Not this year, she ain't!

I used to think I was a disciplinarian, that I had such great discipline in my class. And I do. I mean, my classes work, and pay attention, on the whole. I've realised though, that I'm not actually all that strict. I achieve what I do by making my lessons interesting, but I don't actually set the highest standards for my classes in terms of what I want them to achieve. Oh, I talk a good talk, but I've realised that anyone who watches me teach any class other than a top set will quickly realise that my expectations of mixed ability and bottom set groups is low, and that becomes a self-fulling prophecy.

As with most teachers, I guess, I focussed on certain things, and left other things undone, unnoticed, or deliberately ignored. (Others, like chewing gum, I spot a mile away. Don't bother coming near me with gum in your mouth - I will see it, and you will be punished.) Because of the nature of teenagers, this ultimately led to difficulties later in the year, as the kids pushed boundaries to find out how elastic they were, and I got increasingly tired of battling the same fires.

While I recognise what is possible for me given my personality type, level of involvement at school and at home, something had to change. Why? Because I have a class of kids who have been specially placed in my class purely on the basis that they are underperforming. This year, I have taken upon myself, as subject head, the responsibility for sorting these kids out. Huge task. (I speak as someone who was an underperformer at school, and thus as one who has been at the receiving end of many programmes to attempt to make me perform.) Maybe impossible. Yet, I have to try. Thus, in this one class I have made an agreement with myself that I will sweat the small stuff. The talk I talk must match the walk I walk. They must achieve 50% or more, because I say so, because they are capable of it, because it's good for them. To do so though, means that I have to sweat the small stuff with this group. I simply have to set the standard and refuse to deviate.

Some in this class have been taught by me before. They were expecting me to be the same as last year. They were under the misapprehension that I would be laid back, and not really care about the small stuff. And they were WRONG.

I have been keeping tight records on the small stuff - textbooks not covered, books not brought to class, stationery missing, homework not done, late to class, assignments not handed in on time - and I have been emailing home. With this class, I am prepared to take the 2 mins out of the lesson to stop the class and email the offending child's parents. Right there. In front of the class. And I have been following up. I have already issued 2 DTs, and I don't usually give DT's. (The debate about the worth of DT is something to be had at another time. Suffice to say that for me, in this moment, with this class, DT works.)

The result? My students from last year commented today that "You mean business this year" (or words to that effect). You bet your bottom Rand I do. This year, if you fail, it will not be because I did not do my utmost to help you. It will be because you failed to meet the minimum expectations and because your parents failed to help you meet those expectations. It will be because you lied to yourself, to me, to your parents.

In this class, you will arrive on time, bring your books to class, do your homework, bring your stationery, listen attentively, ask questions, engage with the work, hand in assignments on time, and generally get off your lazy backside. I am no longer accepting your half-hearted efforts as meeting the minimum standard. You will bring your best effort to my class, because you deserve it and I deserve it. That's "all" there is to it.

(Of course, I'm simply going to avoid asking the all-important question of whether I can go against the grain of my own habitual teaching practices and sustain this for the full academic year... It's one class. I can do this. Right?)