A Week in the Life: Wednesday

Today programme. Alarm. Usual morning routine. No ice and lighter traffic so at school at 8.10am enabling me to photocopy some bits and pieces for the next couple of days.

8.50am - Registration: Year 12 Tutor Group. Just one notice today and then Year 12 assembly. The headteacher surprises the assembled crowd by apparently eating cat food in a bid to make them consider the fact it is not what the outside looks like, but what is inside that counts. Doubtless the detail that they will remember is that the headteacher ate cat food and then wonder why.

9.15am - Period 1: Year 12 English Language and Literature. Finish reading The History Boys and start exploring character. Due to the smallness of the group, I find myself completing the sheet for the character I was reading in which will be photocopied along with all the students' for their notes.

10.35am - Period 2: Year 7 English. We finish the section in the text book (see yesterday) and then assess leaflets that Year 8 have created for which the target audience was Year 7; a range of marks and critical comments duly awarded to their seniors.

11.35am - Period 3: Year 11 English. The first of two lessons in which students have the opportunity to re-try writing the second of their controlled assessments. I watch in the sad knowledge that it will result in a further 27 essays for me to mark.

Lunch starts promptly at 12.35pm and sandwiches and chatting abound (as it is preferable to marking the controlled assessments which I am still carrying around with me and probably will continue to do so).

1.35pm - Period 4: Year 10 English Literature. We continue working on essay writing technique and looking at how to approach the comparative examination question. Lots of good feedback and practice paragraphs fill me with some confidence.

2.35pm - Period 5: Year 9 English. A quick round of You Say, We Pay (courtesy of Richard and Judy) starts the lesson in a fun way before we return to Romeo and Juliet's initial sonnet and consider the physicality of their words; from there we look at Juliet's prophetic closing lines. Five headlines to summarise the events of each scene in Act I and character profiles show that everyone has taken something away from the past three lessons.

At 3.35pm I leave school promptly and remember I need to get some petrol on the way home. Some £70 later, I get home, wade through the post, manage a cup of tea, and check e-mails and Facebook.

Evensong tonight is replaced by a rehearsal for the forthcoming recording, so I head to the Cathedral for 5.00pm and we have a 75 minute session dealing with some of the minutiae that is usually forgotten in the daily routine of having to sing a service.

After the rehearsal, mention of a quick drink is made. Having been very organised this week, I accept and enjoy a pint with three colleagues. Back home for 7.30pm, cook supper, wash up and at the computer for 8.45pm.

I download and print a work-in-progress paper by a member of the PhD group which I may end up critiquing tomorrow and turn to writing the bulk of today's blog. Then, before reading the paper, I sort out books in preparation for writing some more posthuman essay tomorrow afternoon and remember I agreed to copy a few tracks from a recording of a concert for someone. Sadly, the CD is not where I expect to find it. Nevertheless, I eventually find it and set about ripping the relevant tracks and creating a new CD.

At 10.05pm, when the CD is burnt, books organised, papers in slightly more organised piles and today's blog finished and checked, I decide it is time for a fractionally earlier night (or at least opportunity to read for a little longer in bed tonight).

A Week in the Life: Tuesday

Radio 4 at 6.37am. Alarm at 6.55am. Usual morning routine, but ice on the car and more traffic en route means arrival time at school is 8.25am.

Today's school timings are all slightly out of kilter as we have a meeting during period 5; rather than cancelling a single lesson, all five are curtailed.

8.50am - Registration: Year 12 Tutor Group. Notices and quick mention of Charles Dickens's anniversary as a colleague has sent an e-mail saying how to work out your Dickensian name (a grandparent's name and the name of the road on which you grew up). We are still playing with names when the bell rings.

9.00am - Period 1: Year 9 English. Exploring Romeo and Juliet and use the Zeffirelli film version to recap the story for five minutes before reading Act 1 Scene 5. The sonnet is duly identified and the question of whether Romeo and Juliet are really in love addressed by looking at the language used and making links to Romeo's first appearance.

10.15am - Period 2: Free. A couple of administrative minutes at e-mail, and then marking controlled assessments.

11.10am - Period 3: Year 12 English Language and Literature. Continuing reading through The History Boys and I am slightly surprised to get no reaction to the various uses of the f-word and the single c-bomb which was read as if it was an item in the TV listings.

Lunch at 12.05pm, and for the first time in three weeks I am able to sit down to my sandwiches (including homemade apple and chilli chutney) without having Year 11 repeat speaking and listening tasks hanging over me. I am so bored by 12.40pm that I mark another controlled assessment and gossip to colleagues who are also pretending to do something constructive.

1.05pm - Period 4: Year 7 English. Return to a section in the text book on presentational devices and organisation of texts after yesterday's foray into moral issues. I decide that I need to see how this can be made more engaging for next time.

1.50pm - Period 5: Year 10 English. Introducing the first of their creative writing controlled assessments which has to be inspired by a film's title or line of dialogue. Use the opening of Great Expectations (please note the Dickens link) to consider how a young person getting accosted by a stranger could be a starting point for a piece of writing. Set my favourite GCSE homework: raid your DVD collection and pick a film to use as your starting point.

It is 2.45pm and time for the staff meeting. We have opportunity to air concerns about any aspects of life at school and then good practice is shared by members of several departments. Sadly, time-keeping is not seen as good practice, so the meeting ends nearly 30 minutes late.

4.10pm and I jump in the car to try and get home for a cup of tea before Evensong. I telephone my parents for our bi-weekly hands-free catchup and mention the engine fault light; I subsequently prove that the car is running normally by using the kickdown to take the engine to somewhere around 7500rpm and a few miles an hour.

I reach the Cathedral Close at 4.40pm and realise that I can make it home in time for a very quick cup of tea. I manage half a mug of tea as my interest is taken by a Fever Tree bottle opener I have been sent for buying their tonic water and entering an online competition. I am, nevertheless, convinced I ticked the 'no further correspondence' box.

At 4.52pm I leave home to get to the Cathedral for the rehearsal, and notice as I start the car that the engine fault light is no longer on.

The 5.00pm rehearsal, and 5.30pm Evensong which is followed by a pep talk in preparation for the recording sessions scheduled for this Thursday and Friday evenings.

Home at 6.40pm (noticing that fault light remains satisfyingly off), supper, washing up, and then lesson planning by 8.00pm.

By 9.25pm lessons until Friday are organised, the bulk of today's blog written and there is just the ironing left on my list of jobs for tonight before tiredness overtakes me. An episode of The Saint and the ironing takes me to 10.30pm and bed.