Approximate reading time: 12 min

It feels like my inner children Lila, Lola and Mara-Keres are currently fighting to the death for the possession of my body.

Frankly, I would rather not be writing anything in this state.

How I have handled them in the past is to simply fall off the radar until I have managed to soothe them.

(By any means necessary)

Nobody loves a victim

These three are 120% victims

But I made myself a promise I would write a post a week, come hell or high water.

So here I am

(They are unfortunately who you get.)

After a month in South Africa, I can’t for the life of me remember why I chose to live in London.

I realise I have written many posts about how much I love living here.

But at this point, I can’t seem to remember.

I know I am here because as a single woman living in South Africa, I could barely survive on my teacher’s salary and because financially there are way more opportunities in this country.

But I am digressing….and perhaps skittering around the real issues at hand.

#1 It appears that our landlord is going bankrupt.

We have had numerous letters from a ‘Reciever company‘ informing us that we need to stop paying him rent and pay them instead. Our landlord and agent have responded to all our queries about this simply by saying that they are scammers, that we need to ignore them and that we have a legal obligation to pay them. The letters we have received from the receiver company say that if we ignore their letters and don’t pay them directly then they will be forced to take legal action as we will be deemed squatters and they will have no choice but to have us removed.

I love my home.

I want to pay rent.

I just don’t know who the hell to believe!

(I am not a squatter dammit all)

In hindsight, my landlord has been trying to sell this house pretty much since we moved in.

(Now we understand why)

Every year we get another contract, I sigh a huge sigh of relief …

‘Thank Goodness home for another year.’

But frankly, I am exhausted….

I have the perfect flatmates….

Now all I want is a home that I can settle in

once and for all.

*******

#2 And I’m here again?

Monday morning I turn up at school to a flurry of hugs from various random staff members all ecstatic to see me back.

All of them saying the same thing:

“Oh, I thought you weren’t coming back!”

I had requested the first week off from school this term as my holiday to South Africa had already been booked and paid for when I got given this job. I just assumed that when I didn’t start at the beginning of the term all the staff had mistakenly thought I wasnt returning. On walking to my first class in the morning the head teacher, let’s call her Prue, sees me in the passage and calls me over to her.

As I walk towards her I greet her and say Happy New Year.

Prue: What are you doing here?

We didn’t renew your contract for this term.

You need to phone your agency.

(What?

No hello?

No how was your holiday?)

I stare at her in utter shock not really sure what to say.

Me: “But I wasn’t told anything and I booked the first week of this term off with you last term?“

Prue: “You were only here until we hired the new deputy headteacher“

Random thoughts: Yes, but the new deputy head started at the beginning of last term and you continued to employ me?

Prue: “You need to phone your agency.“

And she promptly turns around and walks away.

If you are thinking that she was a tiny bit rude.

You would be correct.

Prue is, and always has been,

atrociously rude.

I will never forget the first day, when I walked into the morning staff meeting, just in time to hear Prue reprimanding a staff member like a 5-year-old for a mistake she had made.

My blood ran cold.

Shaming your staff member in front of their colleagues is never a good sign.

That conversation could have very easily been had in person and with a lot less vitriol.

I have said nothing in the last couple of months.

I have held my tongue and sung my praises about the school because I did love it.

I loved the kids and I loved so many of the staff.

There are some truly lovely people there.

But for the record,

I have never loved Prue.

I was able to swallow down my intense dislike of this woman and focus on the positives.

I ignored the fact that Prue

Never greets you

Never smiles at you

Never asks you how your day is going

And I focused on the fact that I had small classes and lovely kids.

(In many ways it felt like most of the staff is bonded together by their mutual dislike of Prue.)

Some people think she is on the autistic spectrum.

(Maybe she is)

Personally, I think that does a huge disservice to all the autistic people in the world who know how to be kind and respectful of others despite their diagnosis.

For me Prue has an awful lot of narcissistic characteristics that make her not at all suitable for a headteacher of a school working with vulnerable students.

You only have to look at the extremely high turnover of staff in the school to know that there is a deep-rooted problem here. If I were to hazard a guess I would probably say that about 60% of the current staff are all supply staff. Hence none of them are permanent.

There are at the moment a whole host of teachers

(and support staff)

who are all miserable working under her and yet, like me, they do nothing….. because they love the kids.

Prue’s favourite activity seems to be walking into your class right at the end of the lesson only to find something that she can pick on you for in front of the pupils.

One of the teachers left the first week that I was there after one such incident with Prue.

They have yet to find a full-time replacement for the class.

In my entire 2 terms there I have not ONCE heard Prue say anything positive or uplifting to a single staff member, but I have heard her criticise and embarrass a number of them.

Prue seems to take her role as headteacher extremely seriously and will shout down any child that doesnt seem to “respect” her authority.

(It is nauseating)

A common problem is often that a child will have a meltdown

(As a lot of autistic children can do);

their class teacher will work through it, manage to get the child calm, focused and regulated and eventually able to join in with the class again. Prue who will have heard ‘via the grapevine’ of this incident will then come into the class

(sometimes hours later)

and start telling the child off again.

This then sends them into another cosmic meltdown.

And we are back where we started.

(It’s like Groundhog Day on steroids)

One of the children that I worked with is a particularly heartbreaking case. Jamie is a child whose mother can’t be bothered to come to a single meeting (in person) that is set up to discuss her child’s issues because she is usually ‘recovering from her latest liposuction’ or other varied medical procedures. Jamie, rather matter-of-factly, told his teacher that his mum doesn’t even wake up in the mornings to get him ready for school. He does everything by himself. Needless to say, this is a one-hell-of-an-angry little boy who clearly has huge attachment issues. He makes class incredibly difficult for both his teacher and his peers by continually provoking the other children with insults and put-downs. Although they are generally a lovely class, it feels like most of your energy goes to trying to soothe and calm the other children who are continually upset by Jamie’s often nasty and spiteful comments.

(Or just frustrated by his continuous speaking)

I will admit even I found working with Jamie incredibly challenging.

One day after a particularly difficult lesson I had to remove Jamie from our assembly because he just wouldn’t stop with the comments.

He was sitting outside the hall and in utter frustration, I got down on my knees to say :

“Jamie there are a lot of people in the school that really care about you!“

I wanted him to know that

We were on his side

That he wasn’t alone

That we wanted to help him

At that exact moment, Prue came around the corner, saw Jamie and started shouting that she was going to call his mother and get him removed from the school if he couldn’t behave himself.

Why do we even bother?

But that’s how Prue works.

She has little or no appreciation that many of her staff are actually

trying

to build relationships with these students.

I was absolutely flabbergasted to hear what Prue said in a staff meeting once

when Jamie was not allowed to go on the school trip

And I quote:

“Jamie needs to learn that if he treats us badly then we will treat him badly.

WTF ?

Are you serious?

This is a 10-year-old little boy who is miserable at home and who is now clearly miserable at school as well. Jamie doesnt have the emotional IQ to understand how his home life is making him so angry, how his emotional needs are not getting met, and how lonely and isolated he feels. All Jamie knows is that he is pissed off as hell and his ‘behaviour’ is a symptom of that anger.

It is certainly not our job as teachers to play ‘tit-for tat’ with children.

While I have no problem with her keeping him off the school trip

(Jamie does need to learn that there are

consequences

to his behaviour)

It’s the head teacher’s job to model some iota of compassion, empathy and understanding for these kids.

Something that Prue has very little ability to do.

So am I surprised that she was so rude to me?

Nope

Am I surprised that I wasn’t given the basic courtesy of being able to prepare for my departure and say goodbye to the staff and kids that I have bonded with over the last 4 months?

Nope

Am I surprised that I didn’t even get so much as a thank you for my 4 months of work there?

Nope

Does it make it any easier?

Nope

Right now

I feel angry

I feel hurt

and I feel sad.

When I was in South Africa I met up with one of my oldest friends who was telling me about how her daughter had been so upset this year by one of her teachers and how disrespectful she was with the entire class. It eventually got so bad that she decided to write a letter to the head teacher listing all the things that this particular teacher does and then got the whole class to sign it.

I was a little blown away by this young 14-year-old girl’s courage to do something and make a difference.

I will admit I also felt a slight tinge of shame when I heard this because for the last couple of months, all I have been doing is turning a blind eye and ignoring all the unhealthy things that Prue has been doing.

(Hell, all I do is write stuff down in my blog…. )

So I have decided that I will be writing a letter to the school board about my experiences with Prue…

This woman who writes on the school website

Bull fucking shit!

A Toxic Family maybe

(Rest assured I will be doing this after my dissertation proposal has been finished – In March, when hopefully I will be a lot less angry!)

ps I have 5 weeks left to finish my dissertation proposal

(I am quietly freaking out!)

Ok so the rant is over ….

Now I will end on the positive.

After 4 days of angst about this flat Richard managed to contact the bank, who have verified the receivership of this ‘so-called scammer company’

Now that we know they are legit, we felt more able to reach out to them and explain our situation. They have confirmed that my landlord has numerous houses being taken away from him and he is telling all his tenants it’s a scam.

(Charming- some people are just quite simply shitheads.)

The company has since agreed that we can continue paying our rent to the landlord…as long as we provide them with a copy of our lease.

We can do that.

#1 Thank God we will not be deemed squatters…just yet!

This week I have had 3 days of work in three of my loveliest old schools. I got so many cuddles and hugs from random little 5-year-olds, that I almost wonder if they knew….

That I was in desperate need of them?

#2 Hugs are free

The headteacher in the last school, on Friday, came into class with the biggest smile on her face just to say hello and to tell me that she was happy I was back on the market again.

(So to speak)

I was reminded that there are amazing,

loving headteachers out there

who value and respect their staff

and are doing their utmost to create healthy,

caring environments for their kids.

#3 There are good, kind people in the world

While typing this angry post from 6.30 am this morning…I got to see the most beautiful sunrise from my kitchen window and I was reminded that …..