A brief review of this gig and a little late posting it due to being a) busy and b) ill. This is the second time I’ve had a chance to catch Buckcherry after their support slot under Disturbed in December at the SECC. It is the first time I’ve been to The Arches and it’s an OK venue though its unusual shape makes it a little awkward to get a decent view from far back. So I pushed my way to the front after they opened with “Dead”.
They’re definitely a good live band, with a great variety of tracks but fitting firmly into the category of “bouncy, singalong rock”. The set was virtually non-stop with only the briefest of stage walk-offs before a short encore. There was no complaints about variety, either, with tracks from all their albums as far as I could tell – I was a little bit tipsy.
My only complaint was the length of the set which was only slightly over an hour. I was expecting the usual ninety minutes and would have enjoyed the extra few songs it would have given, but not to worry. Hopefully next time!
Or more specifically, making it harder to find teaching jobs.
I’m coming to the end of my probationary year through in Edinburgh and intend to move through to Glasgow in the summer to be with Gillian and the kids. Therefore I’ve been looking for a job in the area. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naive, I know teaching jobs aren’t that easy to find at the moment. However, it seems that Glasgow Council are making it more difficult – and their methods seem purposeless.
Only one job for a Computing teacher has come up in Glasgow and I didn’t get an interview. Given the number of candidates (and I’m sure many were far more experienced than me) this isn’t a huge surprise and I’m not that downhearted about it.
What’s really getting my goat is that I inquired about being put onto the supply list for occasional work up until I can find a permanent position. “Sorry,” I was told, “Glasgow are only putting their own probationers onto their supply list”.
So, basically, to get a job in Glasgow you have to be working in Glasgow already. Let’s not take into account the fact that some of those probationers might be moving elsewhere and that some who studied in Glasgow (like me) took advantage of the “go anywhere” scheme promoted by the GTCS to fill vacancies elsewhere on the understanding we could head “home” afterwards.
The plot thickens, though, when I heard that only the best graded probationers in Glasgow would go onto their supply list. Now I’ve only heard this from one person, but it is a probationer who is within the system so I’ve no reason to doubt what they’re saying. I wasn’t aware that probationers were graded beyond “suitable”, “suitable with some extra time required” and “for the love of all that’s holy, don’t let them in a classroom again”.
So it seems that Glasgow have decided – somehow – to grade all their probationers. This applies to Primary, secondary and all subject specialities therein. It’s unrelated to any other council so there’s nothing for them to regulate against. Hence their “grading” must be completely arbitrary. Given that it’s the first time they’ve done it, it’s also unproven.
Right, so they grade all their teachers. They only allow the “top” ones onto the supply list. This assumes the aforementioned top ones don’t get permanent employment in Glasgow or elsewhere. Or that they’re not moving out of the area, perhaps as they themselves were on the “go anywhere” scheme.
Throwing in some random figures, let’s say there are 100 teachers. The top 20 get permanent posts, so you’re left with 80 who are OK ro good (or crap). 15 of these go elsewhere or drop out of teaching. Glasgow needs 100 new entries on the supply register so where does it get the space-fillers? The first 35 to apply from elsewhere, or from further down their graded list. Not the best, the first. Which means they’re not necessarily going to fill the register with anyone decent.
In addition, when a school seeks a supply teacher the local authority don’t say “here – you’re having this person”. They send out a list of potentials. The department head will then put out the feelers and seek references, official or otherwise. What “grade” they got is irrelevant.
In fact, I would expect that grading teachers would cause them to be more likely to end up skipping the supply list because – assuming a probationer is told how they’re doing grade-wise – it could be used as a “selling point” in interviews.
From what I’ve been able to find out, it’s only Glasgow that are doing this. None of the surrounding councils are bothering. Why? I have no idea. But I simply cannot figure out any actual reason for doing so that doesn’t revolve around generating paperwork and giving some council monkeys a job.
If the GTCS – the governing body for teachers in Scotland – doesn’t see fit to grade new teachers, why on earth do Glasgow Council think that they have the needs, or indeed the skills, to do so themselves?
I’m sure there are a few of you out there who don’t follow my goings-on via facebook and/or Twitter so I thought I might as well put a few words up here. This blog is rapidly becoming a film review site and I don’t want that!
Recent news – I applied for a PGDE (Primary) course at Strathclyde University and found out this week, after interview, that I hadn’t got on. I’m disappointed, but it’s not the end of the world. With over 800 people competing for barely 130 places I’m glad I at least got as far as an interview. I guess I’ll see how things stand close to term starting and I may ring to see if there have been any drop-outs. Or I try again next year.
What’s a real shame is that next year will be the last time the course will be running at the Jordanhill campus and I really liked it there. Far more convenient and lovely surroundings – much better (and cheaper) than traipsing into the city centre every day.
What else? Well, Gill and I are still doing remarkably well. I guess she’s just not got bored of me yet. The two kids are just amazing. I honestly didn’t realise how much I would enjoy taking on the responsibility of kids. OK, so I only see them all at weekends and holidays but I’m looking forward to July when – assuming I don’t arse things up like I have a habit of doing – I’ll be moving in with them.
In the meantime I’ve been helping redecorate, put together furniture and “tech” the house up a bit. We had been hoping to move to another place (and such a lovely place), but financially it’s just not viable at the moment. Instead we’re looking at extending the existing place and staying put for a few years. Nice location, though, and good for schools for the kids – and hopefully for me!
On the job front, things aren’t looking fantastic with precisely no full-time vacancies for Computing teachers being advertised. There’s always supply, and I have no issues with going back to IT if it’s going to pay the bills. Hell, the dive company that Gill is doing her SCUBA training with is after divemasters, so you never know – I could go that direction instead.
Work is going well. I’m lucky enough to have fantastic support at the school at which I’m doing my NQT year. Teaching isn’t as easy as you might have thought it was when you were the kid sat in the classroom staring out of the window. I’m definitely on the downhill slope towards the year end, and will be losing a fair few classes to exam leave in the very near future. Revision time!
As mentioned, though, the job situation sucks and it seems the Scottish government have decided that their money saving plans for next year are best focussed on destroying the education system as best they can while ensuring that the upper echelons of Holyrood get to keep their flash cars and velvet-upholstered toilet seats. But that will be another blog post.
One thing I’ve really noticed over the last few months is that my blog posting has declined a lot to pretty much just film reviews. This was never intentional, though it’s partly due to the job. I can’t blog a lot about work for confidentiality reasons.
I do actually have a work blog, but good luck finding it – it’s deliberately well hidden. Though not that well, due to my employer’s bonkers IT system (up until I complained a few weeks into term that having posts “signed” with my real name was a little silly).
The other main reason for the lack of blogging is the fact that I’m making quite a lot of use of Twitter and Facebook. My life is being reduced to several 140-character bullet points, and a series of “Like”s. This isn’t good.
So I thought I’d take the end of the year to do a quick wrap-up and fill in some cracks. What’s happened and what’s happening?
Well, the year in brief. I started it at university, living with an aunt in Glasgow. I finished my PGDE(S) with Computing in the summer and headed to Vietnam, where I worked for 2 months with some incredible people at the Hanoi Backpacker’s Hostel.
There I met some new friends, and had a chance to catch up with some old ones – in particular the staff at the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. I didn’t spend as much time as I’d hoped with them due to the work commitments (6 days on, 1 off if I was lucky), but still enjoyed a lot of time helping out and just hanging with the kids.
On the off chance anyone from Vietnam is reading – hey guys and thanks. It was great!
Upon my return, I started working in Edinburgh – placed there at random by the Scottish government. This was fine by me but meant doing a bit of house hunting. My first “own place” since 2006. OK, so I do have a flatmate, but I also have my own room. And bills. Whoo!
I’ve started catching up on my live music as well. Missed so many gigs over the last few years – it’s hard to book tickets in advance when you don’t know from month to month what country you’ll be in – I went to around 10 gigs between August and December. Exodus, Annihilator, All That Remains, Airbourne, Bowling For Soup, Alter Bridge, Disturbed, Hatebreed, Ginger (ex-Wildhearts)…
Then in October things changed. Armed with a pass to all four of Hayseed Dixie‘s Glasgow tour dates, I arranged to stay with the cousin of a friend for one of the evenings. This would allow me to have a couple of bevvies. She decided she wanted to come along as she liked the sound of the band.
As 2010 draws to a close, I’m writing this blog post in her front room. Her two kids are upstairs in bed and we’re settling down with a cuppa.
Despite always promising that I’d never date a single mother, Gill completely changed my perceptions. I had my reasons – mainly related to worrying about how I would handle children who weren’t my own. I’m glad to say that Gill’s two are lovely and I love them as much as I love her.
Yeah, let’s end the year on a soppy note. Work’s hard, but rewarding. I have my hopes for next year, either in employment or back at university.
But the main thing is that I’m finally in a stable relationship with the most amazing woman with the most wonderful kids. I shall try desperately not to screw this one up.
Happy New 2011.
And a token “humbug” just in case you think I’m losing my touch.
“So, stop talking about Scottish people and just play some ******* music, yeah?”
This one took me back a few years. I wasn’t 100% sure about going as it was on a school night, and the weather was closing in. However, my lovely other half bought me a ticket for my birthday so I just had to drive through for it.
Oh, I am so glad I did.
Ginger is a legend. He fronted The Wildhearts for years, a band which broke up more often than a packet of cheap digestive biscuits. In fact, the last time I saw them was at Newcastle University a lot of years ago. He stormed off stage somewhere around halfway through the gig after arguing with the other guitarist.
He couldn’t have been any more different tonight. I honestly don’t think he stopped smiling the entire evening. Ginger’s first appearance was to guest guitar on Baby Chaos’ last song – a band themselves who only got back together to play support for the man himself.
After a short break, he took to the stage with his own band and launched into a set consisting predominantly of Wildhearts classics – of which there are many. The crowd were bouncing within two songs, and I have to confess I was pleasantly surprised by the turn-out. I’d honestly thought that the world would have forgotten about The Wildhearts, but it seems I was thankfully mistaken!
My Twitter feed became a slew of song titles, I was so excited. I’m glad to see I made so many people somewhat jealous! “I Wanna Go Where The People Go“, “If Love is Like a Love Bank”, “Vanilla Radio“… and after a short break the first encore song, “Geordie In Wonderland“. Oh ******* wow. As I said, the last time I saw Ginger live was in Newcastle itself. This performance was every bit as good. As the song kicked off, two girls behind me were talking to each other. “That guy in front’s going to love this one”. The fact I was wearing a Newcastle United shirt (which I began waving over my head!) may have given this away.
To break up the songs, Ginger had a great line in patter. Hell, I think he could have stood there and just shot the **** with the audience for ninety minutes and sent everyone home grinning. Quote of the night was probably the short exchange with someone in the middle of the crowd.
Ginger: All I heard was “something something something ****.”
Voice: Just get the **** on with it!!!
Ginger: Aye, reet. I heard that.
A great guy, with great rapport and a huge collection of material to wade through. So glad I went and for any old Wildhearts fans who missed it, do keep an eye out for further tours. I’m sure he’ll be back.
