Day 91: Oops...

6am may be getting lighter, but it's no easier to get out of bed. It's been incredibly cold over the last couple of days, which, when combined with my own lack of sleep over the weekend, made for a challenging morning.

I was pleased to see my classroom in a non-trashed state. I nearly cried on Thursday when I saw someone in the class that uses it once a fortnight had ripped my border on my display board. Filthy children.

Year 7 were first lesson, and they had a little introduction to the themes and ideas behind Macbeth. That is, witches and ambition. The kids were incredibly lively, and I even had a new student turn up, another ex transition child who was quiet but nice enough, and I sat her next to one of my bright, rather loud, but very sweet children. I showed them the animated tales of Macbeth, which was incredibly bloody and confusing, but I think most of them were able to keep up.

After year 7 I had nothing until year 11 last period, so set about preparing that lesson as well as, actually, I'm not sure what I did. I think I was prepping. I'm always a little embarrassed at how easy it is to waste a day, especially when I had so much marking to do. I spent the rest of the day being hounded by my year 10s who want their coursework marks. I lied to them and said they'd have to wait until the lesson tomorrow, although I'm now not sure what I can do, as I've still not marked it. Oh dear. I will have to think of something.

Year 11 were a little unresponsive to the lesson I'd thought up to explain the most depressing short story we do: Veronica. I tried to explain the idea of fatalism to them, although I'm not sure how many of them got it. I'm hoping that it will stick with them until at least tomorrow when we're going to talk about the short stories again. K was back in school after his exclusion and was being a little arsey again, but at least contributed some things. One of the other kids, F, was really sweet all lesson, offering to read the short story for me. I unfortunately managed to insult the poor boy with a racist slur which was utterly mortifying to me, and probably to him to. I had them talking about ambition and their own goals. When they laughed at A for saying he wanted to be a doctor, I tried to get them to think bigger than football (or perhaps more realistic.) F came up with "footballer" and I said "What are you going to do after you retire, open a kebab shop?"

The class laughed at him, and I realised my mistake. Of course, he is Turkish, but I really wasn't thinking that when I said it (although obviously I was subliminally) so I quickly countered with "No, no, I didn't mean it like that..." I did apologise to him profusely afterwards and he was very sweet and shrugged it off, but I was so embarrassed. I need to be careful - had that been a different group I would have been in a lot of trouble.

So on that bombshell, I finished for the day, and ran out of school to attend an appointment across town. Only four get-ups left. Phew.