World Teachers' Day

Thank you, Ang, for my e-card!  We were discussing in the staffroom today that we would all like to have quiet and easy classes all day in honour of Teachers' Day. I was also thinking how nice it was to be in a school today, standing in front of classes who were, mostly, co-operative and, generally, fun! 

The life of a substitute teacher is a strange and varied thing. But I'm finding that when you only go to one small school it gets better and better, as you learn names and become part of the furniture. I even got the job of ordering the pizzas at lunchtime- one small step for you, one huge stride for Magskind!

8W and I were together five times in all today. The last session was Science, and to help the teacher I took them back down to the History/English room where I was based. "Are we doing something scientific?" they asked. "Mais, oui," I replied. Well, not actually in French.

I put the word 'scientific' on the board and in groups we had a competition to see how many words we could make with the letters therein.  I thought it would last ten minutes- these are eleven year old kids who "failed" the Transfer Procedure of which I have begun to speak.  Twenty-five minutes later we were still sharing ideas and counting like mad.  Two groups got the same number of words, so we put 'tie-breaker' on the board for them and away they went again, with other groups flooding around them to help.

It was hilarious!  We got 33 words out of 'scientific' altogether.  Admittedly it won't get anyone a GCSE or look great on a Personal Statement, and it certainly wasn't quiet, but on World Teachers' Day I had a ball!