So a lot has changed since my last post. New Year, new term, new classes and new me.
No longer do I dread Monday mornings, double periods of S5 and the chaotic corridors. The reason for this being that I have found my feet. I am gaining my confidence and control over my time and my classroom. This came from a serious think that I had to have over my Christmas break. When I left school on the last day of term, I was exhausted and close to breaking. I had let a build up of stress, discipline issues and tiredness take over my life. At this point, I was close to quitting. I questioned whether this was really what I wanted to do anymore or whether a 9-5 job that I could walk away from when I left would be more suited to the way I wanted to live my life.
Then I thought about the proud moments I have every day. When a pupil learns something new, when they have a realisation, when they gain more confidence. I asked myself would any other job be so rewarding as this? The answer, for me, was no. So I resolved to become more organised, get my sh** together and stop feeling like a walkover. With these resolutions, I walked back into school in January organised, confident and determined.
This reflected in my personality, my teaching and my classes. There are much clearer lines with regards to discipline boundaries because I now have the confidence to be assertive when required. Anyway, that's the new me part!
New classes is next. So I had my S1 class removed from my timetable before Christmas so that I could take an extra S4 class. This really upset me because, I adored my S1. They were often the class that kept me most sane in a day. However, as a result of a teacher leaving the department and not being replaced, I have gained a new S1 class this term. They are ADORABLE! A challenging class when it comes to it as they are very low ability which means that I have to differentiate all of my lessons and tasks. For the first couple of weeks, we put together a Robert Burns show to encourage them all to become confident in each others' company. Now we have started reading 'The Twits' which gives plenty of opportunity for me to come up with really fun resources and tasks to do together. So far we have read 4 or 5 chapters and created posters of Mr and Mrs Twit. I am just loving having that escape in a day. Yes, they need more nurturing and encouragement than most S1 classes, but the fact that I can see their trust building in me and that they get so much enjoyment from my lessons, is the best part of my day.
This week has been a busy week for me. I run an S1 book club and an S2 book club and this week, we combined for a project to win the school library £10,000 of books. We had to show how our school can't live without books so the members of the book clubs went around taking photos of staff and pupils with their favourite books and a reason why they felt that they could not live without books. We then put them onto a display board and stuck books around the display and sent it away to enter the competition. It was stressful, fun but most rewarding and I am so proud of the book clubs for putting in so much effort.
This week, it's time to apply for jobs for next year...fingers crossed!! For today, marking Romeo and Juliet essays, creating prelim study guides and planning my lessons for the week :)
Miss.
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