The Fruits of the Day

Rather than doing anything productive i.e. WA4 during this third sick day, I have instead been messing about on my blog. I also learnt a little more about the TF wiki, but still have no idea about how to post up my units of work. Who'd have thought that I was once so gifted when it came to techie garble?

Name dropping

But first...

Today S in Y8 was very annoying in my computer room lesson. And yes, not just because he shares many similarities with a cabbage patch doll.

He can basically get on with the work, but only if you're sitting right on top of him all the time. I think he needs an LSA. Do we have one for him? Err, no. So anyway, I speak to him at the end of the lesson and he seems apologetic. I dismiss him. He walks out and shuts the door. As I am having a word with the next of my naughty ones, he bursts open the door, sticks his rear end in the room, and proceeds to make loud and disgusting farting noises at me. Wow. Shocker.

Real shame though, since my kids learn really well on the computers. I like taking them there, but the naughty ones mean I am reluctant to do it as much as I should. Behaviour definitely gets worse - a combination of excitement and change from routine I suppose. Although I tend to take them Thursday lesson 4, when they are already a bit more hyper than usual.

I like doing the ICT stuff because learning on the computer provides instant feedback and they can all work at their own pace. Plus, all the games and things make them learn without the rigmarole of book work. We use mymaths a lot of the time, and today we did some work on place value and ordering decimals. I still get shocked at their low ability - most of that group is a high level 3/low level 4 (the kinda levels most year 6 students should be getting - except my lot with be in year 9 in Sept). Still, will be taking my Y7s there tomorrow too, so will see how that goes. Can you tell it's almost the end of term? Time for computer sessions and investigations....

In other news, found out our school is one of the lowest paying TF schools. Last year we were on the lowest point on the unqualified teacher pay scale and now we are moving on the lowest point of the NQT scale. Our Academy is tight with money. Grumble. We are contemplating asking for more money, although I'm pretty sure we'll be told where to stick it.

And now for the name dropping...my cousin's band were played on Zane Lowe's show this evening. They're called Battle and their new single The Longest Time is out now. Check their myspace out here. And this story made me laugh too.

First Day Back...

...was alright. Pretty good in fact. The kids said they'd missed me and that the cover teachers "were rubbish" :) Felt guilty for not marking most of their cover work, but there's aaaaacres of it. With Y11 some things that made me laugh:

Me: Pick a number between 1 and 5.
N: 10.
Rest of class: Derrrrrr, between 1 and 5 you thicko, etc....
Me: Everyone makes mistakes.

Later in the same lesson:
Me: So then we multiply 0 by 5, which gives us 5.
Class: No it doesn't, derrrrrrr, it's 0. It's always 0.
Me: Aaah yes, that was a deliberate trick question.
Class: Teachers always say that when they mess up.

Despite minimum planning, lessons went really rather well. Have been inspired to make my lessons more creative, hence tonight have done lots of planning. Looking forward to Friday with Y7 where I'm teaching "multiplication from around the world" (with crazy techniques from China, Russia, Egypt and the Western world). Also made pretty ActivStudio flipcharts. Am slowly becoming addicted to ActivStudio, very baaaad. There's always more you can do to your flipcharts (kinda like powerpoint presentations, but on software that works with Prometheon whiteboards), but I have decided to cut myself off for the night. Besides, there's only so many pretty animations and sounds you can throw in to keep the kids on task; it's like anything else in economics - every additional unit has marginally less impact.

What else? Contemplated setting up an Ultimate Frisbee club at school in the summer term. Made dinner (an exceptional circumstance for me since my folks tend to coooooooook away meaning I don't have to!) - a random concoction of bacon and leeks in a cheesy roux with spaghetti. Yummy. Feel like hair is unbearably greasy, although am sure it's really not. Still love my "new" room, and dancing around to Nathan. Spoke to Berts about Venice, sounds very promising, am looking forward to it mightily.

Just figured out why my wrists hurt when I played the piano earlier - think I've given myself RSI. Time to stop. Mmmm bed.