Noche Mexicana

I am always bowled over by the enthusiasm of our students, especially when they get to throw wet sponges at their teachers. Like last year, I was asked- somewhat over-enthusiastically- to play the victim again during the school's celebrations of Mexican Independence on Noche Mexicana. Not being one to shy away from such things, I accepted (I am fearless bearded one in the far right of the picture).

It was an eventful night. Students competed in their form groups by making stands for each of the states of Mexico- ours was a modest representation of Michoacan complete with paper chains and butterflies. We also cooked up a storm with some corn cupcakes and Gespacho Michoacana.

The highlight of the evening was the traditional chilli eating competition, which I had organised in order not to enter myself. I just couldn't face the pain. It is probably the kind of competition that just would not be allowed in other schools or countries... but not here.

It was an awesome event. At one point, it seemed like the whole school had crowded around the two picnic benches where the willing candidates sat munching their way through green serano chillis. The students chanted wildly for their favourites as the challengers gradually dropped off and left their seats, until it became a head to head showdown between two Form 5 boys.

The habaneros were brought out and a winner was soon decided- he had eaten 17 seranos and four habaneros as well. It was a mighty effort.

KS3 Curriculum Redesign

This was a task that I undertook with my boss, Frank Sawyer, to address what we saw as a shortfall in linguistic skills in the lower years of the school. Students were repeating the same grammatical and spoken mistakes each year and we needed to do something about it.

Our plan was to take the best of the British curriculum (the National Strategy for English at KS3) and combine it with explicit English language objectives. This was an interesting process, as it meant we had to assess the different sources for our existing curriculum and decide if they were relevant.

First, we took the NC framework and reduced to it to an achievable number of learning objectives in reading, writing and speaking & listening. The framework had always seemed a bulky and overly exhaustive document but this made it relevant and specific for our students. By actually engaging with the material rather than making unsuccessful efforts to meet all of its demands, we had taken ownership of its goals, adapted them to our purpose and made them our own.

Next, we divided up the different language objectives into the years we would expect to teach them and added them to the original list. This gave us the basis of what we would be teaching as we knew which objectives we had to hit in each year. We did not follow the framework exactly, deciding instead to focus on basic writing and more advanced speaking & listening in the first two years (Forms 1&2 / Years 7&8) and saved more complex writing tasks such as newspaper reports that would require use of the passive for Form 3 (Year 9), when we would plan to teach the relevant grammatical forms. We did not include media for every year, instead creating a media project for Form 2 only.

We then compared the current units of work to the objectives we had created. As before, we wanted to give our students the chance to experience whole texts of prose, poetry and drama. We also wanted to take on board the IB style 'points of enquiry' and sought to create units based on themes such as 'Dirty Dogs', 'Spies', 'Travel and Holidays', 'Fairytales' 'Making the Band' and 'Film Analysis', the latter designed to teach more complex essay writing skills at the end of the course in preparation for IGCSE coursework. We planned each unit and the relevant assessment outcomes so that the students' acquisition of the reading, writing and speaking & listening skills that had been taught were explicitly tested during each grading period. To assess the acquisition of the language objectives, 25% of the assessment criteria are concerned with the clarity and fluency with which language is used.

The majority of work was completed in the summer term of 2008. Once Frank left the school to return to England, John Kelly took over as Lead Teacher and I completed the majority of work on the curriculum myself. One further change that took was place was the inclusion of objectives based on a 'Big Write' course that John had attended which he was using to improve writing in the school. We included explicit objectives that dictated the different types of vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation that would be taught during each of the three years. We also planned specific 'Big Write' assessments that would be used to demonstrate students' progress in writing over the three years.

Once these were added, the curriculum was ready for the start of the new school year in August. It is John's plan to carry out a three year study on its effects, and current results suggest an improvement compared to previous years.

Year One

Looking back, it was an interesting year. I volunteered for most things including the school production of 'Sound of Music'- I was the third Nazi who got clobbered by a nun with a baseball bat. For Dia de los Muertos, my form group created a rather squiggly ofrenda to Roald Dahl and I was eagerly volunteered to have sponges thrown at me for Noche Mexicana.

On the academic side, an IB training course in Costa Rica was a rich introduction to the Diploma Programme which I am teaching here. I like that it encourages both students and teachers to try new texts and ideas; the A1 course fosters a real passion for literature whereas the A2 combines literary and cultural units with a global outlook. Crucially, it allows students to develop their own tastes and gives them the option of which texts to focus on.

Unfortunately, this does give them a certain amount of artistic licence. If there's one thing that sums up an enjoyable year, it is probably the video 'Hostage Class' that was produced as a film project by Lower 6th students for their Media & Culture unit. It is an enthusiastic endeavour showing some skilful camera work, praiseworthy participation from two classes and awful acting by their two teachers.

We are sticking to our day jobs.

Why Am I Here?

I have been teaching in Mexico since August 2007. After over a year here, I have finally decided to try and document that experience for various reasons: to establish some memories in print, to have a reference point for my career and just to reflect on it too.

So why am I here? My career so far has been an interesting one. I graduated in 2002 and spent a year in terrible jobs much like many of my friends. It seems in the UK we go through higher education for the hell of it, without any idea of a job at the other end. It took spells behind bars and taking motor insurance complaints in a call centre to learn that one.

Then I started coaching rugby to kids in Manchester schools with a friend and I realised I enjoyed working with young people. Later in 2003 I was employed by a private children's home and spent a year working with violent or neglected kids who had been taken away from their parents. This was as rewarding as it was frustrating. Here was a chance to really make a difference and I was prepared to do pretty much anything that the job required: there were days spent bike-riding, swimming, recording pop songs and hanging out in a sheep field. I cooked, cleaned, danced, drew, played, cared and counselled in a way that had never been asked of me before. In many ways, it taught me to grow up too.

However, there were limits to the job. You'd do a great day's work and then come back in for a shift 24 hours later and it would all be in disarray again. Someone would have been punched or insulted or the keys hidden or the kids out on the roof at night. Often I'd blame the other person on duty, but looking back I realise that those kids were so erratic that these things were going to happen anyway- you just had to try and manage them when they couldn't manage themselves.

There also wasn't much of a career to be had. At 22, I went for a senior position in the company, was told it was the best interview for the post they had seen, and then told me I was too young to do the job anyway. So I looked for something else. My friend's company had fallen foul in a 'dotcom crash' and he had turned to teaching. I'm not even sure how or why I thought it was a great idea at the time but I enrolled onto a PGCE course back at the University of Manchester and got in.

It was a great idea. I was able to continue working with kids and now there was some measurable success and purpose to my work. As a teacher, I was able to explore my own interests in the arts and media- and rugby of course- with a much greater sense of satisfaction.

My first placement was at Plant Hill High School in Manchester and it was there where I was first employed after my PGCE course. Having attended a number of professional development days in the city, it seemed every school would claim to be from the worst area of Manchester. Our claim was pretty solid. Plant Hill was in Blackley which was a downtrodden suburban area just north of Harpurhey, supposedly the most deprived ward in the country. 55% of the students received free school dinners- an indicator of the support and benefits most parents were receiving, especially with the government recommending no more than 40% in any school.

Indeed, Plant Hill was a rough and ready place but I liked the humour and closeness that it engendered within the staff. The days where the fire alarm did not go off, when there were no incidents at breaktime or no students had to be removed from a class were rare. The staff took that on their shoulders everyday and still worked hard to get those same problem students the best results they could manage. The percentage of students who got grades A-C in their GCSEs was something like 36% in 2006- and that was an achievement.

Those two years taught me classroom management and how to get results. More importantly, I realised that I wanted to be a teacher for some time. But I also realised that I couldn't stay in Blackley for long. In my second year, a teacher joined our department after working in the States and then Egypt who quickly persuaded me how easy it was to get a job abroad. I started looking for jobs and quickly understood how easy it could be to travel the world as an English teacher. This was an opportunity not to be sniffed at.

Initially, I looked at Argentina- its rugby-loving, meat-eating culture seeming perfect. Despite many speculative enquiries of work, there were no jobs going after the recent devaluing of their peso. However, three posts came up in Mexico and that was good with me- I'd been there in 2002 and had a great time. It was a surprisingly quick process. Luckily, my first choice school, the Lancaster, offered me a job and here I am.