I was late for my first class this morning, and when I got there I wasn’t exactly in a state to teach either. I didn’t have any handouts, and seriously, how can one possibly teach these days, without a handout? Thank god for the whiteboard; without it, and a motivational video that ran for half the lesson, I might have actually had to talk to the kids. Jeez.

Honestly, how can a school for 1000 pupils have only one photocopier? I have been trying to copy two pages from a book for my class for over a week. I made sure I left enough time to get it done, and have queued at the copier for an hour on Friday, but it breaks, always breaks. Or someone else had to copy the entire bible so then it ran out of ink, or the paper delivery hadn’t come, or the queue was filled with more important copying needs than mine (as usual). Or, as today’s excuse was, Joan in the office hadn’t had her coffee yet and therefore we weren’t allowed to disrupt her morning perusal of The Sun with the sounds of copying. Yes, of course, your the peace and quiet  is SO much more important than actually teaching the young minds of today. Way to go, Joan.

The government – whoever that ends up being – has been promising to reduce the ‘administrative burden’ they place on teachers for years. Increases in support and admin staff are meant to have eased the workload, and technology is supposed to have made it easier to do everything. But the situation hasn’t really changed. Sure, I print what I can off the internet, I use TES.com, and teachable,net and even teachernet.gov.uk, but then half the time the printer breaks as well.

I sometimes miss the days of blackboards, and chalk and simple exercises that got the kids motivated. And yet there’s so much potential out there, amazing resources that make lessons fun, and help the children to learn at a different pace – but actually getting access to them, and being able to use them in your classroom? Bloody hopeless.

I love free stuff, oh yes I do. And this competition is wicked. Teachable is awarding free access to its site for a year – and £1000 to spend on whatever you want  – for the best digital teaching resources. You have till 22nd Jan to submit your entry, check out all the details here.