how all of a sudden my targets seem to have been radically shifted upwards. Back in England when I was teaching iGCSE, my goal was always a 100% pass rate with my "good group" plus more A and B grades than C grades. In the main, I got that, so I was generally a happy bunny.

Now that I've moved here, my targets seemed to have received a markedly upward shift. I have no idea why. I'm teaching a course I've never taught before (I'm qualified as a Chemisty teacher, but I always taught Physics), I'm having to teach the course in a year, rather than two, and I'm teaching "second language learners." Yet 19 of the 29 kids I taught still got an A* or A, with 7 of the remainder getting a B.

Now those results are good, so why am I so fed up that I had 1 kid fail?