what's wrong with a curry sausage kebab in a bap temps /DS
Skerret's posting is ok to trip balls to and read just to experience the ambience but don't expect any content. "I'm jealous of sucking major dick!"~ Kernowgaz
I'm so angry at the minute and until I go near the evaluation form this is where I'm venting.
We sent a full year of our pupils to a nearby barracks for our ethos day today, the hope to get them doing a nice variety of activities and gel as a year. The weather in Edinburgh (pissing rain) meant that the day was going to need to be rescheduled as all outdoor activities would need to be rejigged. "No problem" we were told.
We show up today and were told, gruffly that the kids were going to run two miles in the rain because "that's how the army cadets operate" . I politely explained that these were 15 year old pupils and that they have not signed up to the army, nor are they being paid like cadets are. The man told me it was a "fucking joke" and went away.
My group sat for 40 minutes waiting on a replacement activity that never occured and then were shuffled on.
What followed was as poorly organised and run. Army staff openly swearing in front of and berating school pupils, poorly run activities that were not what we were promised, one activity where the opening gambit was "tell the most offensive joke you know".
When I pulled up one of the staff for calling a pupil a "fanny" his response was "where do you think the phrase 'swears like a trooper comes from?'"
The whole day has been calamitous. The kids did themselves proud despite being drenched and not well served but it only served to perpetuate the stereotypical army perception. Now, my views on the military are fairly well known here, but I'd argue that when every single other teacher who has been participating with groups comes to you to complain at the end of the day, the argument is not without merit. Awful day. Thank god its end of term tomorrow.
However what they sold us was not "life as a squaddie" it was "we can do team building exercises if you give us one 30 minute presentation per group on what the armed forces is"
Suffice to say that was the best organised section of the day.
You did yourself proud mate, and it sounds like the kids have their heads on right.
I grew up right near a squaddie town and it has its good and its bad sides - the thing I don't miss though is the bawdy, aggressive culture that seemed to permeate the barracks and everything around it.