Day 54: A pretty good day, actually

I don't know if I should be pleased that I had a pretty good day today, or perplexed that it followed on from one of the worst yet. I said it before, and I'll say it again: if there's one thing I don't like about this job, it's the unpredictability. Of course, people always use that as a selling point for teaching, and in some ways it's true that not knowing what's going to happen is what makes it so exciting, but I hate the way that on some days I feel like I want to jump in front of the W6 (when it actually turns up) and others I feel like dancing down the corridors.

Anyway, I had stayed pretty late the night before to mark year 10 books, finally, but didn't plan my last lesson as a result. Luckily I had two frees in which I could do it. I was a little apprehensive about my year 9 lesson, as the scheme called for a bit of drama. I've been itching to try this out with my groups, but so far it hadn't worked - although I haven't tried it since the start of last half term. Plus I didn't have my colleague in today's lesson. I ploughed on regardless, and was a little taken aback by one of the teachers who handles NQT training offering me "support" (meaning "scrutiny" - joke) as my NQT colleague, whom she was supposed to be supporting, was giving his students an assessment and therefore didn't require any. I said yeah, why not, and she sat at the back. I got on with the lesson, and introduced the drama task. I *should* have modeled it, and I thought about it at the time, but I've got to admit I was a little self-conscious. I know that this is something you absolutely can't be in teaching, and perhaps if the other teacher hadn't been there I might not have been. Only a few of the kids actually wanted to do it, which might have been different if I'd shown them what to do first, but B, one of the brightest and therefore most challenging kids in the room, was excellent, and rolled about the place, even falling off the table (they were pretending to be drunk for a scene in The Tempest.) I was impressed, until he refused to get up off the floor. Anyway, the rest of the lesson went ok, except I ran out of time watching the scene on film, but the feedback I got from the observer was really positive - she actually said it was good! I couldn't believe it. I know it's might not sound great, but I felt so good reading her notes, and hearing she'd told my mentor what a good lesson it had been.

Year 10 were straight after, and I've got to say: I love this group. LOVE them. For the moment, anyway. We, as always, got into a little debate, or they did anyway, about the news item I was giving them to study, and the lesson was a little improvised but it went really well and I got some great answers out of them. A was on form, giving some great answers and joining in, but she did turn up 20 minutes late. She wanted me to talk to her form tutor about how well she had done, but I told her if she turned up on time I'd consider it. I realised that tomorrow quite a lot of the class would be off for Eid, so I wouldn't be able to follow up the lesson how I wanted, which is a shame as we're running out of time and it's the third Friday we've not really used. However, there's no point teaching something they need if a third of them won't be there, so I'll scrabble something together in the morning.

Last lesson was year 7, and I managed to plan it in the lesson before. I was sat in my room when a couple of year 7 children turned up. They said there was a note on their class door telling them to come to mine for a cover lesson. I had no idea about this, so I turned them away. A couple more kids turned up, and, as I hadn't had an email, I sent them off again. It was only when the cover teacher turned up that I realised I might be wrong. I checked the cover email that gets sent every morning and, sure enough, down the bottom my classroom was being used. I felt bad for sending all the children off into the school, and the cover teacher went to round them up. Oops.

Anyway, year 7 came in all flustered as they'd just had PE, and there was a little antagonism as two of them didn't want to sit next to each other. I told them to sit where I'd told them, and they did, which was a nice change. I hadn't really liked what was on the scheme for this lesson, so it was also a little different to what I was supposed to do, but I gave them a wordle and instructed them to highlight, underline or circle different words. Man, I love wordles. Then we talked about what the chapter might be about, and they seemed to get the prediction right. We then read it, or rather, I read it, and as it was set in the "darkness of the dark fen" we turned off the lights and closed the blinds, and the kids provided the sound effects. I crept around the room, trying to be as dramatic as possible, and at one point jumped and shouted the end of a sentence at a girl who duly screamed and jumped out of her chair. Hilarious. Unfortunately, I had wanted to make them draw some story boards from a previous lesson, but I ran out of time so set it as homework, and with the last 5 mins didn't really do much, which was stupid. I must remember to always have something to give them.

After school finished I was reminded of the grand library opening, which I'd said I'd go to, so after lounging around for half an hour went off with some colleagues. I was delighted, when I got there, to see that i had a name badge waiting. There were about ten pupils too, some of whom helped in the library, who were later going to perform some poems to the audience. The library had been decorated in an Alice in Wonderland them, which was so lovely, and the kids had made sandwiches and there were cakes and some wine, even. There was also a tile-production workshop going on, which was a community project set up by one of the art teachers, whereby everyone could get the opportunity to create a tile made of clay and write their positive message to the community on it, as it would then be fired and put on display. I tried, for AGES, to think of an inspiring Latin or Shakespearean quotation, but in the end I went for Carpe Diem (argh) which did look good. After I'd made that the speeches began, and I won't go into detail, but some were longer than others, to say the least. The kids then performed, which was pretty adorable, including a girl playing a 20 second violin piece, a boy reading out a story he'd written ("this is from chapter one but if you want to read the rest I've printed out copies on the table") about students being eaten by a teacher, and some poems. All in all, it was really nice, and I went down to the pub after with a couple of colleagues, which was a mistake as I crawled back home, rather fuzzy, at ten. I won't be doing that again.