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emmavanweert's review
3.0
This is another book I had to read for school. I have to admit it read much easier than the previous one. It was in a blog kind of style, every piece about a different day for an entire school year from the teacher's pov. All the names are fake, to hide the identity form every one she writes about. Since it's a true story. In the beginning it was odd, but eventually I got used to it. It did give an intresting insight into an average state school in The UK, but it's just not my genre. I you want to know more, or just gather more insights in British state schools and the education system, this is a good one to pick up. Especially if you're thinking about becoming a teacher yourself.
rox74's review
5.0
As a teacher, I was thoroughly absorbed in this book. It gives an insight into the lives of teachers and a peek into the horrendous behaviour of the students, which is condoned by all manner of people. This book is set in the UK and is based on real life events from Katharine Birbalsingh's teaching career. It's really quite depressing and almost hopeless, especially as these aren't uniquely UK issues, they are very much western issues. But there is hope, Katharine proved it by opening up her own school and setting high standards, rejecting progressive educational methods, and maintaining a 'no excuses' behaviour policy. That school, taking students from exactly the same type of disadvantaged community, is now the top performing school in the UK, according to 2022 results. If you want a clear idea of what progressive education looks like, the education almost all western kids receive, check out this book. It shows the results of a progressive education and a society that thinks being soft on kids is kind and works. (PS. The nicknames she gives people is annoying at first but very quickly you get used to them and come to find them really quite amusing.)
fat_girl_fiction's review
1.0
To Miss With Love by Katherine Birbalsingh
Simply put this is one of the worst books I have ever read! I only got forty or so pages in before I stopped. The author uses descriptive terms to distinguish her students so it's impossible to keep track of them all and the way she writes just makes me so annoyed. With every entry I was getting more frustrated with her. Books are supposed to make you wind down!
Simply put this is one of the worst books I have ever read! I only got forty or so pages in before I stopped. The author uses descriptive terms to distinguish her students so it's impossible to keep track of them all and the way she writes just makes me so annoyed. With every entry I was getting more frustrated with her. Books are supposed to make you wind down!
ninakruijsbergen's review
4.0
Leuk boek maar ik vind de benaming van de leerlingen niet zo goed. Ik vond ‘to sir with love’ veel leuker.
kelwyngardencity's review
5.0
This book is excellent. I’m not sure I quite understand the criticisms of the writing style or use of pseudonym. This did, after all, start life as a blog.
What Katharine Birbalsingh does here is, whilst loving her job, still gives an honest and open narrative of what goes on day to day at an inner city secondary school. She chooses to ask the difficult questions that the liberals of the time simply wouldn’t accept, they still don’t. She tackles the reasons for poor behaviour and resulting poor results, whilst acknowledging she won’t change the world, but she will do her best for the students she has under her charge.
The book is not tedious, maybe it’s just uncomfortable reading for some.
I have heard criticism of her for inventing a husband. I didn’t realise he was fictional but I can see why she did it, first of all he allowed her a character to argue with regarding state vs private education for her own hypothetical children, a speaker for the views of those who hate private education and most of all, to illustrate the difficulties teachers face in maintaining their home relationships and work-life balance.
What Katharine Birbalsingh does here is, whilst loving her job, still gives an honest and open narrative of what goes on day to day at an inner city secondary school. She chooses to ask the difficult questions that the liberals of the time simply wouldn’t accept, they still don’t. She tackles the reasons for poor behaviour and resulting poor results, whilst acknowledging she won’t change the world, but she will do her best for the students she has under her charge.
The book is not tedious, maybe it’s just uncomfortable reading for some.
I have heard criticism of her for inventing a husband. I didn’t realise he was fictional but I can see why she did it, first of all he allowed her a character to argue with regarding state vs private education for her own hypothetical children, a speaker for the views of those who hate private education and most of all, to illustrate the difficulties teachers face in maintaining their home relationships and work-life balance.
lnatal's review
1.0
From BBC Radio 4 Extra - Book of the Week:
A third of teachers leave within their first term on the job. This one wouldn't quit for all the world.
Meet Furious - sixteen, handsome and completely out of control. Nothing frightens him and no one can get through to him. Now meet Munchkin - a sweet kid with glasses who's an easy target and needs protecting. Then there's Seething and Deranged, two girls who are brimming with bad attitude; Fifty and Cent, who act like gangsters but are afraid of getting beaten up; and Stoic, a brilliant young mind struggling to survive.
In the midst of them all, there is a bodyguard and bouncer, a counsellor and confidante, a young woman whose job it is to motivate and inspire them and somehow keep them out of trouble: their teacher. None will make it through the year unscathed. Some may not even make it at all.
Spanning a year of shocking truths and hard-won victories, of fights and phone-thefts, teenage pregnancies and the dreaded OFSTED report, this is the remarkable diary of an inner-city school teacher. Revealing the extraordinary chaos, mismanagement and wrong-thinking that plague our education system, it is a funny, surprising and sometimes heartbreaking journey from the frontlines of the classroom to the heart of modern Britain.
Katharine Birbalsingh has been teaching in the state school system in London for over a decade. Her dream is for all schools to become interesting and exciting places of learning, where children feel safe, happy and free to aim to be the best that they can be.
Read by Adjoa Andoh
Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z58b2
A third of teachers leave within their first term on the job. This one wouldn't quit for all the world.
Meet Furious - sixteen, handsome and completely out of control. Nothing frightens him and no one can get through to him. Now meet Munchkin - a sweet kid with glasses who's an easy target and needs protecting. Then there's Seething and Deranged, two girls who are brimming with bad attitude; Fifty and Cent, who act like gangsters but are afraid of getting beaten up; and Stoic, a brilliant young mind struggling to survive.
In the midst of them all, there is a bodyguard and bouncer, a counsellor and confidante, a young woman whose job it is to motivate and inspire them and somehow keep them out of trouble: their teacher. None will make it through the year unscathed. Some may not even make it at all.
Spanning a year of shocking truths and hard-won victories, of fights and phone-thefts, teenage pregnancies and the dreaded OFSTED report, this is the remarkable diary of an inner-city school teacher. Revealing the extraordinary chaos, mismanagement and wrong-thinking that plague our education system, it is a funny, surprising and sometimes heartbreaking journey from the frontlines of the classroom to the heart of modern Britain.
Katharine Birbalsingh has been teaching in the state school system in London for over a decade. Her dream is for all schools to become interesting and exciting places of learning, where children feel safe, happy and free to aim to be the best that they can be.
Read by Adjoa Andoh
Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z58b2