Day 72: Rapid Response

Witnessing a road traffic accident was not what I was expecting from my day, and so it brought a bit of a shock to my morning cigarette. Myself and three colleagues were stood around the bin smoking when a woman stepped out from between two cars and was clipped by another, despite the driver making an emergency stop. The poor woman is actually a member of staff at the school, and although she was rather dazed, she was able to stand (with her husband propping her up) and was half carried to the caretaker's house until the ambulance came. I was most impressed by my colleagues' quick thinking and team work, as one called the ambulance, another directed traffic and the third assisted the woman. I did little to contribute, although I was on my way to a physio appointment so had to leave. I was disappointed to learn that I missed out on seeing some rather attractive policeman as well.

After my physio I returned to school earlier than expected, and set about prepping for my year 9 lesson. My nervous feeling returned before the lesson and the kids were just as shitty as expected. A was an absolute nightmare, disrupting the lesson then refusing to leave. Ironically, he did walk out 5 minutes before the end, telling me he had a meeting with the head of expulsion, or whatever her title is. As it turned out, he was lying.

I was then free until last lesson, when I was going to have year 8. Argh! I became even more nervous, especially as I wasn't sure how the new scheme was going to work out, so my lovely colleague offered to stay with me throughout the lesson. We ended up team teaching, which was ok, although the kids, and one in particular, were still awful with two of us in there. I was quite touched to see one of the boys trying really hard - he wanted to read out loud and spent ages practicing his paragraph to himself, asking my colleague for help with pronunciation. It's nice when you see that side of them.

Day over, I was relieved to find out that the PGCE student in the department is going to take my year 9 lesson tomorrow, meaning that I don't have to teach it. What's more, the kids were sent home with a letter warning them that there may be no school at all tomorrow due to the snow and, as it's coming down quite heavily now, I've decided to stay up late on the off chance that the forecasts were right and we don't have to go in. Fingers crossed.