It's the curse of the small school

Today we are dispirited as we don coats and hats to patrol the yard. Our staffroom is united in dissatisfaction with what we have heard the previous night. We trooped off en masse to a special INTO meeting to ballot on the supervision/substitution issue. Long awaited, this addressing of the curse of the small school, yard duty.

It is the curse of every school, maybe, but the smaller the school, the sharper the affliction. You see, the smaller the school, the more regularly you pound the yard. In a larger school, you might grace it with your presence every second or third week for a spot of fresh air.

In our own three-teacher establishment, we divide the day's duty in three parts and take a third each. Every day, every week, every bloody year. We must either skip our first break altogether (when perhaps caffeine is most needed) or else try to wolf down our jam sandwiches in 15 minutes in preparation for another 15 exerting our calming influence on the 80-odd pupils to whom we have a duty of care. And then go straight back to class.

It does nothing for our own calm, however. We have waited for years for its abolition. It is our belief that constant yard duty is the biggest consistent "stresser" in small schools.

But now, to add insult to exhaustion, we are being offered £1,000 annually to continue this most unhealthy of practices. Minus tax and trimmings. Our union suggests that we should be the first choice for the yard, taking the money and running even harder than we already are. It appears to be acceptable to stay surviving on a 15-minute lunch break. We were surprised at the reaction of some of our neighbouring schools - "it'll do" - until we realised that these sentiments were almost without exception emanating from the larger school staffs present.

And the voting power of course lies with them.