Kids, eh? Gotta love 'em. I guess that's what this is all about, in the end. The kids. I'll put away my book of cliches and talk about the day.
After yesterday's training which left me cold, for a reason I can't quite fathom, I sloped into school feeling rough and miserable. I felt so tired and blue that I mumbled something non-coherant to all my smoking colleagues aroung The Bin. I realised what it was that was stressing me so: other than the amazing amoung of reading I'm supposed to be doing for my training, I am also supposed to make sure my year 10s have their coursework completed by next week. Not going to happen. Turns out yesterday the cover teacher couldn't find the essay plans I'd left out for them and so most of them did nothing in the lesson. Argh! I was assured by a colleague that lots of people won't get all the work in and I wasn't the only one feeling like that, which made me feel much better. She cheered me up more still by blaring out some X-Factor music during her tutor time and I strutted down the corridor feeling suddenly much better.
I have the first two periods off on a Thursday week 2, so spent them photocopying resources for my year 10s and sorting out my room, and questioning all of my colleagues of the difference between "understanding" and "insight" in relation to GCSE specifications. When period 3 finally arrived I set up the room and welcomed in the year 10s. I apologised to them all for yesterday's debacle, and assured them that we could take longer to do the coursework if needed. Frankly, my inexperience and poor planning shouldn't mean they need to suffer for not meeting the deadline. I just hope my HoD agrees with that sentiment. I bumbled for a bit, as I do, then set them the task: grading three exemplar essays. I photocopied an example of a B and an A* grade to show them. They responded pretty well to the task, and most were able to grade them accurately. Which was good! They were all laughing at the poor quality of the G graded paper (it was pretty tragic) so I took a few minutes to lecture them on being understanding on how difficult some kids find English. Soapbox diatribe over, I assured them we'd be getting to the coursework writing up tomorrow. They seem pretty keen.
I had a free then year 9. I had my colleague in with me, and I'd forgotten that I'd promised the kids we'd watch the movie this afternoon, so they all moaned and bitched. I tried to ignore it, but some of them were being so vile that my colleague took them out to his room to teach them separately. I think they actually enjoyed the attention, which makes me feel a bit crappy, but I appreciate that my lessons are so formulaic because I haven't broken out of the routine yet. I need to work in that active learning somewhere! I had a full house today, A was being a little bit of a shit, although I've decided to take the nice approach with him, as he doesn't respond to confrontation. Maybe this is a mistake, but I want to keep him onside. The TA came up to tell me she'd be meeting with the SENCO to discuss my group: there are too many kids with too many problems - two non-English speakers, four statements and a whole host of problematic behaviour - for me or her to cope with. I need to differentiate better, although I'm getting in the habit now of printing off extra stuff for one of the kids.
Anyway, the lesson ended and after a cigarette we had an "active learning Shakespeare" workshop which was really interesting, and I hope I can use some of the ideas (props!) in my future lessons.
I stayed till 6 and marked some year 7 assessments, then took home my year 10's folders to mark; I assured them I would have it done by tomorrow but it's half 11 now and I've only done 5 of the blasted things.
Oh well, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Thank god it's Friday tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment