Btec Business.. Theres less drama in an episode of Eastenders..

I'll just jump straight in here.

Enrolled, Joined the course, met one of our teachers.. The first teacher we met was called Claire.. She was also a new teacher, but she was nice warm and caring.. We got comfortable with her over 2 days.. things were looking good, we were at Hellside college still, but the one in Runcorn at least I didnt have to travel so much to get my poor education. 3rd day on the course and she dissapears, bye Claire. Seems Hellside was too much for her. Apparently one of the second years stole and hid her car keys, and she got upset and locked her self in a closet and started crying.. Nice huh.

Me and mathew also took a while to get used to being in the class, at lunch and breaks etc we sat on our own, and Jason.. The class retard (and thats the nice way to put it) Came and sat with us.. We facepalmed inside but felt too shy to come sit with everyone else, at this time there were still some assholes in the main group of people.. so we just avoided them. We were very reclusive anyway, we could of delt with being seperate from the class, or atleast that is what we thought. Jake, one of the classes most outgoing people came and spoke to us and persuaded us to come sit with everyone. We made the effort and soon got chatting to everyone, we were the quiet geeks of the class soon to be the people who spoke out the most and made everyone laugh from time to time. Thats probably thanks to Jake making us feel comfortable.

The second teacher we met was.. guess who ( I told you we would meet the jolly old giant again ) Yes thats right, Ian.. He was a blob of a man, and somewhat reminded me of the fat controller.

He introduced himself to the class, and remembered me obviously. He was a wonderful man and would always speak with me when I was early for lessons. He actually managed to stick with us on the course for about a year as well. Which was a pretty impressive lifespan of a teacher on our course.

We also met a teacher called Paul, he was the man who enrolled both me and Mathew. We were told he was going to be teaching us, he knew his stuff and was really nice and funny.. well as far as we knew he was nice.

Just to put a mental image in your head.. he kind of looked like Family guy.

We had some lessons with Paul, we were happy it seemed like we were going to be taught well on this course.. and it would end in the two years.. with few or no problems.. He was soon promoted to course team leader and we rarely seen him. A shame really, this later caused great hate towards him from our class.

We also had another teacher on our course called Jo. We hated her at first, I'll follow the trend of what ive been doing and give you another mental image of what she looked like.

She was strict and we hated her because she was awfully frank.. Funny how she said only around half of us will even make it to the end of the course and that if we could prove her wrong she would eat her hat.. No hats were eaten, she was entirely right..

She was also later promoted so couldnt teach us as much as our timetable said she should of, So instead another teacher was brought in.. Up until now, we had our first few ups and downs as a class, people arguing amongst them selves, rivalries arising and the typical bitchiness that comes with being in college. Me and mathew stayed well clear, laughing at everyone from a distance. We've seen it all before, hey.. MMORPG's have the same if not more ammount of drama in them, and who says video games are useless hehe.

Because there was a huge gap in our wreckage of a timetable that needed to be covered, a new teacher needed to be appointed, so Hellside assigned someone from the agency to teach us.. Probably the only good thing Riverside college did.. Her name was Anne.. She was always there for us, and saved us really.. If anyone would be my role model, it would be her.

I couldnt say a bad thing about Anne. It was as if we had a list of all the aspects of a perfect teacher.. and Hellside ripped it up and threw it into a fire.. and *poof* Anne arrive.

I can always remember the first time we met, we did an icebreaker for the class, everyone was to tell each other who they are and what they enjoyed doing. "Hi I'm Nic, and I like playing WoW" *class chuckles* :<

At this point the course was a shambles, Unit 1 wasnt taught to us first that year.. infact it was taught last and we could of used that unit to branch all of our knowledge of.. We were subject to countless substitute teachers and we had absolutely no structure.. Anne slowly but surely got to work and did what she could to try make the teachers communicate so that we could scavenge some good grades.

Around about the time we got Anne, We also got another teacher called Gary. Gary didnt know what a btec was, he thought we were being assessed via exams. We even corrected him on that, but he still proceeded to teach us methods of speed reading and exam techniques. Alot of his lessons were the same, he would send us to the Library and told us to use several Meta search engines to find online articles about irrelevant business facts.. He was clueless. One of his lessons he said "what is business related, I know.. Dragons den.." So we played dragons den numerous times until people didnt know what to invent anymore..

Me and Mathew didnt like him, we said on our first lesson "We do not like Gary, he doesnt have a clue and he is not fit to teach the class" We made a complaint to Jo, who then later said infront of our class "I have had a complaint from 2 members from this class about Gary" she then looked at me and Mathew, as did the rest of the class and people began to sing his praises as if he was the best teacher in the entire world, following that certain people in the class didnt speak to us.. It wasnt so nice.. We had this gut feeling about him, and people just couldnt see how bad he really was.. It wasnt until a few weeks later he was fired because it came to light just how much of a moron he really was. Me and Mathew are yet to recieve an appology.

Gary was replaced with someone equally as stupid.. Martin. Martin was your stereotypical English 40 year old. Liked watching the footy with his mates at the pub, wore jeans and a polo shirt. Bear belly, Going grey, and wore glasses. He was actually an ICT teacher.. Why the fudge was he teaching Business studies I dont know.. He would always insist you were late even if you got there early.. He never thought to fix his watch?  His lessons were unprepared and consisted of him google searching things infront of us.. after constant complaining and people finally seeing mine and mathews points.. He was soon to go, well after he fucked up a couple of months of our education. But nvm, nothing more could possibly go wrong..

Apart from the next teacher we were to recieve, David Bell. He was really nice to us, admittedly, he even had me and Mathew fooled. His lessons taught us useful things and we even completed some of our units thanks to him.. But at the same time he was Bullying and sending abusive Emails to our beloved Anne. Anne had worked her way up to course team leader.. Because Paul got a further promotion. Anyway, David wanted what Anne had, Control over the course.. So he was constantly sending abusive emails.. Anne didnt say anything to the class at the time because she just wanted us to pass, no drama involved.. we felt so guilty when it all came to light.

Around this time it had been found out that Ian who was teaching us the boring law subjects had done some of our work for us.. It was actually me who found this out as I was there early every day and well, when someone else noticed. Emma in my class, we spoke about it and told Anne. For about 15 people Ian had used all of our previous formats for our other work, we were behind and an inspection was coming up.. He didnt want to get in trouble, but at the same time we hadnt done the work because we were struggling with other subjects also due to poor teaching.. a vicious cycle really. Ian was then sadly fired from the college.. Well, he handed in his resignation a few days before he could of been dismissed. We never seen him again.. The sad thing is, nothing bad would of happened to him if he didnt forge it.. it was all in his head.. At least we wouldnt have to put up with the rain of spittle when he spoke to us anymore.. (he drooled and spat when he spoke D:)

A lady called tracey replaced him until the end of the course.. She gave us lessons in word search form.. and didnt know a single thing about personal Hygiene. Enough said.. She like many of the other teachers, were morons.

It was almost the end of our course.. what happeneds next is kind of sad.. We had to complete a number of units and we had done less than half of the assignments we needed to do.. 2 weeks before the end of the year, we rushed like hell.. Almost killing Anne through stress. She had to mark so much and it was a shame to see her like that, it was the first time ive ever seen her shout at anyone.. We all managed to scrape past with passes..

The first year was over.. No trips to Paris like we were promised.. Just a bunch of bad experiences.. We wouldnt of made it without Anne pushing us as a group and keeping our spirits high, even at the cost of her own.. Now that is a good teacher for you.

The second year at Hellside was no better even though on our first day back we were promised a change from last year.. Structure! I was so happy, especially since Anne seemed rather refreshed after what seemed to be a very straining two weeks. The summer holidays did her good. We were shocked to find out that anne had been moved to Cronton because of the first years for a large ammount of her time table, to only see us once a week.. She was our support system.. we needed her..

That year we had a trip, it was meant for the first years but there were too many. But hey, it was a trip.. and better yet it was free.. It was to Menai in Wales. A 4 day trip to Menai as a group.. (what was left of our class got pretty close, it was needed to endure the terrors of hellside, there was many  more than I can think to write.) We were excited. A trip with our now very friendly class.

I packed my case and got ready for the trip, me and mathew left early and arrived on the campus to wait for the rest of our class, and the coach.. We were with a bunch of the IT students the trip was initially intended for, but there was space so they let us go on the trip too. We boarded the Coach and engaged in typical coach activities, taking pictures of sleeping people, singing, sharing sweets and all around fucking about. It was fun,  we finally arrived and were shown to our rooms.. WHAT A FUCKING SHITHOLE. Our rooms were dorms, it was as if they didnt clean up after the previous people.. and the sheets looked as if they had been jizzed on.. alot.. Lucky we brought our sleeping bags.. The boys had one dorm, and the girls another. We generally tried to avoid the IT students, so we took a dorm for our selves and seperated from them.

The food was bad, over cooked and tasteless. I must of eaten about 8 million bananas that trip because it was the only thing i felt safe eating. Anne didnt even come on the trip either, she had to teach the first years.. so we didnt have a tutor of our own there to share the experience with. During that trip we had lots of fun.. From my friend Tom making a kingsize bed (6 beds stacked ontop of each other) or me and Mathew canoeing and Mathew not paddling properly, so we went in random directors.. and I annouyed the instructor because I kept singing random water related songs.. So what? I felt like I was in the Navy! ok?! Or me and my friend Leo being in the same group for some adventure tasks.. and we completed some blind fold assault course.. I held onto his hoody the entire time XD. I even got over my fear of hights a little too. I climbed an 80 ft tree.. Then looked down.. eek. Then I ziplined down. The zip lining was the worst, I hate the feeling of falling.. I just shut my eyes and cringed.. but it was all really fun.. Was nice to be with my friends.

Thats me on the right standing up, about to get on the raft we made.. I didnt want to get wet.. I just sat on it with my feet up. I didnt even help row.. I just sang "row row row your boat" Much to the annouyance of my team mates. I didnt even help put it together much either. We came second but it was all good fun. Coming home was sad, but we were all on a high, ready for the craphole that is Hellside College

We resumed our lessons as usual after that. We had a man called Cliff come teach us instead of Ian, Cliff lasted until the end and turned out to be a really nice man.. He was an ex school teacher so put on a hard face to us.. even treated us like children, The class did not like that and well.. Acted like children in responce. He tought us accounting, it took 8 weeks to cover break even.. the ammount of money a business needs to cover its day to day running costs and shows when it can make profit. We grasped that after the second lesson. 8 weeks later we were bored of it and wondering why we were still learning that when we had much more ground to cover.. I wanted to not make the same mistake of last year.. I demanded structure..

So I wrote a letter to the principal.. As if students literally bursting out in tears infront of Paul etc wasnt enough.. Why didnt the College learn from the first year? I dont know, but even a 7 page letter of me explaining all the faults of the college and asking for basic structure didnt work.. I ensured it was sent to the principle. His deputy head came and spoke to our class, and a very disgruntled Paul was reassigned to teaching us. He was the manager of Business in the college at the time. "Nice letter Nic, well done" He said trying to force a smile. I laughed so hard inside, yet at the same time wanted to stab his eyes out with the pen I was brandishing.

We also had another teacher called John, who taught us Law. He was a complete Meat head. He was very theatrical maybe its because he liked to act in local productions etc he fancied him self as quite a good actor. I think it was some grand delusion people just let him keep.. He would rather talk about him self than law in our classes, and when we did talk about law he repeated him self numerous times and had little no clue about a word he said. If a question was asked, he would simply tell us to refer to the slideshow he presented that didnt help obviously.

One of the main things I asked for in the letter was also that we could just be given the assignments so we could complete them on our own merit at least.. it took several weeks for John to write the assignment that should of been prepared at the start of the year. Or within the first week of him being there, he was too busy with what he was doing in his personal time.. Persuing a rather lame acting carreer or playing Fable or assasins creed. He openly told us this, and we happily used it against him when the time came to destroy him like we destroyed many other teachers who were not cut out for the job. I hated him from the start, and it took an argument between mathew and John to show the class how much of an asshole he really was.. Mathew and numerous other people in the class failed to complete an almost impossible homework task set to us by John, and he was threatening to put us all on report or some other method of punishment. We stood up and disagreed and highlighted his downfalls as a teacher.. he didnt like this and then continued to argue with Mathew. No one liked him from that day on.. Especially since he couldnt get us through the units we needed.. weeks later he still didnt produce the assignments we needed to complete, just kept running us through theory.. He then shown us the unverified assignment which he really wasnt allowed to show us.. insisting that we should start it now, and promised that nothing on it would change.. The real assignment after many changes then came out and well.. I had to redo all of my work for him, as did alot of the class. Not fun.

He was fired, but not for his poor teaching.. but simply because he made one of the first years stand in the corner like a dunce.. And alledgedly tried to come onto some of the girls in his class. Parents wernt happy and phonecalls were made.. Bye John, hope you die. He really was an awful man.

Rob replaced John, and wasnt the best teacher ever. He was very padantic. For example i had to reprint an assignment 8 times for him in a single lesson because there was some spelling mistakes he noticed for example. Act not being spelt with a capital A or Bill not being spelt with a capitcal B whilst being used in a sentance.. Really stupid stuff.. instead of being constructive on the work and letting me figure out my grammar issues later.. The grammar nazi refused to help me, instead forcing me to reprint the same assignment over and over.. this happened for other students and myself again on other peices of work..

There was this one unit on the course.. We all enjoyed it. It was called Event Management. We were to plan the entire end of year ball for our college.. We got to work straight away, it was the first time I have ever seen my class like that. We were aided by student teacher Debbie and Anne who had been given some more hours with us after we complained. We enjoyed it so much, we had the ball planned, the location planned, all the food sorted. I had designed posters and flyers, we raised money through tuckshops and carwashes.

Bet you can guess what happeneds next.. We get shit on by Hellside. Thats right, they cancelled our ball.. I emailed the Principal and after numerous emails and a huge battle.. I got the ball back.. Even got a round of applause.. Whilst the ball was cancelled we passed the unit through theory work. We didnt end up doing the ball, because all interest we managed to get was lost because they asshats cancelled it for no reason. At least we fought, and won.. making the idiot who cancelled it look like the idiot he is. Its a shame they spoiled the fun we had doing it. Especially since it was a fund raiser for the Rainbow trust.. All money we raised in events for the ball were given to the trust.. so it wasnt too bad.

Instead of a ball, we had a meal, Ill show you a pic of that later. We went to the Trafford center.. and had a blast together.. Met up with Cliff and Anne, our favourite teachers and just enjoyed our last night together..

We got to see them just as friends rather than teachers.. and good friends they will be for the rest of my life I hope.

It was a btec, not a levels.. And the teaching wasnt so good unless Anne or Reformed Cliff taught us.. But aside from that I managed to some how get triple merits.. Which most universities will accept. So I am extremely happy, Salvaged a fucked up 2 years. I didnt even try though, I played world of warcraft most nights and bitched about College over skype with Mat.

Paul left the course just before it ended. I guess he didnt want to associate himself with what he thought would be failure..  Good riddance, he was supposed to be the guy who organised the course, and all he ever did was try not to get us to complain when he should of been focusing on actually making a decent course which would provide us with a decent education.. GOOD RIDDANCE INDEED!

Its a shame I wont see the people as much.. but I learnt some life lessons and I really will miss everyone.. Especially Anne who turned it all around for everyone.. and stopped me from wasting another 2 years of my life..  <3 Anne.

 (Im taking the picture, so thats just my class, Anne is the lady next to the grey haired fellow. The guy with the gray hair is Cliff) thats us getting drunk and remembering and laughing about all the hard times.. We left with hugs and smiles.. on a beautiful summer night. It was a perfect Evening..

At least things ended well.. A nice end to so much Drama.. and well, a nice close to a chapter of my life.. Sorry about the huge rantfest, but I felt I needed to speak about this to gain some closure so I can move on, and blog about things a little more interesting!