Well its been sometime really - first it was the hari raya break - had some friends over from sing so was busy entertaining them then the last four days was spent catching up with all the marking I had to do . When school started it was a mad rush to get things ready for the exams - like seating arrangement, invigilation schedule - that took me many many days even before the break but had to make adjustments, rules for the students - exam briefing for the rest of the teachers etc etc. This time I didnt want to address assembly as half the kids are not listening anyway so I delegating the going through of regulations to the form teachers - some teachers did the job while others gave the kids the copy of the rules on the day of the exams!
I started a new system this year of getting the kids to write their register numbers so it was easier to organise the scripts. ( might seem strange to u but the practice does not exist here) This time in the exam committee i also delegated a lot more of the jobs so I gave the job of seating arrangement to this local teacher and she did the labels of the tables and all -with problem the labels had the kids registration number - those 4 digit with letters - something like a student ID number. My fault - i assumed she knew what was register number so on the first day of the exams had to physically go and change the numbers of all the tables. I wasnt really angry with her as I am slowing getting the local teachers to take over these duties and the learning process will involve mistakes. So the first day was a bit messy but it got better on the next few days as everyone got used to all procedures in place.
Had group marking for English papers and that threw off a few people who had not been English teachers before coz I insisted that each English paper be marked by two markers who would then sit and discuss if there are any that had a high range or else to average it out. They couldnt understand why we had to do it that way but it keeps the marking standard and free from bias. I have also learnt to be firm when I need something done and not to distracted by arguments that these untrained pple come up with - its pointless otherwise.
For the sec 1 and 2 - I divided the marking into 4 - 2 pple for compo and compre 1 person and grammar another person. Before taking the scripts home I reminded them to chk they had all their scripts - the 2 teachers in sec 1 doing compre and grammar did not chk so last mon came bk saying they had mixed their piles and all. Anyway we sorted it out and continued with their marking - On Fri abt a week after the exams, I decided to help to record all the marks and as I was looking through the piles and found a script missing - the teacher marking it didnt even know the script was missing so we hunted high and low for it - I went to ask the invigilators and all. Then the other marker walks in coolly at the end of the day - I casually mention that a script is missing and we might have to get the student to resit and he decides to chk his drawer and lo behold! its there - he had an extra script - had it all the time and didn't say anything. To him it was no big deal. I really wanted to smack him on the head but of coz kept my cool and refrained! Just exclaimed he had it and walked away.
This marker is a Canadian who is fresh out of Uni and behaves like a schoolkid at times which exasperates the rest of the staff. When he first came, the girls all went crazy and used to scream like groupies behind a rockstar everytime he walked down the corridor. Once he started teaching though, the noise all but disappeared and now the kids just exclaim " That BULE" ( Orang Bule - its pronounced as boo-le is the local equivalent of ang-moh) They complain abt his teaching that he's not very committed and doesnt explain and all. When u give him instructions he scrunches his eyebrows and looks confused as if u are giving some mammoth task to do when really its just a matter of collecting answer sheets and question papers seperately. It makes u wonder why these pple decide to teach when they can't be responsible for themselves in the first place. It brings me to the debate if anyone can walk in and just teach but enough of that - that will be another blog entry for another dayl.