Day 51: A little bit miserable, actually

Mondays in Week 1 (of our 2-week timetable) are a gift. Not as good as my Fridays, but they are pretty fab as I have two lessons, first and last, and it's year 7 and year 11 respectively. Got in and year 7 were up first. The lesson was a little tricky, and I was worried about it. I was right to be, as the kids were confused, but on the bright side I made a point of checking the learning objectives at the end and could clearly see that most of them felt they didn't understand the brief. Oh well.

After that I was free until last period, so I set about sorting out my year 11 lesson, and other admin things. I managed to waste more time that I realised, and, before I knew it it was last lesson and they were there. One of my boys tried to get in a fight with a boy who had been "cussing him on facebook" which was awkward, and I realised how powerless I was to do anything - they ignored my calls and had the head of year 11 not stepped in I'm not sure what would have happened. The lesson itself went a bit awry, as I decided to show them a video to start which was really cool, and they seemed to get it (Sun City by the Artist United Against Apartheid) but they spent so long on the starter that we didn't get very far into the lesson itself. Oh well, saves on planning for tomorrow. I finally pinned down one of the boys who owes me coursework, and having marked his book (finally) I could see that he'd done NO work all term. Like, literally all he'd written in was the LO every day. I was concerned that his English was too weak, but conversationally he wasn't too bad, and seemed able to understand me so I'm not sure what I can do to make him work. Something to think about.

I ended up staying for ages after school finished, first for the Teach First training, and then to mark books and FINALLY book my key skills tests - hurrah! I got home around 7 and realised that I'd have to spend all evening planning for tomorrow. Gutted. Best get going with it. I'm feeling so tired right now, and have a busy day tomorrow that I'm not looking forward to at all. Years 8 and 9 - although infamous D has been excluded for the comments he made to the TA, and is facing permanent exclusion which is a little sad but unsurprising. My year 9 class are dropping like flies - and I received the good news today that we're definitely losing two of the difficult children out of year 8 too. I hope it gets better now.