MY EDUCATION WEEK:FIONA BYRNE Technology and design teacher Castleknock Community College, Dublin

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3rd

Back to school on Monday. Nerves mixed with delight. This is my fourth year teaching but my first full year teaching as a mother. Hope Riain is okay with the childminder – first day at school for him too! Today, I will cook and freeze buckets of mushed vegetables and start thinking about my subject, technology and design. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it all summer, wondering what my new students will be like. Will I get any girls this year? The handful I’ve had have all been brilliant. Three out of four of them got As in the subject two years back. Fingers crossed.

I used to spend my girlhood in the garage with my dad, watching him design and build things. I never thought I’d end up teaching the subject. When I did industrial design in NCAD it was always with an eye to working in the fast lane, at the heart of cutting-edge commercial design. Turned out the fast lane had me stuck at a desk all day. The company I worked for was great, a lighting design firm in London, but I wasn’t learning anything new. Now that I’m teaching I’m learning more about design every day – and quite a bit more besides, like the Arabic for circular saw, the difference between dyslexia and dyspraxia, and the hot hair colours for fall 2012 . . .

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4th

Went into Castleknock Community College today to look over the workshop and make sure all my materials are ready to go. TD is not exactly a chalk-and-talk kind of subject. It’s all go in the workshop and I need to be sure that everything’s in proper working order and no immediate threat to my students. Of more immediate threat to me, however, is that new interactive whiteboard in the corner. Just because I teach a subject with technology in the title doesn’t mean I can just turn that thing on and away we go. However, my blackboard appears to be missing so I’ve no choice.

Spent some time making friends with IWB and I’m starting to get the hang of it. I can see how this will help visual learners. There are so many different kinds of kids in a class these days, with different levels of English, various learning styles and such a wide range of ability, the more approaches I can take with them the better. When I was in school in Finglas, students from Ashbourne were exotic.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5th

First class of the new term. I’m a little apprehensive. It happens every year. You have to start off on the right foot to get their attention. The school is buzzing, almost 1,200 students all seeing their friends again. I notice a lot of the blondes have gone brown over the summer. Fashion or recession?

My first challenge with every new class is the roll. There are always a few names I will not be able to pronounce first time. I meet my new first years – they seem great, but I’m the only girl in the room as usual! Over breakfast this morning I counted that I’ll be teaching 210 students this year, 40 I’ve never taught before, and I’m tutor to a lovely bunch of fifth years. I know I’ll get to know them all pretty well. Maybe it’s the nature of this subject, but you spend a good deal of time working on practical design projects with the radio on, chatting and getting to know the students over the year.

It’ll be a late one tonight. After Riain goes to bed I’ll need to get down to some serious lesson planning. The first month has got to be action-packed for the students or you lose them. One hour of intense teaching equals countless hours of prep.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6th

So this is the new routine – up with the baby at 6.45am and out the door at 7.30am. Arrive at school by 8.30am, set up classroom and by 8.45am I have students in front of me. Tuesday is one of the days when I have gaps between classes but they’re filling up. I have to get some training with the new baby (that’s the whiteboard – everyone in the staffroom is on a slightly panicked learning curve, but already people are having epiphanies). I also need to meet with our amazing special needs team to find out about my new classes this year. It seems to me that every year that passes there are more children with different needs coming into post-primary schools.

They’ve been through the primary system with resources of various kinds and now they move into second level, naturally needing the same. This year I have two students with Asberger’s, one with autism and one student with Down syndrome. Then of course there is an array of other needs from dyslexia to ADHD. Understanding the different conditions is really important, but in the end every child is completely different and I like to get to know them all and find out what works for them. For some it’s as simple as knowing whether they learn better in the morning or the afternoon. The special needs team are great for this. It can’t be left to chance, especially when cuts in special needs services mean there are fewer people in the classroom to help.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7th

I believe the bomb squad were in Limerick today, carrying out a controlled explosion in a school science lab. Oops. Better do another round of the workshop this morning.

We build a dynamic around a project, an energy that absorbs us in what we’re doing. Discipline’s not a big problem in the T&D classroom: the students are too busy. I have to trust them to behave responsibly around the equipment. They respond well to that.

There’s a lot of creativity going on in this workshop, and lot of life skills being learned.

I think Áine Hyland [UCC vice-president who released a report last week on ways to change the CAO system] got it right – we need a college entry system that rewards the kind of skills my students display – problem-solving, independent learning, creativity. The CAO system as it stands may be fair in the strictest sense of the word, but it’s so impersonal. There’s no opportunity for students to engage with the process personally. I taught in London for a while and the entry system for university there involves character references and personal interests. Makes sense, right?

It would also make sense for teachers: there’s too much pressure to teach to the exam. I love my subject and I like to keep learning, developing and passing that on to the students. There’s less freedom to do that when you’re locked into an old exam formula.

Compared to teaching in the UK, where rewards are built into the system for getting results, there’s not much incentive to improve for teachers here. You just have to love your subject and your job, which luckily I do. You also need to land in the right school, where everybody wants the same thing for their students: the very best. And I have.

Home to a cranky little boy this evening. Six o'clock is turning out to be his witching hour. Two portions of Peppa Pigcuddled up on the couch and we're friends again.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8th

Had to get up even earlier than usual to doll up for this photograph – thanks for noticing! Today will be back to back teaching time from 9am to 4pm. Exhausting, exhilarating, endlessly different from student to student. By the end of a Thursday my head’s in a spin and my voice is a whisper. I can’t believe the first week is almost over. This is definitely the most manic month – you have to get everything spot on to set the right tone for the year. I’m feeling positive – teaching a great subject in a great school to a great bunch of students, including the usual selection of characters I will have to find a way around! My resolution this year is to try and keep my work between the hours of nine and five, and weeknights. This weekend will be the first in my teaching career when I will not tune up a pillar drill or map out a lesson plan. Well. We’ll see.

This week I was . . .

READINGThe Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

Full of characters I recognise.

LISTENING TOLykke Li: dancy and lovely.

LOOKING UPThe T4.ie website, which has loads of resources for teachers of Design and Technology. Also inventorium.org, the National Digital Resource Centre – great talks on education.

WATCHING Peppa Pig, unfortunately