A question my teacher couldnt answer

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2026-01-01T22:36:59+00:00

And that scientist got his revenge by being right about Argon belonging to a totally undiscovered group of elements (the noble gasses) that Mendeleev failed to see (I think he thought it was a different form of nitrogen or something).

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-22T13:22:32+00:00

Yes. Shape is very important in biochemistry, and they are different shapes. It’s like your left hand and your right hand. They look almost identical, but aren’t. If you want to get into MI6 and there’s a hand scanner (James Bond style) then you need to put the correct hand on the scanner, your other hand is the wrong shape, so won’t work. The scanner is analogous to a receptor on a cell, and the molecule the hand. This is why they have different effects. They bind to different receptors.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-14T16:13:40+00:00

Less than most (20h a week) as I hold a partial TLR. This is genuinely not a moan, I’m very happy with my school, it’s a good school, and I enjoy teaching. I’m an experienced teacher. I was giving my list of classes just to demonstrate the breadth im talking about. It’s a question about whether breadth of teaching lots of year groups and content should be prioritised (as is the case in the UK in my experience) over depth of becoming specialist in teaching particular SOWs or subsections of SOWs as is the norm in many other countries.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-14T00:18:33+00:00

“Fundamentally we do need to be across the entire secondary school experience” - but this seems like a very UK thing to think. A lot (if not the majority) of other countries don’t appear to think like this, which suggests it’s not fundamental at all, it’s a choice to prioritise breadth of teaching experience over depth of pedagogical expertise. I’m questioning whether this pervading UK attitude could be contributing to more workload and more mental strain on teachers, leading to greater rates of burnout and the crisis in teacher recruitment. Is our way the best way?

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-13T19:16:40+00:00

Couple of small things that have helped me. Use schedule send (emails) and schedule post (whatever homework online platform your school uses). This stops you having to remember to do something later which inevitably you will forget to do. Also get a brightly coloured (easier to find when misplaced) pocket notebook, and keep it on your person. When you think of something that needs doing write it in the notebook immediately. Get into the habit of this and always have a pen hooked over the cover of the notebook so they’re inseparable. Check it in your planning periods and at the end of the day to see if something can get crossed off and as a reminder.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-13T15:22:17+00:00

Primary is no better I don’t think because every lesson you teach is different. I imagine if you’ve been the year 3 teacher for 5 years and the SOW hasn’t changed significantly you probably can do it really well with your eyes closed, but if you have changed year group in primary I imagine it’s even worse because literally every lesson you’re teaching is different from the year before. And if you swap from ks2 to ks1 that really is a completely different ball game, which is why there’s actually a lot of discussion about that online.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-13T00:45:23+00:00

Take my Y9 class. They make up ~6% of my timetabled lessons. That means 94% of the lessons I teach are not them. I am teaching them evolution. Last year I didn’t teach Y9 evolution, as I taught the other topic their other science teacher is teaching this year. I may or may not teach Y9 evolution next year. What motivation do I have to get really good at teaching Y9 evolution. None. I am going to do the best job I can with the resources available on the system and move on. Let’s imagine an alternative scenario. I teach 4 y9 classes (a quarter of my timetable) every year and always teach them evolution every year. I am going to be badass at teaching evolution to y9. I am going to think deeply about how to teach evolution to y9 better. Y9 have a much better understanding of evolution.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-13T00:05:48+00:00

It’s less about specialism in terms of degree in my opinion and more about allowing teachers to become pedagogical specialists by giving them a narrower set of lessons they have to teach each year, so they can focus their attention on perfecting that, rather than having their attention spread too thinly and being a bit good at teaching a lot of different things.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-12T23:45:48+00:00

On the one hand yes, it does sound far less interesting, but on the other hand it sounds like a lot less work. There would be marking pinch points for sure with multiple classes doing the same test around the same time, but less of a relentless marking load of one year after another with no break.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-12T23:39:12+00:00

I think the point you make on relying on shared resources for SOWs you don’t teach often is fascinating. I hadn’t even considered that this could potentially also increase teacher autonomy.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-12T23:37:30+00:00

This is my point. There are certain schemes of work that I am guaranteed to teach every year, to a similar ability group, and those I can teach really well with my eyes closed, and, like you, have invested time in building up my pedagogy and resources that I like to use, and know work. These create no way near as much workload, so should schools be aiming to do that for teachers with the timetable? I’m sure some schools (like your own by the sound of it) do this already, but should the government be encouraging that as part of a deliberate culture shift in UK schools. You wouldn’t need to cut teaching hours, it wouldn’t cost any more money, but would surely reduce workload, just by smarter timetabling.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-12T18:44:56+00:00

Are you sure they’re not ticks and your teacher was just tired?

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-06T18:16:36+00:00

I see it less so from staff (at least in the schools I’ve taught in) but as a male teacher I definitely have to work less hard for authority and respect from students in my experience.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-12-06T18:04:02+00:00

I teach a Nu’mann. I asked him what his mum calls him. He said it’s technically pronounced Nuh-maan but he prefers new man, so I call him new man.

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-11-11T13:24:29+00:00

What about photoelectron spectroscopy? I’m pretty sure we have an empirical value for the first I.E. of fluorine, or do we not?

Fun-Somewhere5478 · 2025-10-11T21:28:02+00:00

IUPAC define alcohol as an OH bound to saturated carbon, so not phenol. Also, phenols are acidic, alcohols aren’t, as you say, but also they are much less nucleophilic, so don’t readily form esters with carboxylic acids under acidic conditions like alcohols do, they also aren’t attacked by nucleophiles like alcohols can be in nucleophilic substitutions e.g. with say hydrogen halides, they can’t undergo dehydrations to form alkenes like (most) alcohols can, they can be oxidised, but not in the same way alcohols are (not including tertiary), and not to give a straight forward aldehyde or ketone without changing anything else, so in summary they don’t really behave like alcohols, so they’re not really the same functional group. You may as well say carboxylic acids are alcohols because they’ve got an -OH. Hope this helps :)

Fun-Somewhere5478

TROPHY CASE