The Exasperated Teacher Blog UK

When you drive the entire 30 minute journey home in silence. No music. No radio. Not even a Christmas song. You know it’s the last day of term and you’re ready for a two week rest.

The highs and lows of today are juxtapositions. One minute I’m winning at this game they call teaching and the next minute I’m counting to 100 in German, in my head, to avoid losing it completely.

I stopped by McDonald’s on the way home, ordered a banquet for three, ate it all by myself and have whizzed around my house, putting washing away, tidying piles of papers, washing up last nights dinner plate etc (which I forgot were still there and is the entire reason why I went to McDonald’s to avoid having to wash up tonight or tomorrow morning).

At lunch today, I issued two individuals, whole hour detentions and asked the young boys if they wished to continue arguing as to why they even had it in the first place, despite me explaining repeatedly for the whole morning, or did they just want to go and do it? They decided to man up, for a change, and do the right thing.

This left one child in the room. At first, he seemed clueless as to why he was even left behind. When the penny finally dropped, he took it like a man and admitted that my words were not far fetched at all and actually they were the truth. He understands that all adults in the room will be watching him like a hawk, next term, like we have been for weeks and the moment we manage to get a child to “snitch” on him, his detentions will begin. This was the highest moment of my day. I felt as though I was on cloud nine. “The Don” (or so he likes to think of himself) knew he was no longer in stealth mode. For weeks, he has been encouraging the other boys to misbehave and drop their respectful responsibilities in school, all because he doesn’t deem them cool enough to be in his “gang” if they leave him alone whilst they fulfil their roles in school – that they also enjoy doing. He’s making them feel like losers and has been ridiculing them for being decent human beings. He’s been sly, nasty and manipulative. Now he knows we have been watching him and know what he is doing, I’ve made it clear that all adults will be keeping a close eye on him next term. I’ll have to remind him when we return because he’s likely to think he can continue getting away with it again. I’ll also do a man-up talk with the other boys to encourage them to impress adults (who matter), rather than “the Don”.

The end of the day involved rude boys, being incredibly rude and if there’s one thing that I despise with a passion, it’s rude children. There is one boy who constantly asks ridiculous questions and it’s not the questions that are annoying, it’s the rude and obnoxious tone he uses, when he asks them. I completely understand that he has needs and accept that I need to have patience with him, but sometimes he makes it so hard when he won’t let me have the last word. 🙄 In the afternoon assembly, he demanded to know why he wasn’t allowed to sit on the bench, besides there being very little room. I simply explained that he had been rude to me in the corridor so he should sit on the floor. He started to argue back and I re-explained, as calmly as I could, that he had been rude in the way he asked his question and should sit on the floor.

At the very end of the day, I make it a rule that they cannot leave the classroom at 3:20pm until they are all quiet. Yesterday, I kept them behind because one boy wouldn’t shut up and so if what he had to say was so important, he could tell the whole class. Then my adults and I suggested that nobody would go home until he had announced his important information to everyone. This morning, he arrived with a massive chip on his shoulder because I held him, and the other children, hostage for 40 seconds after 3:20pm, before he said something that wasn’t what he was talking about anyway. Apparently, I’m going to be in so much trouble. 🙄

At the end of the day today, he wouldn’t shut up – again. Every time we got close to being completely silent, he’d utter another rude remark which only annoyed me. In the end, I had to bite my tongue and wait for him to lose interest. It was hard. So hard. I resorted to counting, as far as I could remember, in German numbers to avoid responding to his rudeness. I don’t understand what his deal is. Other children are beginning to get irritated by his constant back chat and “holding everyone hostage” at the end of the day. Because I enjoy nothing more in life, than to hold 28 hyped up, Christmas break excited children back for any second longer than I can possibly imagine, on the last day of school in 2017. 🙄

Once all, but one child, had left the room, I surveyed the crime scene that used to be my classroom. Pencils, pencils everywhere! 🙀 The last remaining child started crawling on his hands and knees, picking up pencils and random stationery items as he went along. He melted my heart, but the rest of the classroom was still a complete mess after he was collected. My class were given 15 whole minutes to tidy the classroom before assembly today. They obviously did such a great job. 😒 Even my usual meticulous cleaners were slacking today…

#teacherfail #cleaningsquad #messyclassroom #suchamess

I admire the cleaner and how well she puts up with my messy class, because if it was me, I’d leave it out for them to deal with when they return on the first day back. 😫 oh the exasperation that engulfs me. Many felt pens were left without lids on them at the end of the day, and I turned into my parents for a split second throwing them straight into the bin before checking if they still worked. It’s the last day of term and I don’t have time to find spare lids if they do in fact work. When there is a felt pen shortage in the classroom, my class will be sorry.

I’m so glad that I have two weeks to recover, recharge and reset, ready for another full term of the non-stop madness that is year 6. I’m am thoroughly exhausted.