded. Currently, I am translating these interviews into English and transcribing them. I hope to write a blog soon about my findings.