Wow, 4 months seems like ages ago, but when you consider the year long gaps between some of my posts... I suppose it's not really all that bad!
So what's been happening since October? Well I started to do supply work, I had a birthday, Christmas came and went, 2012 appeared, I started to actually get some supply jobs, but in the meantime have generally been poor and asleep.
So most significantly, I've been doing the responsible adult thing of looking for a proper job. Unfortunately, this led to much rejection and heartbreak (well not so much heartbreak, more annoyance really), so for the meantime it looks like supply is here to stay. It's not been too bad, the classes I've had have been good, only 1 real incident (involving scissors and a wee bit of blood) so far! I've heard some horror stories, and it seems my luck has been in. It's quite nice to go into a school, teach for the day, mark a bit of work, then go home and chill out. Sometimes I even leave the house of an evening! Real teaching involves all that out of hours stuff... a crap ton of marking... assessment... planning... resource making... paperwork... and the left over time is for something called a social life? That bit's probably an urban legend though. No such thing as left over time.
Supply makes me anxious & nauseated. I'm woken a couple of times a week at 7am by a phone call from the agency (they request you be up and dressed and ready to go already at this time, but having previously gone over 2 months with only 2 days in school, I was not forgoing any more sleep than was entirely necessary. Besides, I can be up and out the door in 25 minutes). You know that feeling, when you are so peaceful and asleep, then the harsh noise of your alarm wakes you and your heart beats fast and makes you feel a bit sick? Yeah, that's the kind of anxious feeling a 7am phone call gives me. It's an uncomfortable start to the day, that only gets worse as I consider all that I don't know about the day - where I'm going (what if there's traffic! What if I'm late!), what the school will be like, what the class will be like, whether they will respond to me positively, whether or not they'll do the work set, whether or not there will be any work set! And if there is, will I know what I'm doing? If there's not...what the hell will I do? So many questions, so many worries. My stomach isn't strong enough after all that worrying for any breakfast. I'm definitely a person who needs consistency. I need to know what I'm doing tomorrow, or I get in a right state.
Which is why I was so happy (read: overly excited) to be offered a long term supply job in a Year 1 class. Starting Monday, it will be for an indeterminate period of time. Sadly, the teacher I'll be covering is taking time off to be with a loved one who hasn't been given long to live, so I'm hoping that I'll be in the post for a long while, if only because it means that they'll have that much longer together. So sad :(
I start on Monday, which happily is an INSET day. I get some time to meet the staff, have a chat about the plans and get familiar with the school and (most importantly) my new home, the Year 1 classroom. I can't wait to see it. I'm praying so hard that it has a SMART board... I can't get enough of them. The program that you get with it, SMART Notebook, is fantastic. So easy to use, so easy to customise. I can find use for it in any subject... bloody love it. The kids do too, which is always a good thing! Being able to come up and interact with it just really helps secure some topics. Plus, it's fun. Which child doesn't want to move something around or write on the big screen?! So fingers crossed for a good next few months, and actually getting to know the names of staff and children for a change!
Also, I've recently discovered Pinterest thanks to a couple of teacher friends in the States. So many teachers use it and have some absolutely genius ideas! I've spent far too much time browsing it recently. Hopefully I'll get a chance to use some of the ideas soon. I'm over at pinterest.com/sammiedoodles if you want to have a nose at the classroomy stuff I've been pinning.
Until next time!
(Apologies for the dense, pictureless post, folks!)
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