Hello all,

I have only just remembered that my blog even exists! oh my god, my life is way too full!

Ok so i am no longer working at the Harlesden school - one of the best decisions i have ever taken. The new school is very smart and quite small and independent which mean good pay, great holidays and only about 2% of the headaches!

Everything going well with Bear and seeing him most weekends which is a must really. We have just had a big sailing event with the leeds uni sailing club called the Halloween Howler - we hold it every year and lots of different unis send their sailing teams to race against us and each other and to drink alot we had several dramas including running out of social tickets - Tor buggering her ankle up (she was so excited by the baywatch theme tune at 1am that she ran down some steps while trying to remove her t-shirt). Therefore we spent a long time there until 5am!!!:

On top of that, the following night, we dressed as clowns (looking something like this:)and Bear was abused on the alcohol front, ended up so trashed he couldn't stand up and we didn't get home til about 3:

and then up again at 6 for another day of 'sailing'. The ' marks because it was so damn windy, that all we did was get very wet rigging up and then get excited and then disappointed! Totally shattered by the end of the weekend!

Small things

This is the first day, for quite a few days that I have come home without a headache. Since i came home i have acquired a headache - stupid body!

However, I think i had my nicest day so far today! I just didn't get stressed - i think that was because i actually got everything that needed doing done at the weekend. Bear was at home with his folks and I was at home with mine - I missed him muchly! :( However, I got loads of school things done. I had to colour in, back and laminate 'The Phonics Rap'. An example follows:

A(the name of the letter, 'Ay') say a (the sound of the letter eg in 'ants')

so:

A says a

A says a

Alligator(with arms in a jaw snapping action)

Alligator

a-a-a

Any I have (obviously) 26 of these cards (one for every letter of the alphabet) so that took a while. i was also making and laminating everyones name with a special picture on it! And planning etc - all very important!

So today it was a calm day - I showed one little boy how to go about writing his name - we're very advanced - i'm sure you can tell, and I swear I have never seen anyone so excited about anything. I wish I could be made so happy over such small things!

Phew!

It's nearly the end of my first full week of teaching - God, i'm shattered! On Monday night I actually thought I was going to die of exhaustion! Bear was down at the weekend and we went out to the new bar/club on shepherds bush green and may have have rather too much and then rather a lot more! LOL! - self inflicted pain I know. I was better on Tuesday but the class weren't, I had two little girls in floods of tears, and neither of them could tell me why  - all day this went on, so when i wasn't carrying one around i was carrying the other one, and when i did need my hands they were both clinging to my trousers, so a little bit testing! Bless them..I don't think we've yet had a day without any tears!

Then yesterday was rather testing as well, as my most hyper child decided she was going to tip sand all over the carpet and i realized that my behaviour managment system wasn't good enough. So I had a long chat with the foundation stage DOTL and we have now devised a system - if they are good they get a tick, if they are bad they get a dot. 3 dots means they have to go back to nursery and learn to behave and get told off by the nursery teacher(which they hate) and 3 ticks means they can chose a treasure(hair clips, pens, pencils, rubbers, mini cars, mini bears etc) from the treasure box(a little wicker storage basket) and for some reason it works like a charm - they'll do anything for it!

Today someone scribbled all over the wall behind my door with red wax crayon! why?!

My First Day!

Hehe!

This is the 'will-be' title of my first display...well probably along side 'reception rowan' which will be a collection of rather dubious pictures that the kids have painted "of themselves" I'll take a first photos to show you what i mean! hehe.

Anyway first day went well - lots and lots of tears by that was ok, just had lots of comforting and painting to counteract it! Ended up with water and sand all over the floor of course but that's to be expected! 

I have one crazy child who just won't do anything she's asked and will do anything she's asked not  to do! including throw water, multifix cubes and just about anything else you care to name, around the classroom...

A couple of really sweeties as well though, one little girl found an old disposable camera and went round "taking pictures" of me and Kamila and the other staff all day and totally got the giggles when we posed, and it was lovely to see that some of the ones who came is bawling left with massive smiles! :)

Jitters

I have just finished my second day of organization. If anything it was even more hectic than yesterday! Great fun though. I got on really well with Kamila, my TA - we had a right old yack about life and other people and teaching and london and all sorts of things.

I decided to put up a self registration system. Basically on each of my 2 store cupboard doors, I put a strip of coloured wallpaper. above the red it says 'who is not here?' above the green it says "who is here?" . When the kids come in (tomorrow morning! yikes! and every morning after) they have to take their name from the red strip and stick it on the green strip. Rather ingenious and pretty, as the words above are made from shiney card! :)

I also found a complete set of alphabet cards to put up in the room and brightly coloured buckets with numbers on which I stuck on the windows around my maths table.

I found out, rather happily today, that not only do I apparently not have to do home visit's(where we teachers have to go and visit pupils and parents at their houses), but also that I will for a few days be able to fulfill both the popular belief that reception teachers get 'paid to play' and my own personal dream of entirely free flow learning in my classroom! because the children are so little when they come in, the first week or so is settling in period so I don't plan for them to do specific things but I have to observe them and relate that to the objectives in the guidance! Just like my training said I should! And I'm allowed to! - so many schools don't allow it - I am lucky!

I'm feeling slightly apprehensive about parents, apparently they are very challenging at this school so I have to get them on my side and be firm with them right from the start. This is the only bit of experience I feel totally lacking in! Tomorrow morning, parents get to come in with their children and I have to talk them through things like PE kit, Lunch boxes, drop off and collection time, money, toys from home, ways to help the children etc etc. so for 10mins I have to teach the parents and not the 4yr olds I'm used to....fingers crossed - here goes nothing!

On a happier note however, my lovely Bear has procured train tickets to London for the weekend! YAY!!!! so i not only get cuddle from mum and dad who return from greece on friday, but also the man in my life - all on the same day! Bring on the Friday I say!

The Beginning

Well, where to begin? I suppose this story really started when I decided to teach, but I can't go that far back. So we'll go back to a few weeks ago when I decided to start sorting myself out for the reception class job I had just managed to get. It took a lot of printing ink, laminating wallets, guillotine-ing, elbow grease and computer related frustration. At the end of it I had several lovely resources in a hundred colours and varieties but still no planning. Thankfully one of the lovely members of staff reassured me that I needn't worry and take it easy until term started which I did. 

Today, term started, for the teachers at least. It was an inset day at the sister school to mine. I turned up in the pouring rain with some trepidation, to find that there were about 10 new staff starting, between the two school and not only that, but that the whole existing staff were the most friendly and helpful people I could hope to meet and work with. I was glad however, that the week before I had taken myself into school and begun to set up my classroom which now looks a bit like this:

So I'm just about ready to start teaching. I also met my fellow working staff. My TA is a lovely young woman from poland who I got on fine with. The new teacher in the other reception class with whom I will be planning seems a rather prickly pair - unwilling to smile, ranting and making a point about not knowing what she's doing, that will make for interesting meetings. On the other hand, her TA is a wonderful woman, who I hit it off with immediately and who I secretly wish I had. That however, wouldn't work, as my TA has never worked in Reception and neither has the teacher in the other class so they'd just sink! LOL! oh well.

One of my favourite members of staff is also working in Nursery, who will also be involved in planning meetings - which, by the way, haven't even started yet -  so they should be quite fun. 

Some of the staff I spoke to today said they live near here to, so hopefully there will be much new socializing going on!!YAY...touch wood...and whistle. And cross your fingers.

Another thing..well 2 - I recently discovered I have Sciatica so have had a massive injection in my back, which I am hoping will relieve the pain in the next few weeks. And both to try and help my posture, lose some weight and get healthier, I started Yoga last night. GOD! I thought I was going to die!! Sooooo much pain. I did however, feel very virtuous so I think I'll go again(even if I am in PAIN today - hehe!) I'm doing Pilates for the first time on Saturday, so I think I'll see which one I like more!

Here's a picture of my Bear and me, just for fun: