Day 101: Back to School

Lordy, two weeks is a long time. And 3 hours' sleep is not. I got to school feeling tired and cranky after a nice spent tossing and turning because I couldn't sleep. I'm getting used to that nervous, insomniac night before the start of a new term. Only this time there were no cigarettes (success!)

At least I knew it would be an easy day. I started off with a bit of embarrassment, mainly in the form of my colleague ribbing me for my drunken behaviour at his birthday party during half term. This was exacerbated when the rather sweet head of citizenship and community niceness called me out in the staff briefing to thank me for securing the autograph of our school's matriarch and I waved a little too eagerly, causing a ripple of giggles amongst my colleagues.

Year 7 were actually really fun, and they did a great lesson, drawing pictures that were being described by their partners. I'm trying my hardest to be as nice as pie to them, because I feel like our relationship has soured a bit. I did get on quite well for the most part, so hopefully it'll continue to get better. I even took time to congratulate the difficult boy on his sporting achievement.

I had the rest of the day free until last lesson, so spent it marking and putting together a lesson for my year 11s. They were utterly delightful, even though the lesson was a tad ham-fisted, and even K was working and joining in. I love that group. I told them I would be starting a booster session after school I'd like them to go to, although I doubt many will. I was shocked earlier that morning to hear one of them, J, has been put in our intervention project with a group of other ne'erdowell year 11s. I read through his SIMS behaviour management and was surprised by some of the things he'd done (my favourite being: "refused to come into the classroom and called me fucking dickhead") as, although he could sometimes be difficult, he was normally quite good with me. That's always the worst thing to say, I know, but I was just surprised.

So ended the first day back. Only 5 weeks to go till Easter.