First day invigilating
May 17th, 2006 at 20:48
Today was my first day working in my old school as an exam invigilator. It was even easier than I had predicted.
I was invigilating a couple of GCSE French listening exams- both foundation and higher tiers. My first observation was that it was incredible just how different the two groups of students were. The foundation lot didn’t really attempt to follow the school uniform dress code, loads of them didn’t have their exam timetables, and the “mobile phone box” at the front (not “mobile phonebox“) was stacked full of phones that the kids had neglected to leave in their bags.
By contrast, the “higher” tier kids all behaved perfectly.
It was boring really- no one caused a fuss and everyone got on with it. I didn’t even have to hand out any extra paper or tell anyone to face the front. I wanted someone’s phone to go off so I could march them out and give them a bollocking, but, alas the most exciting thing that happend was collecting the papers up at the end.
Listening to the foundation exam first of all (it was played off of a tape, as it was listening), the thing that struck me was just how easy it was- three years after I took my (higher tier) French listening GCSE, I thought “this is easy”. It was reassuring as I thought my French skillz didn’t go any further than “Je voudrais un coca”- when in fact they extend as far as “I walk to school” and “I get up at seven o’clock”.
The higher tier paper was just 45 minutes of white noise, essentially.
I was doing literally nothing, though. I just stood at the front- I didn’t have to pace around looking contemptuously at the kids. I got paid about twelve english pounds for standing silently, attempting to keep an eye on the kids. I must have earnt a few pence by simply chatting to my mate JD, who works doing techy things at the school (I believe he has a salary and a pension and everything)- it was his job to press the “play” and “stop” buttons.
All in all: not bad. Hopefully next time I post about WORK, it’ll have a more exciting story attached.
Categories: Work |