I was scared to check my mail just then, after I emailed the Senior Liaison Tutor (SLT) a complaint about my mentor.

It was very difficult talking about her in objective, diplomat terms, but I think I managed it, but I'm still nervous about the response (his response was "Thanks for this."). She's nothing short of a bully who delights in making me upset and behaves aggressively when I raise any question about the arrangements in place for me.

In brief, she's a bitch! I think she's punishing me because it's probably obvious to her that I think she's a shit teacher. Every lesson of hers that I've observed is heavy on resources downloaded from Teachit, and she can't cope with any remotely difficult kids.

Her whiteboard has many deep indentations which puzzled me for ages, until a teaching assistant told me it was where she slams the marker into the board in her fits of rage. In a Year 11 lesson she shouted so loudly (it was almost a scream) that I winced terribly and had to stop myself from covering my ears. The class just laughed! She's told me before that she can't handle this group at all, and left them with me yesterday while she did some photocopying. They were fine with me, and when she came back we were discussing why the ending of the film version of Of Mice and Men is different from the book. (I also got all the girls in that class paranoid about chewing gum by telling them that they could get a masculine jaw. Very funny.) I think she was hoping that they'd be total shits with me.

I don't know why. I always talk about the classes I'm finding difficult to handle, so it's not like I come across as arrogant about managing pupil behaviour. Mind you, her Year 8 and Year 9 classes that I've taken on seem to be much more engaged with me than they were with her . . .