Things are Starting to Look Up

Our new First Boss has been receiving good reviews from her staff.

First, she axed the annual Open House event.

A senior colleague had commented last year that we did not need an Open House as an Open House is meant to attract top pupils. For the kind of profile of students that we attract, we do not need an Open House at all. And she was right. Some Heads up there apparently had proposed to have an Open House to allow potential students to visit the premise and to 'attract' potential students just before the Pri One registration exercise.

I am so glad that someone finally saw the light and put a stop to the rubbish.

For a one-day event, we had to make a lot of preparations leading up to the day itself.

For instance, the year I had to prepare some 'student ambassadors' for that day to welcome visitors and to show visitors around the school, I had to ask colleagues teaching a certain level to volunteer a few students from each class. After that, I had to meet up with these students for a few rounds of briefing and practices. I had to prepare their scripts for them as they were too young to know what to say to visitors - adults and children. I had to plan the route for a visit for them so that they knew where to start from and where to end. I had to train them repeatedly as they were only children, although they were 11 or 12 years old.

Such 'rehearsals' took up a lot of time after school, and it was stressful as the institute I was trained in did not provide training for such a role. I had to figure it out all by myself.

Sadly, the appraisal has been conducted in such a way that we are counted for roles like that, how much you do outside the classroom, rather than how well you teach or the result you produce. Apparently, some idiots have decided that all teachers teach in the same manner and produce the same outcome and so the only way to differentiate the abilities of teachers is through such means - doing things unrelated to teaching.

After knowing that the Open House has been axed, the morale amongst us went up quite a bit.

Then the next thing I heard, she wanted the prize-giving ceremony to be simple. The ceremony had been planned since last year before school closed that it was going to be a great fanfare. A 'musical-themed' ceremony they said. I have to train up 6 kids to act on stage to complement the ceremony. Needless to say, it gave me alot of stress as well since I have never been drama-trained. I even have stage-fright! I don't know what made them think I would do a good job at it. I even had a hard time shortlisting the kids as given the kind of children we have been attracting, the ones who get the prizes are already the cream of the crop and they are at best average in better schools, I was left with very few choices since I was not supposed to involve any of the prize-winners in the drama.

So naturally, I was very grateful, and many others were happy, to hear the good news that the First Boss did not want any performance this time round.

But some idiot apparently suggested to keep the original plan, since much effort have been put into it, and use it for the next prize-giving ceremony at the end of this year.

Sigh! Sometimes, you can't help but marvel at the brainlessness of these people.

But we are starting to like our First Boss. Unlike our previous Boss, she talks to the kids regularly, on stage. In fact, she has talked to them at least 3 times already within one week. Our previous Boss hardly talked to the kids. Most of the time, he talked to them once on the first day of school, the last day before the June holidays, the first day of school after the June holidays and the official last day of school.

We feel that this new Boss is oh-so-traditional in a very good way. She believes that the academics must go first as many doors are closed if you don't even possess the academic qualifications - which coincides with my belief! She is in the process of streamlining the processes to make sure that the academics take the priority. And I love that!

Perhaps the next thing she should do is to cut down on the number of workshops and training that we are made to go. Within 7 working days, we are asked to attend 4 workshops - after school. And I have not talked about the meetings which are done on separate days.