‘I’m knackered – physically, mentally, emotionally’: Sam Wollaston tries teaching
So I think I win in this game. My girlfriend is a primary school teacher and teachers famously have it pretty easy, as well as being paid way too much, obviously. Yet still they moan, and strike … Hey, maybe I’ll get to go on strike, too, instead of going to work. But even if it isn’t a strike day, I’m still seeing this as a day off. I mean, how hard can it be, teaching year 2? And the day ends at 3.15pm, right? Perhaps I’ll get an evening job as well …
Bang! Ouch! Flying board rubber hits me on the jaw.
To be fair, my missus – Miss Honour – does put in the hours. Sometimes she’s out of the house before the rest of us are up, and not back until 12 hours later, exhausted. Of course she talks about it, but, like many people, I still don’t really know exactly what my partner does all day.
She works at a large primary school in north-west London. It has its challenges, like the fact that English isn’t the first language of more than 80% of the children. But Ofsted says it’s a good school.
I say Ofsted is wrong: it’s a bloody brilliant school. Not only does my partner work there, but our kids go there. Our family – apart from this member, who rarely gets beyond the gate – has spent about 17 happy years there in total. Now I get to see, and feel, its beating heart. After a grilling by the headteacher and the trust (it’s an academy), I’ve somehow been given permission to take 2H for a day towards the end of term. Not totally unaccompanied; that would be ridiculous. So poor Miss Honour doesn’t even get a day off.
Monday 7.30am
Now I understand those early starts. There’s so much to do: preparation and sorting – books, materials, whiteboards, pencils. It feels strange being in a classroom again; I often dream about it, but I’m always sitting on the children’s side, not standing up at the front.
We’ve spent a lot of the weekend going through the plan for the day, but suddenly it’s all a bit fuzzy. A late change of schedule (there wasn’t going to be an assembly, but now there is) has thrown me. I can hear them, 30 excited seven-year-olds, lining up outside. Well, probably not lining up. Miss Honour says I need to sort them out. Help!
8.40am
They pour through the door, an irresistible tsunami of hope for the future. My fear disappears (for now) and my plan not to smile until lunch goes out of the window. So many questions for me: am I Miss Honour’s husband? Am I a teacher? Do I have any brothers and sisters? (Answers: Kinda. Just for the day. One of each.) Now go and put your things away, and come and sit on the carpet.
“Good morning, 2H!”
“Good morning, Mr Wollaston! Good morning, everyone!”
Mr Wollaston – I like it. My innate authority is clearly shining through and they respect me. Now they’re sitting quietly, doing the warm-up maths I’ve put on the board on their own little whiteboards. See? There’s very little to it …
Er, I might want to get on with the register, says Miss Honour from the back of the room, assembly starts in five minutes. Ah yes, good idea, the register: Adam, Rawan, Mariam, Yasir, Luna, Yossef … Everyone’s in today. My lessons, it seems, are very well attended.
10am
We survived assembly: in the main hall, the assistant head read a book called My Shadow Is Pink, which touches on ideas of gender identity, diversity and acceptance – I don’t remember any of that at my primary school. Then back to class for a bit of English.
We look at some contractions: do not = don’t; could have = could’ve; will not = won’t, etc. No problem with any of that, but I struggle with the operation of the interactive whiteboard: keep getting the wrong screen up or making it disappear altogether. Kinan, in the front row, helpfully appoints himself my technical assistant.
I wonder if my aura of total control and authority may be slipping. Now we’re looking at the book they’re doing in class, Gregory Cool. They fill me in on the story so far: Gregory, a city kid, goes to visit his grandparents in Tobago. It’s too hot, the food is too spicy, there are no video games, Gregory’s cousin doesn’t have any shoes, there’s a shark at the beach, except it’s really a dolphin …
Whoa, one at a time, and don’t just shout out, put your hands up, please! Can you “go toilet”? Can it wait till break? Go on then. You too? Really? When do I get to go toilet, I wonder …
It gets worse, though, because next it’s role play. I divide the class into groups of four to pick a favourite scene from the book and act it out. They nearly all pick the beach scene, obviously, and soon there are six sharks/dolphins cruising between the tables, terrorising screaming children. Now they’re coming for me; they can smell my fear. Less Gregory Cool, more Sharknado 3D, at full volume. I’m worried it’s disturbing other classes … Can the headteacher hear the racket down the corridor? Sacked before break – has that ever happened?
10.30am
Phew, breaktime. And Miss Honour reminds me of some of the classroom management techniques we talked about before: a raised hand, a stern look, a countdown from five, a shake of the tambourine. Also dojo points (gold stars in old money). By the end of the day, I’ll be handing out dojos like it’s Christmas.
10.45am
They’re back, on the carpet, a couple of dojo points awarded, a semblance of order restored. We’re doing maths now, and shopping change. So, you buy an apple for 23p, pay with £1, how much change should you get? I’m using the number line method to find the difference: so from 23 to the next 10 number, 30, how many is that? Seven? Right. And from 30 to 100? Ten, 20, 30 … 70 – 70 and seven … 77p, yay!
Then it’s back to the tables to work through more examples in pairs, using plastic money if required, while I wander between them. It’s now that it happens, with one pair who haven’t quite got it. We do another number line – they’re almost there – and another, and they get it. Something they didn’t know and couldn’t do, now they do and can. I’ve played some part in that – actual teaching – and it feels amazing, makes up for everything else. Well, almost …
Meanwhile, 28 other children are not being attended to, some of whom have already finished; others who don’t get it. Along with classroom management, it’s one of the things that strikes me as being really hard: how to spread yourself out and give enough attention to 30 children with mixed abilities. There is a teaching assistant, Max, in the class, but he’s full-time with a student with special educational needs. I’m not getting any help from Miss Honour, who’s just looking on, critically.
Noon
Lunchtime, finally! Maybe we’ll get takeaway sushi, and go to the staff room for a gossip and a moan, and to talk about when we’re next going on strike or what we’re going to do on our incredibly long holidays … Just kidding. I know: there’s more preparation, so we’ll bolt down our sandwiches and get on with it. Oh God, and there’s sewing this afternoon …
2.15pm
The sewing is obviously chaos. They’re doing wall hangings: seascapes inspired by a painting called The Turtle Pound by Winslow Homer. They’ve almost finished: all that has to be done is to sew in wooden dowels along the top edge and attach strings so they can be hung. It probably doesn’t help that, while demonstrating, I’m holding this particular wall hanging upside down, sewing my dowel into the bottom edge, which amuses everyone, including Miss Honour. OK, OK, so it’s a diving turtle, all right?
Running stitch, no problem, in and out, but needles are tricky – not just sharp, but quite hard to find when lost. Again, we have the different-ability issue – some have finished; others are still on needle-threading – and I’m spread pretty thinly, and not especially useful even when I am there. There hasn’t been an awful lot of teaching going on this afternoon, I’m afraid, and there will be – literally – a whole load of loose ends to tie up.
3pm
Somehow we’ve made it through the day. It’s just tidying up now, while singing the tidying-up song. Kinan has taken over the job of dojo distribution full‑time, and seems to be handing them out by the dozen, to everyone. You know what, that’s fine, I think they’ve earned them.
To 2H: you’re a lovely class, thank you for your patience, and your help. And I apologise for the small hole in your education – I hope it can be filled.
To the profession: what you do is incredible, probably the most important job of all. Of course everyone knows that already (apart from the government – a 6.5% rise is still below inflation; you don’t need a number line to work that out). My tiny glimpse into your working world has only left me more in awe of you. Including you, Miss Honour.
She’s not going home now, at 3.15pm. She has a meeting with a parent, then a school one. There’s marking to be done, including the marking I should be doing, and more preparation, those loose ends to be tied up (including the literal ones). I haven’t really done her job for a day, more like half a day, because I didn’t do any of that, or planning, or report-writing. I’m knackered, though – physically, mentally, emotionally – and I’m going on strike. Well, home for a lie-down, then maybe a little light journalism. Miss Honour used to be a journalist, as it happens. There is some crossover, I guess – talking to people, finding things out, trying to get things across. My day job comes with less responsibility, though, is less performative and less full-on exhausting. Plus I get to go toilet when I want and need to.
Tuesday 8.40am
Back to school, but in my usual capacity as a parent, dropping off. On the way I get a “Good morning, Mr Wollaston.” Aw! It wasn’t a dream – someone remembers, and the respect lives on. Then, on duty at the gate, the assistant head (who, if I’m honest, I’m usually a bit scared of) is smiling. She’s probably going to congratulate and thank me, maybe even offer me a job. “I hear you didn’t even do your marking,” she says. “Lightweight.”
‘What I have learned is that I don’t have any taste at all’: Joel Golby tries eBay trading
My girlfriend is a lifestyle and music influencer who hoards trinkets like Smaug hoards gold. This was fine until the first Covid lockdown, when her day-to-day work dried up (no gigs to go to, no brands to work with) and there was nothing left to do but compulsively go on eBay. Parcels kept turning up wrapped in sticky tape and stuffed with bubble wrap. Trinkets started to cover every available surface, and then sit on top of each other like sedimentary layers. One day, I walked into the front room and said, “Do we really need a toast rack in the shape of women’s legs when we never make toast and certainly never put it in a toast rack? Do we need this many small ceramic versions of cowboy boots? Why do we have so many teapots?” And she said, “Fine, I’ll start a shop.” This means there are even more trinkets in my house; just now they go under the guise of “stock”.
So the first thing I have to do when I spend a day doing her job is … buy a trinket. Every time we walk past a cluttered-looking charity shop or sprawling secondhand furniture store, we go in and look through all the shelves in silence, and what I have learned from my many attempts to point out a trinket she might want to buy on these expeditions is that I don’t have any taste at all. Every ashtray or side plate or vintage mug that prompts me to say, “That might be nice?” is met with a firm but fair head shake. I just cannot tell what makes one plate with a lobster on it ugly and another plate with a lobster on it chic. How can anyone?
Anyway, we go on to eBay, and after clattering in a few “trending search terms” (“How do you know they’re trending?”; “I know if I’ve noticed them”) into the machine, we settle on a … well, I don’t really know what it is, actually. A sort of ashtray? But not. It’s shaped like a cowboy hat with a pistol on top, and the brim could take some ash, I suppose, but you could also use it as a small tray for, like, bits. A few days later it turns up in the post and … yeah, I still don’t really know what it is. But it has a bit of a vibe to it.
What I learn about running a small business is that it’s so much more tedious than I thought. I kind of figured I’d buy a few fun vases and that would be it. (What’s finer than looking at eBay for ages! What’s better than spending money!) But the piecemeal jobs it takes to actually sell the thing take up hours.
First, you unwrap the ashtray/hat thing, then you have to take a nicely lit, nicely composed photo of it. We have a special plinth in the house that is used to arrange trinkets on, but to create a backdrop for the photo you have to go upstairs and tie a sheet to the balcony and have it flop down just right behind it, which takes more tweaking, bending and knot-tying than I’d like.
Then you actually have to take the photo, which requires a few attempts (held in an agonising squat position), then swap in the next trinket, then the next, then the next one, then the next. If it’s a gloomy day, you might have to set up some lighting. You have to upload all the photos to Instagram and write a cheerful caption for each one – “Cowboy sort of ashtray thing! Quite vibey?” – and figure out a price that makes the whole exercise worth it. You have to have a DM exchange with anyone who wants to buy, as well as people who slightly want to buy, but also want to waste a bit of time, and keep upbeat throughout. You have to issue invoices and wait patiently to get paid.
And then the next day you have to wrap up every trinket from the great pile of repurposed packaging we’ve got behind the laundry airer, carefully tape it up tightly, write out the address and triple-check you’ve got it right (Google where they live, just to be nosy), and then, worst of all, go to the post office with a big bag of parcels and queue up for ages before sending them off, one by one by one. It takes for ever, and none of it is fun.
Miraculously, my cowboy hat ashtray thing sells, so that’s one less object in the house. But then we get back from standing in a 12-person queue inside a sweltering post office and – yep, there are three more parcels waiting for us at the door. “You know how to package them now – you can help me,” says my girlfriend. Cool, good, great. Really glad I did this.
‘My mood board is more nightmarish than aspirational’: Coco Khan tries being a creative director
My husband, Stephen, works as a “creative director” in advertising. It’s one of those job titles that if you think about it long enough starts to sound ominous. He directs … creativity? Like some sort of rollneck-wearing art tyrant? An evil twin of Fantasia’s Mickey, pointing at people and things, and commanding them to “be more aspirational!”.
When we worked from the same kitchen table during lockdowns, I thought I got a sense of his job. Emails, messaging platforms, call after call. And so, after two years of being in earshot – soaking in the lingo and the processes, and overhearing how he troubleshoots, I was quietly confident in my ability to step into his shoes.
Task one: the mood board
Stephen’s job is mostly about working on shoots for brands. Shoots are notoriously expensive endeavours, what with the cost of the crew, kit and location, not to mention the famous face that is usually fronting it (and charging by the minute). It can take months of prep to make sure it delivers exactly what is needed – and deliver it must, because you can’t afford to go back the next day to try again. Because of this, I am not allowed anywhere near an existing shoot. Not even to refill bowls of crisps at the back. But I am given the chance to be a creative wizard by working up ideas for a shoot with a footballer, on the theme of artificial intelligence. I’m told this needs to be represented in a mood board. I jot down some notes about what this exercise should do – give a sense of colour and textures, and objects that convey the aesthetic. It’s all about the feeling, I’m told, so I get to work on my vibes platter, starting by Googling futuristic words: robot; The Matrix; The Jetsons. I download pictures that conjure up AI in an emotional way. But my first attempt goes down like a lead balloon. “The problem with this,” says Stephen, “is that it tells me more about you than the shoot.” It seems what I present is more nightmarish than aspirational; a board where the only mood is bad.
Task two: the edit
If there is one thing I know, it’s that I am not a visual person. I learned this in secondary school where my weakest subject was art. I once worked all weekend on a drawing of Geri Halliwell (don’t ask), but when the mark came back I got a D. A D! Apparently it just “looked bad”; my teacher stared at me, bemused, as if to say, “Can you not see it looks messy?” The honest answer was no. That’s when I realised it’s not true that you can do anything you put your mind to. Some people just have a knack.
Stephen has the knack when it comes to visuals, I realise, but with editing I have an advantage. Part of his role is looking over video cuts and suggesting improvements. This bit is essentially a storytelling task and, as a writer, I know a thing or two about that. I’m given a rough draft of a video, and pull together an extensive list of narrative tweaks. Get to the explanation quicker. Closeup of XYZ’s reaction. The last few sentences should be cut, they have little impact. Later, I check to see how many of my suggestions have been taken on. All of them. 100%. Full marks. Just call me Stanley Kubrick.
Task three: location-scouting
For my final task, I’m asked to check out a venue for a video shoot involving a UK rapper. The theme is “retro”, so I head to Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace, a roller disco in London that is the sister of the original Los Angeles rink, which was described as “Studio 54 on wheels”. Today, the soundtrack is more hip-hop than disco, and I head over on a Friday to check it out. I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for as I walk around. I know that I like the space; that I find it striking. And I know the margaritas look very appealing. (Oh, go on then, better have one, in the name of “research”.) The site manager walks me around, telling me about other shoots that have happened here, and the technical capabilities for sound and light, which I jot down despite not fully understanding the terms. I report back to Stephen’s team, and they agree to do the shoot there. I relay my detailed notes and they seem impressed, until I mention how hard the skates were to put on. “Wait, you went … rollerskating … on a site visit?” Stephen says, looking bemused, much like my art teacher all those years ago. It’s a face that says: “Can you not see this is unprofessional?” I want to make it better, so I offer an explanation: “It was only for a few minutes, just to get a feel. It felt good! Though I had been drinking.” Reader, I only made it worse.
