Back for Good

'...Got your lipstick marks still on your coffee cup...' (it's tea for me but you get the idea - I am back to drinking plenty of tea somewhere other than my house).
Due to personal circumstances, it has been a long time since I have posted.  Since my last post, I have started teaching at a new school and am halfway through my second week here. 

Tuesday 18^th August – a real milestone in my life: I was handed the keys to my very own classroom.  The empty corridors were yet to be filled with pupils as the staff had an In-Service day.  The quiet corridor made for the perfect place to run about squealing with delight at the prospect of filling the bare shelves with my favourite books, starting some crafty wall displays and beginning the hunt for some awesome stationery to cover my desk!  Day one and I was already winning! After a day of meetings and planning, admin and a big clear out, we felt as ready as we were ever going to be for the return of the pupils the next day. 

This term, I knew what to expect, I was much more organised, less nervous and more than prepared for 8pm bed times.  As a result, when my first class, a lovely group of second years arrived, I was refreshed, enthusiastic and ready to start.  They were lovely, a bit boisterous but a high ability class.  Straight away, I could tell that they will be no problem at all as long as I keep them busy and prepare lots of fun tasks for them.  With this class and my other lovely S2 class, for this term, I am going to be studying a short play by Sue Saunders called ‘White Poppies’ which is set during the First World War.  This leaves me a lot of scope for good, fun tasks and so far the pupils have been extremely enthusiastic about it.

After my second years, came my two S1 classes.  We immediately reached a kind of unspoken agreement: I was new, they were new: we’d help each other!  The thing that I love about first years is their complete innocent questions – ‘Miss, I have reached the end of my page but I haven’t finished writing…should I take a new page?’ or ‘Miss, I started writing in blue pen and it’s not working, is it OK if I switch to black pen?’ or (and this one has to be my favourite, asked EVERY day) ‘Miss, do we write the long date or the short date?’ – there are so many of these inane questions asked during an S1 lesson that I am sure I have forgotten most of them.  The thing is, in S1 these are all genuine fears and concerns, it takes about a month to convince them that I honestly don’t care whether they write with a pen OR a pencil, I couldn’t be less bothered whether they write the long or the short date and when I am marking their jotter, I am definitely not looking at the colour of pen that they are using.  But that is why I love teaching S1.

Finally, my S3 class and, to my surprise, a lot of familiar faces.  I taught at this school for 10 weeks during my time as a student teacher 2 years ago so my S3 class is mostly made up of my S1 class from then.  They are an enthusiastic class with a lot of big characters who can hold their own in class discussion and are not afraid to stomp their feet and share their opinions.  We are studying ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ as a media text to start off.  The class have mixed views about this but are generally open to a couple of periods of sitting watching the film whilst taking notes at their own pace. 

I am aware that this post is getting very lengthy! So alas, I shall stop talking and get back to teaching…

Positives: amazing new classes, fantastically supportive department, lots of smiling.

Negatives: early starts, my car giving up at the beginning of the week.

Miss.