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Home Free in January!!!

My class know who my favourite band is. I unashamedly force them to sing the songs if we have time at the end of the day. As a class, we have a favourite song which we sing so beautifully, even if our actions are something to be desired. They love it. I love it. Some…
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Who is this child?
What an extraordinary day! (Correct use of an exclamation mark – yay me!) His lordship had an OK morning yesterday. He had a few little fizzles but nothing majorly explosive that required me to evacuate most of the class into the cloakroom for safety. He spent the morning with his 1:1 and managed to complete…
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Talking to a brick wall

My mum used to always say she’d get more use from talking to a brick wall, than if she talked to me. Apparently, I never used to listen to her? Today, I understood how she felt and it wasn’t the first time it’s happened. I know that I’m already very much like my mum in…
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Other edible classroom items…

One afternoon, when the class were painting Tudor houses, apparently he hadn’t eaten enough at lunch. Why did I think this? I hear you ask. Well let me tell you… I turned around to his request to have more paint, only to find that the apparent reason why he needed more paint was because he…
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The chocolate rice crispie cake fiasco

Last Christmas time, the class made chocolate rice crispie cakes for our Christmas party. A select few children, who had behaved sensibly all term, were allowed to melt the chocolate with my TA. Then a few other sensible children poured the rice crispies into the bowls, mixing them up until all of the crispies had…
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Blu Tak chewing gum
Last year, at the start of the school year, I began noticing how my displays were falling off the wall too easily and tray labels were falling off. My Blu tak seemed to be disappearing and I was clueless as to why. I always collect used Blu tak so I can save it for the…
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“It’s ham, not cheese!”
“It’s ham, not cheese!” is what was shouted at me as a ham wrap hit me on the nose and cheek at lunchtime recently. Not many teachers, let alone people, would have calmly and patiently handed the wrap back to the offending child whilst saying “Put your sandwich back in the bag.” after this kind…
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The desk

AKA the dumping ground. There are two types of teachers and I know which one I am. The organised, OCD, neat freak teacher or the disorganised, in denial, desk avoiding teacher. Let’s start with the first kind of teacher. – This teacher has an absolutely spotless desk. Either they don’t know where their desk is…
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Shouting out…
…the bane of every teacher’s life. No amount of warnings, consequences and conversations with parents resolves it. Last year, I emailed a colleague about a child’s shouting out. I quote: “I know he cannot help shouting out. He is not doing it to intentionally annoy me but it is annoying me now. It has been…
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This time last year…
02 October 2015 It has been four weeks into the school year. My initial, patient ‘Mary Poppins’ demeanour is fading quickly, to be replaced by the Hulk. What exactly do I need to do/who do I need to scream/yell at, bribe/pester incessantly in order to move things along rapidly with him? He needs something (preferably…