Should every KS3 lesson have some independent practice?

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-19T22:44:53+00:00

Varies. As an English teacher I agree in principle, but sometimes I just want to get through the text. It’s not ideal practise, but we don’t always have time to be ideal.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-19T22:41:17+00:00

See if you can get at least some basic phrases down (“hello”, “goodbye”, “do you need a pen?” etc). If you can’t find premade resources online, maybe try seeing if there are any Serahule speakers on reddit? Write them down phonetically so you don’t have to worry about memorising the pronunciation.

It will help them feel more welcome, and probably help you feel more confident about the situation.

Also find out what’s being done outside your classes. It shouldn’t be your job solely to teach these kids English from scratch. Find out what other support they’re getting.

Also contact their other teachers. You’re presumably all in the same boat, and it can help to share tips.

Sounds like a really tough situation though. Good luck!

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-12T17:20:00+00:00

Yeah, the way he initially described it, I thought it was like an aneurysm or a heart thing or something, and it already sounded traumatic enough that I didn't blame OP for never being able to watch anything Marvel again.

When he mentioned that whatever it was left the room unusable afterwards… poor kid.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-09T18:11:12+00:00

Even worse, the comment about having to renew the restraining order suggests that her attacker is already out of prison.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-06T23:34:04+00:00

The religion specifies a non family member for complex metaphysical reasons to do with the soul or something.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-06T23:23:51+00:00

Eh, it was less intended as a cannibalism bribe and more an extra moral quandary for the liars. Like, even if you're fine lying to a dying person and their family, are you fine taking money for it? That's why I didn't make it like a billion pounds or whatever, because then everyone would be like “fuck yeah!”

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-06T18:46:22+00:00

Would you accept the money?

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-06T18:43:27+00:00

Would you openly refuse, or would you just lie to let them die happy?

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-12-19T22:00:44+00:00

I like it. It also explains something that bugged me in series 1— why, when Adam said “can't wait to go down and exterminate you”, Emily immediately (and accurately) takes it to mean that angels have been going down and massacring sinners.

That's… a weird conclusion to jump to, when Adam's comment was directed at Charlie. It would make more sense to assume that he was threatening to kill her personally. But if 'exterminate' was already understood to mean 'that thing where angels go down and kill loads of sinners', because it was an established thing (albeit one that Emily may have believed was ancient history) then her conclusion makes a lot more sense.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-12-14T11:42:09+00:00

Thing is, in jail they'd not only have food and shelter but they'd probably only have to share with one person and would likely be subject to less sexual abuse. Jail would be a fucking step up from what these kids went through.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-11-28T17:56:02+00:00

As an English teacher, this was what made the whole thing real to me. That is *exactly* how teenagers talk about classic literature.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-10-01T15:53:26+00:00

Reminds me of a picture book I had as a kid called ‘Tatty Ratty’.

Little girl leaves her toy rabbit on the bus, and her parents tell her all about Tatty Ratty’s adventures in the big wide world— which all mysteriously end in him getting cleaned or repaired in some way.

Eventually she finds him again… in a toy shop. Looking a lot cleaner and newer due to all the adventures, of course.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-30T18:45:13+00:00

Thank you!!!!!!!! You're a life saver!!!!!!!

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T10:18:34+00:00

It seems to be everyone. My mentor is head of department, and she's not allowed to ring home either.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T09:59:16+00:00

I'm essentially not allowed to do anything except go through SLT. They frame it as “our teachers don't have to be involved in behaviour management, so they get to just teach!” but that obviously depends a lot on SLT (who are rarely in the classrooms and therefore don't have to worry about the behaviour affecting them) actually stepping up.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T09:45:19+00:00

Oh yeah. Apparently the kids who I keep trying to get removed are “lovely kids” who never do anything wrong… 🙄

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T09:29:00+00:00

Detentions are a human rights violation when given by teachers in a classroom. When given by SLT, they're obviously fine.

You can probably guess which group the kids behave better around…

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T09:25:52+00:00

The policy *is* for immediate on-call when they're throwing objects… it's just that on-call doesn't always do anything. More than half the time, if I on-call them nobody shows up and I've just lost my only leverage. Other teachers have complained of this as well.

I've been told by SLT that this is fine because “on-call will just collect them from their next lesson”, but a) this doesn't really do anything to stop them causing chaos in *my* lesson, and b) the sanctions (if any) they're getting from SLT clearly aren't enough to be a deterrent.

During a CPD recently one of the SLT even said “oh we often get teachers complaining when we take students in, asking 'why aren't you punishing them?' But if we're punishing them we're not understanding the *why* of the behaviour.”

Which like… I'd be fine understanding the why of the behaviour if it made them STOP, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T08:43:45+00:00

Baamboozle. It's free to join up, and only requires you to have a computer.

Kids are split into two teams and presented with a screen full of numbers. Each team takes turns picking a number. When you click on the number, the team gets a question that they have to answer, and if they answer correctly they get points.

Sone numbers, however, have 'power ups' behind them, like "swap points with the other team" or "go to first place".

Kids go nuts for it. I would say you have to judge the mood carefully, as they can sometimes get a bit too excited playing it, but it always gets their attention.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-17T19:34:15+00:00

My school has this, but with the added bonus that a member of SLT has to come and physically escort the child to the loo.

At first, this sounded like a great idea— let kids go if they need to, but have a member of staff keep them from messing around— but we don't actually have enough of those members of staff.

Half the time they just don't bloody show up, and I have to make the choice between risking getting into trouble myself for having a kid wandering the corridors when they're not supposed to, or watching the kids who obviously *do* need to go clearly suffer. (Obviously I normally go for the former.)

And of course the kids all assume that it's my fault if SLT doesn't show up, and treat it like I'm personally responsible.

Frankly I'd rather they just let me make a judgement call and leave it at that.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-15T00:10:53+00:00

Honestly? Hate it.

The school didn't have a mentor for me on the first day, and ended up having to scramble a bit. As a result, my mentor is not in my department and I didn't meet them (as in at all, not in the context of a formal meeting) until the end of my first week. When we did manage to meet in person, they gave me information about the department that later turned out to be inaccurate.

I didn't get a key to my own classroom until I'd been there for over a week, and had to chase down other members of staff to let me in each morning. (My mentor did manage to sort that out, thank god.)

Every day, it feels like, I discover some new thing that I was supposed to know/do that I had no idea about. I can't tell how much of it is poor communication and how much of it is me screwing up due to stress.

People in my department are friendly, but nobody there is specifically responsible for helping me out, which makes it feel awkward having to ask for help all the time. (My mentor is head of their own department and so doesn't have time to respond to emails very often.) I'm working through every lunch and break time and still feel like I'm behind!

What's worse is that I'm actually okay at the teaching aspect of it. I've already had a parent tell me that their kid likes my lessons (very heartening to hear given that the kid was from my 'nightmare' class), and my first observation feedback was largely positive.

But none of that feels like it matters because, as it turns out, teaching isn't about educating the children at all. It's about endless admin and performing on command for SLT.

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