[Fetch The Bolt Cutters]

secondary:

stabbing people with pins
throwing a tub of white paint over the stage
cutting another boys hair in the middle of class

[Santa's NaughtiNess]

Originally Posted by Pothuthic

For me I was a mix of behaved and a little **** but I'm as stubborn as ****, so I would always reply and have a bitch fight if any of my teachers tried to tell me off

Primary
- I stole £13 off the desk, silly thing when I come to think of it, 2 people caught me apparently, there was nobody around whatsoever so I dunno how
-My friend went on holiday during the prep for leavers assembly, and was scared she had lost her part, so we found the teachers assistant and begged her (mixed with blackmail) over the phone to give my friend a decent role (funnily enough someone from my primary school has actually just got on my bus xD haven't seen him since we left primary school )

Secondary
-My girlfriend (eww boobs.) got death threats over voicemail from this kid I hated, so I picked up a canteen knife, safe to say that wasn't the right thing to do, I just got a "that's not something you should do" talk rather than detention etc
- in year 7 there was this guy who was bullying me and I was trying to get on with him, he said he was from Poland and I asked him if that was where hitler was from (we hadn't learnt that one yet ) so he twisted the story and said I was being nasty to him and called him a "****ing Nazi" (which may I say I didn't cos I had to leave after that question to go to counselling) got in so much trouble for something I didn't even do
-We went on this "poetry live" trip and it was the most boring thing ever and I knew it, so I decided I was going to bring some vodka on the trip (not much) I was drinking it behind the teacher, funnily enough I never got caught
-The librarian really hated us, so we decided to get a book and hide it in the library then ask her where the book was, she was looking round the whole library, and I don't think she's found it yet (I've passed it onto my year 7 brother to check every few months)
-I wasn't on time to school for 7 months I never got a detention for punctuality funnily enough.
-I may have fell asleep during an English lesson on world war one, my teacher sent me out to wake up a a kind gesture, and forgot I was out there for the rest of the lesson, fine for me as I had a right old chat outside
-We had a geography lesson with a cover who was the head of sixth form, so me being me decided to piss her around, she turned up 15 minutes late, I'd already stole 3 books and 7 pens from the cupboard, I drew a massive smily face on one, she told me she was giving it to the deputy head Miss David, so I said "What Miss Davis miss, the librarian or the dinner lady" she wasn't happy , the girl who sat next to my best friend stole her glasses, so I started shouting the book out to my friend using the excuse that my friend couldn't read it there was so much more but Ive totally forgot it
- I used to skive in year 7 all the time, I skived during a movie lesson being the stupid twat I am and almost got caught by this teacher, 4 years later and she was my favourite

There was probably loads more I forgot, I'll update it if I think of anything

I sent you a pm, Mitch.

[Santa's NaughtiNess]

Nothing much really. I was well behaved most of the time. But i remember i broke my finger once after we were messing around in class.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Zee

I know, same here... my English class in 4th and 5th year especially, we were the 2nd set so we were meant to be really good and it was just full of these 'popular' kids who ****ed around for two years and treated our teacher like **** because they were all showing off, and she was a really good teacher, it was such a struggle to learn, she basically just ended up talking to the 7 of us who sat on our side of the classroom who actually wanted to learn more or less and ignored that lot and they all got Cs or they failed; I got an A because I wanted to learn and put the work in... it's really frustrating being at school. It's not much fun on the other side of the classroom either, after my year being an English assistant I wouldn't go back into education as a teacher...

...hmm, I'm a bit confused Zee..4th/5th year, for me that’s 8/9yr olds..are your years in Scotland different because grades don’t come until later and it sounds as though you’re talking about when you were older, at secondary or upper school..?...but anyway, it is quite interesting seeing things from both sides as it were, which you must have found as well...it’s kind of hard to get that balance with pupils who really just want to learn and not distract and those who do distract, especially when it’s regularly...you can’t just ignore the ones who find learning easy and think oh, you don’t need my help, you’ll do very well on your own because you motivate yourself..well not quite like that but you know what I mean...and you can’t exactly ‘reward’ bad behaviour but you also can’t and shouldn’t ignore these disruptions and the reasons for them...hmm, this is difficult because I actually think that your teacher was wrong in just concentrating on the ones who ‘wanted to learn’ and it’s sad those others failed but I don’t know exactly how it was and circumstances are different and have to be adapted so I’m not really judging her as such, I guess I’m just looking at your perspective of it, which was full of frustrations and understandably so...anyway, for me, I would feel that if pupils were constantly disruptive then I would be looking at why I wasn’t engaging their attention and if I was failing them..and maybe it would be nothing to do with me, there are different reasons for everything and you can’t always ‘fix’ them...but as frustrating as it is for others, I would actually be giving them a lot of attention but not in a way that I would give them the impression that I condoned their behaviour or that it was acceptable..but obviously that has to be balanced out with attention to the less disruptive pupils as well, so it’s hard...and I don’t work with older children so don’t encounter a wider range of problems ..but on the whole, as odd as it sounds, I would rather if a pupil found it hard to engage, that they were disruptive, rather than quiet as it would draw my attention to any potential learning difficulties much earlier so I kind of don’t always see it as a negative thing...but that’s from the ‘other side’ so I understand how frustrating it is for their fellow pupils and as I say, I don’t work with older children....

..it’s sad that your experience put you off though, I think maybe you would have made a good teacher and mentor...my friend’s son now teaches at the upper school he himself went to, which is quite unusual and we often have chats about it because it’s not only ‘from the other side’, it’s also the exact same people who taught him who are now his colleagues...I think even calling them by their first names is strange for him..but yeah, it is interesting reading your views because your experiences are from both sides....

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Shaun

- During a saturday morning detention a handful of us stole a bunch of stuff from the canteen.

I thought this said "stole a bunch of staff".

[jackc1806]

Saint in Primary..
In Secondary School
I put pictures of Phil Mitchell all around my German Teachers classroom
Threw a condom on the floor halfway through a lesson
Oh and put this awful picture of my History teacher all around her room too

That's about it

[Roy Mars III]

not much of note

Primary
- stole a bunch of pencils/pens from classmates and teacher
-made up a rumor that some kid ate a cheese stick off the floor, and then everyone called him 'cheese boy' for a year

High School (Secondary)
- was caught doing people's tests for them in Accounting for money

the rest was just vanilla hijinks most kids get up to

[Me. I Am Salman]

What the hell is 'vanilla' supposed to mean, people keep saying it
Never heard that word used in that way ever before :s

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Shaun

I was a saint in primary...


- During a saturday morning detention a handful of us stole a bunch of stuff from the canteen.

..were you like The Breakfast Club..?..

[Roy Mars III]

Originally Posted by Salman!

What the hell is 'vanilla' supposed to mean, people keep saying it
Never heard that word used in that way ever before :s

boring, normal, usual, not exciting

[james130]

Primary: Nothing

Secondary: Got drunk a few times, with one resulting in calling my fat teacher a sexy bitch. Set fire to my hair accidentally (I had a long fringe at the time and was messing about with a lighter) and the whole building was evacuated because they thought it was a computer that was going to explode.

[Josy]

Primary - Nothing.

High School - I had just started smoking (I was just trying it out really) and was standing out at the back of the school where the smokers hung out, the head of my house walked out the door and I panicked because I really didn't want my parents to know I was smoking so I threw the cigarette I had into the bin and the bin went on fire

Other than that I truanted every day for about a year.

Most other things we got up to was in a goup so can't be bothered listing them all but I ended up being expelled and having to go to another school.

[Ryan57]

Probably exiting secondary school each day, when I didn't have the rights to do so.

[The Human Santapede]

I used to hate my French teacher and vice versa. She was horrible, rude and would give us these horrible spelling tests and if you got less than 16/20 correct she would keep people behind and do another test until you got it right. The French lessons were always before lunch so you could end up missing most of your lunch break.

One day after drama I had a baby doll that would cry which I had used for a performance. I kept setting it off during lesson and she was getting so angry. She then tried to take the doll from me and I refused and kept setting it off. She then shouted at me and I told her to **** off and that she was a **** teacher. She burst into tears and I got called to the headmasters office and my mother came in.

Looking back, I feel like a right **** for doing that.

[jackc1806]

Originally Posted by Ben

I used to hate my French teacher and vice versa. She was horrible, rude and would give us these horrible spelling tests and if you got less than 16/20 correct she would keep people behind and do another test until you got it right. The French lessons were always before lunch so you could end up missing most of your lunch break.

One day after drama I had a baby doll that would cry which I had used for a performance. I kept setting it off during lesson and she was getting so angry. She then tried to take the doll from me and I refused and kept setting it off. She then shouted at me and I told her to **** off and that she was a **** teacher. She burst into tears and I got called to the headmasters office and my mother came in.

Looking back, I feel like a right **** for doing that.

Aww

[The Human Santapede]

I know. I wasn't usually that troublesome at school but me and my French teacher hated each other. I'm not proud of that moment though.

[Kizzy]

I was liked but a nightmare ( which was my nickname for a short time)
never ate dinner and was regularly sent home for it
hid everywhere
ran away all the time
refused to stop running/fasten my coat/ anything
never stopped talking/giggling
told a teacher my older brother was a stranger when he came to collect me, she almost called the police
I brought mud/worms and ladybirds into school to upset a teacher with an issue
Wrote alison had a wee on a desk... I didn't like alison

High school

bunked off constantly
threw away a map on a school trip and got our group lost on a moor in durham for 4hrs
burped the word parsnips everyday in registration
Sent a scruffy kid a tin of MR DOG wrapped as a present on valentines day... he cried.
laughed my head off when my best friend fainted in assembly thinking she was joking.. she wasn't
hiding in her house from our English teacher and spiting on his head from her bedroom window.
Staying up all night on another trip and almost being sent home for being 'giddy'

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Ben

I used to hate my French teacher and vice versa. She was horrible, rude and would give us these horrible spelling tests and if you got less than 16/20 correct she would keep people behind and do another test until you got it right. The French lessons were always before lunch so you could end up missing most of your lunch break.

One day after drama I had a baby doll that would cry which I had used for a performance. I kept setting it off during lesson and she was getting so angry. She then tried to take the doll from me and I refused and kept setting it off. She then shouted at me and I told her to **** off and that she was a **** teacher. She burst into tears and I got called to the headmasters office and my mother came in.

Looking back, I feel like a right **** for doing that.

Funnily enough we had a neurotic French teacher who cried a lot

[Josy]

One of our french/spanish teachers was a bit of a nervous wreck too, her name was Miss Friar or something like that.

[Me. I Am Salman]

My French teacher was amazing, she let us virtually cheat in our coursework and I would have failed overall if I hadn't (got two A*s on speaking and writing courseworks and two Ds on the reading and listening papers)

There was a boy and a girl in my French class who hated each other and argued every lesson and she egged them on

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

told a teacher my older brother was a stranger when he came to collect me, she almost called the police

threw away a map on a school trip and got our group lost on a moor in durham for 4hrs

laughed my head off when my best friend fainted in assembly thinking she was joking.. she wasn't

[Z]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...hmm, I'm a bit confused Zee..4th/5th year, for me that’s 8/9yr olds..are your years in Scotland different because grades don’t come until later and it sounds as though you’re talking about when you were older, at secondary or upper school..?...but anyway, it is quite interesting seeing things from both sides as it were, which you must have found as well...it’s kind of hard to get that balance with pupils who really just want to learn and not distract and those who do distract, especially when it’s regularly...you can’t just ignore the ones who find learning easy and think oh, you don’t need my help, you’ll do very well on your own because you motivate yourself..well not quite like that but you know what I mean...and you can’t exactly ‘reward’ bad behaviour but you also can’t and shouldn’t ignore these disruptions and the reasons for them...hmm, this is difficult because I actually think that your teacher was wrong in just concentrating on the ones who ‘wanted to learn’ and it’s sad those others failed but I don’t know exactly how it was and circumstances are different and have to be adapted so I’m not really judging her as such, I guess I’m just looking at your perspective of it, which was full of frustrations and understandably so...anyway, for me, I would feel that if pupils were constantly disruptive then I would be looking at why I wasn’t engaging their attention and if I was failing them..and maybe it would be nothing to do with me, there are different reasons for everything and you can’t always ‘fix’ them...but as frustrating as it is for others, I would actually be giving them a lot of attention but not in a way that I would give them the impression that I condoned their behaviour or that it was acceptable..but obviously that has to be balanced out with attention to the less disruptive pupils as well, so it’s hard...and I don’t work with older children so don’t encounter a wider range of problems ..but on the whole, as odd as it sounds, I would rather if a pupil found it hard to engage, that they were disruptive, rather than quiet as it would draw my attention to any potential learning difficulties much earlier so I kind of don’t always see it as a negative thing...but that’s from the ‘other side’ so I understand how frustrating it is for their fellow pupils and as I say, I don’t work with older children....

..it’s sad that your experience put you off though, I think maybe you would have made a good teacher and mentor...my friend’s son now teaches at the upper school he himself went to, which is quite unusual and we often have chats about it because it’s not only ‘from the other side’, it’s also the exact same people who taught him who are now his colleagues...I think even calling them by their first names is strange for him..but yeah, it is interesting reading your views because your experiences are from both sides....

Ahh yeah, I don't know exactly the equivalent in England but 4th year would be when English kids sit their GCSEs (year 10? year 11?) and 5th year would be when they sit AS levels; except in Scotland, 5th year is the important year for exams, so when English kids sit A Levels, Scottish kids would either be doing Advanced Highers or more Highers (Highers being the exams we do in 5th year) - Highers are what Scottish kids need to get into Scottish universities, so if you do well in 5th year you can pretty much relax in 6th year, and if you don't do well then you can retake things in 6th year and still go to uni at the same time as people who did well in 5th year, assuming you did well in 6th year. Does that make sense in terms of comparisons?

3rd year (14 years old-ish) you do the groundwork in preparation for 4th year (15 years old-ish) where you sit your Standard Grades; but at my school they started changing some courses to Intermediates instead of Standard Grades, so in 3rd year you would sit Intermediate 1 exams and 4th year you would sit Intermediate 2 exams. 5th year (16 years old-ish) you sit Highers, if you do well then you'll probably get unconditional offers for places at universities, if you don't do so well then you can rely on 6th year (17 years old-ish) to retake subjects, or sit Advanced Highers, which you would do either because you'd done well in 5th year and perhaps you wanted a challenge, or if you were applying to a really good uni (Oxford, Cambridge etc) because you would need to gain equivalent qualifications to A-Levels.

I used to dread working with the disruptive kids because it could be quite intimidating, I'd be sent outside with a group of kids, or sometimes half the class, and just be given work to teach to them, so I wouldn't even have time to prepare it or think about it, I'd just have to work on the spot. There were a lot of times where my lessons failed and there were a lot of times where it worked really well. I found that the best way to get a rowdy kid to engage was to joke along with them, if they like you then that's half the battle; kids don't want to listen to people they don't respect, but if they find you interesting or think you give fun lessons (though not to the point of pandering, obviously) then I found that they'd be willing to give you the time of day. Those hit/miss lessons were with kids aged 15 or thereabouts, that awkward stage where they're either really loud and hyperactive or painfully shy and awkward, I'd see a lot of mild bullying and at one point I even lectured some 13 year old kids about not picking on this one boy who was very, very quiet and used to be the butt of their jokes... and I had a similar situation with 9 year old kids where I had to shout at them in German and I couldn't tell if they were shocked that I was being serious or that I was speaking to them in German because I was there to teach English... Felt quite proud of myself for doing that though, they never once made fun of those kids again in both cases, at least not when I was there...

[Me. I Am Salman]

Why are the Scottish and Irish systems so complicated? The English and Welsh system makes the most sense

[Z]

I don't think it's complicated at all; I think the English one is complicated guess it just depends on what you were brought up with.

Scottish year groups run according to the year you were born in... so in my case, the people in my year were all born in the same year as me, and maybe in December the year before or January the year after, but generally everyone is the same age. In England I believe it runs according to the school year... so you could be a month older than someone (e.g. you were born in August and they were born in September) but you would be the year above them at school, which seems mad to me...

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Zee

Ahh yeah, I don't know exactly the equivalent in England but 4th year would be when English kids sit their GCSEs (year 10? year 11?) and 5th year would be when they sit AS levels; except in Scotland, 5th year is the important year for exams, so when English kids sit A Levels, Scottish kids would either be doing Advanced Highers or more Highers (Highers being the exams we do in 5th year) - Highers are what Scottish kids need to get into Scottish universities, so if you do well in 5th year you can pretty much relax in 6th year, and if you don't do well then you can retake things in 6th year and still go to uni at the same time as people who did well in 5th year, assuming you did well in 6th year. Does that make sense in terms of comparisons?

3rd year (14 years old-ish) you do the groundwork in preparation for 4th year (15 years old-ish) where you sit your Standard Grades; but at my school they started changing some courses to Intermediates instead of Standard Grades, so in 3rd year you would sit Intermediate 1 exams and 4th year you would sit Intermediate 2 exams. 5th year (16 years old-ish) you sit Highers, if you do well then you'll probably get unconditional offers for places at universities, if you don't do so well then you can rely on 6th year (17 years old-ish) to retake subjects, or sit Advanced Highers, which you would do either because you'd done well in 5th year and perhaps you wanted a challenge, or if you were applying to a really good uni (Oxford, Cambridge etc) because you would need to gain equivalent qualifications to A-Levels.

I used to dread working with the disruptive kids because it could be quite intimidating, I'd be sent outside with a group of kids, or sometimes half the class, and just be given work to teach to them, so I wouldn't even have time to prepare it or think about it, I'd just have to work on the spot. There were a lot of times where my lessons failed and there were a lot of times where it worked really well. I found that the best way to get a rowdy kid to engage was to joke along with them, if they like you then that's half the battle; kids don't want to listen to people they don't respect, but if they find you interesting or think you give fun lessons (though not to the point of pandering, obviously) then I found that they'd be willing to give you the time of day. Those hit/miss lessons were with kids aged 15 or thereabouts, that awkward stage where they're either really loud and hyperactive or painfully shy and awkward, I'd see a lot of mild bullying and at one point I even lectured some 13 year old kids about not picking on this one boy who was very, very quiet and used to be the butt of their jokes... and I had a similar situation with 9 year old kids where I had to shout at them in German and I couldn't tell if they were shocked that I was being serious or that I was speaking to them in German because I was there to teach English... Felt quite proud of myself for doing that though, they never once made fun of those kids again in both cases, at least not when I was there...

..Ah thanks for explaining how the Scottish school years work, I was a bit confused..it sounds quite a flexible system in general..?..


...hmm, sometimes you do have to ‘wing’ your lessons because I guess the point is that you’re not working with pupils who cope well with structure, which is often why it’s better for them to be in a smaller group and so long as the curriculum is covered in what you are doing, your ‘working on the spot’ was probably much better for them and you said a lot of the time it worked well..?..it probably worked well for them a lot more than you thought but I understand that you might not have thought so..if you have a lesson plan and you get through it without disruption and the pupils produce good work then you’re bound to get a feeling of satisfaction...it’s a bit like a tick list, that same feeling...it’s not as instant feel good thing when you’re working with disruptive pupils or ones with learning difficulties, it’s a bit more of a slow burner but the fact that you did feel as though it went well a lot of times means you were actually very good at engaging those pupils that the teacher couldn’t in a more structured lesson...you know, sometimes people can find things difficult to understand/do for whatever reason and their self-consciousness about that can be masked in messing around and drawing attention in other ways....that’s why sometimes bad behaviour can be a sign that you’re looking for that someone needs extra help and isn't always a negative thing....

..but you know Zee, everything you’ve said that I’ve bolded says that you would make an excellent teacher, whether it be a year/class teacher or working with children with learning difficulties who would benefit with someone like you to guide them..I know that you don’t want to do it but I think that’s a loss to the Scottish education system because if you’ve got a child’s attention and respect then you’ll find they don’t want to mess around so much and start to learn..and that’s what you did...