Explanations

I've been planning to teach explanation texts to my class this week and so have been watching Wallace and Gromit clips on You Tube. Love 'em!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSVD3nzsIyA

Job satisfaction

I'm sat in the sunshine at my computer planning away for the next 3 weeks' worth of literacy. And you know what, I can't wait to get back to work and teach it. I can't wait to get stuck in with all the assessments and focus groups and choir and everything else. And I realise that I am indeed a very lucky lady to love my job quite as much as this.

Perhaps the busiest week in my life so far...

It has indeed been a hectic one this week. Yesterday was Open Day/Evening at school, starting at 1.30 in the afternoon (still in classes) and going on until 8 in the evening with an hour for tea. After half a week on residential last week and then 2 days of unproductive activity to fill up the rest of the week with a classful of exhausted small people I had only 3 and a half days in which to complete a piece of quality writing each and put it up on display. Yesterday morning was a highly stressed environment, a class of children in the ICT suite as journalists and editors putting together a newspaper about their trip to Kingswood. I ran with the role play scenario in a 'YOU ARE 5 MINUTES AWAY FROM YOUR DEADLINE!' kind of way, closely followed by 'THE NEWSPAPER IS GOING TO PRINT, IF YOUR ARTICLES AREN'T IN YET YOU'VE MISSED IT!' We did get it all done and magically displayed on the wall with duplicates backed and up too (all thanks to Mrs H - well done indeed!). Open Evening isn't something that I take to easily and with my own fast approaching presentation to parents it was quite stressful.

This morning was school harvest in church and all classes presented a 'something'. We did a Fischy Music song 'Wonderful World' with actions and instruments including a couple of djembes that we have for our drumming club. Finding time to rehearse this week hasn't been easy as I'm sure you can imagine, but it went well in the end. Choir sang a number as well which was very well received. The numbers for choir have swelled this year to over 30 now - I'm so proud! I love leading choir so much and we have even managed to recruit a few boys now as well. I'm still on a recruitment drive for boys though - there are none from my class in it yet - I'm determined to draw them in through those lunchtime doors!

In the meantime I think I'm in for a well deserved weekend.

Residentials, sleep deprivation and wedding happiness

Woo hoo, blogger has let me in today!

Well last week was a crazy one indeed. The first 3 days of the week were spent down in North Wales at the Kingswood Activity Centre in Denbigh with my class. I did have some trepidations, specifically about times that younger children wake up and the noise that they make when they wake each other up (I like my sleep!) but was pleasantly surprised to wake on the first morning at 7 and on the second morning after 7! Wonderful indeed. We had such a brilliant time, though the weather was wet, the staff were absolutely brilliant and the kids were well behaved. Marvellous. However, the remaining two days in school were somewhat of a blur... really was so exhausted by the Friday that it was almost all I could do by the lunchtime to lift my sandwich to my mouth and chew! An afternoon PE lesson woke me up a little but I was so very glad come 3.15!

Following on from that I have been down to Birmingham this weekend for another lovely wedding. It was a fabulous day for it, possibly the best Saturday that we've had all summer - definitely well chosen, Roz!! The bride was stunningly gorgeous as ever and the whole day was a wonderful event. It was great to catch up with friends again and to look forward to seeing them all again in 5 weeks at the next wedding! No-one introduced me to the best man though, shame on them!!

My favourite time of year...

It has come to that marvelous time of year again. The time when I can no longer breathe in deeply and smile and thank God for the sights and sounds and smells of his beautiful creation. The mere sight of boys throwing handfuls of cut grass makes me sneeze!

This year I thought (hoped) that my hayfever would stay away. I have been driving home from work for the last couple of weeks thinking how I wasn't suffering yet and that maybe I had grown out of it as one is meant to in their twenties. But yesterday it arrived with a vengeance unfortunately and I'm beginning to remember what it feels like to desire to claw out my entire respiritory system with sharpened fingernails!

On a lighter note, optional SATs are done and marked, my reports are now written and out to parents and I've survived 'meet your child's new teacher/discuss your child's report' open evening. Marvelous!

John Stephen Akhwari

Allow me a little self indulgence as I post this picture of my current hall display in school. We have been learning about Olympic heroes across the school and the hero that I chose for our class is indeed an inspiration.

John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania ran the marathon in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, 40 years ago. Not long into the race he fell over, badly injuring his knee and his head. Despite this he did not give up, he continued to run even though he was in complete agony. An hour after the last runner had finished the race and the medals had been awarded to the winners of the marathon John Stephen Akhwari entered the stadium, limping the last few hundred metres to the finish line. Once he had finished a reporter asked him why he had continued to run even though he knew that he could not win the race, he replied, "My country did not send me 7000 miles to start the race. They sent me to finish."

Easter and the joy of Bank Holidays

On Thursday after school I found myself wishing that there was no Bank Holiday this weekend - our KS2 production is next week and still needs quite a bit of work. If only we had Friday and Monday to work on it, I thought... But yet Easter seems to have been lost this week for me. It is such an opportunity to be in school during Holy Week and our school really tried to make the most of it. Except for my class and Year 5 who spent the whole week rehearsing like mad.

At school on Thursday the Year 2s performed their Easter assembly in church, retelling the story of Easter. It was the most moving account that I have ever seen. The part which really got me was when one child playing Jesus was kneeling at the front of church praying in the Garden of Gethsemene and a few others were sleeping around him when another group came charging up the aisle shouting "Get him!" at the top of their voices. I was choked. They took him down the other aisle and then a few minutes later came stumbling down the aisle again, this time with a cardboard cross tied to his arms. More than anything else this year, that will stick in my mind.

On Maundy Thursday evening I was helping to lead a meditation at church. I had organised a group of instrumentalists to play some Taize (unheard of at my church normally) and surprised myself by taking the lead. I had to, because I was in charge, but I surprised myself nontheless! I have sung Taize at my old church many times in the music group but have never had to think about what instrument to play when and how to build it up and then back down again. I thoroughly enjoyed the arrangements that we made and I'm itching to do it again!!

On Good Friday I played a small part in a Passion play at church. It was very moving indeed. There were a number of places, like stages around the church and a cast of three who moved from scene to scene forming a tableau on each stage as they went around. A narrator guided the congregation to follow each of these tableaux around the church, forming the crowd at Jerusalem arriving for Passover. Then there were a number more of us who read out the characters' parts as the story progressed. At one point in the story we became agitators, stirring the crowd to shout for Barrabas' release and Jesus' crucifixion. The most moving part for me was when three or four men who had been readers like me carried the cross from the back of the church, pushing through the gathered crowd to place the cross at the front.

The rest of Friday I spent with a friend talking and talking, walking and eating, drinking tea (because the cafe had no hot chocolate!) and talking some more. There was a lot to talk about.

On Sunday morning I was on the rota for operating the computer screens at church. I wonder what it is that means I get the most difficult services? I think the last time I was on the rota was for Tabernacles - another manic service! And with there being such a large gap since I was last on the rota I inevitably arrived having completely forgotten how to work the complicated maze of cameras, computers and DVD players. Church was so packed that there was about 10 people who had to stand behind me because there were no more seats and many more were squeezed onto rows and sitting on the steps on the balconies. One of the young people came and offered to help which I was very grateful for and so I placed him on the camera - one less thing to have to worry about, if he queued up the camera I could just switch to it.

And so now I am glad that I have been made to stop this weekend, stop thinking about school and the production at least. It has forced me to think about Easter and to reflect upon Jesus dying and rising again. After all, what is more important in life? A school production? Perhaps not.

A busy time

Life is certainly quite manic at the moment. I have been nursing a croaky voice all week as preparations for our year 3, 4 and 5 production are well underway. I have mostly taken charge of the singing and so many rehearsals have strained my voice somewhat... Still there is no time or opportunity to rest my voice in the middle of preparing for a production and with my choir's concert tonight.

Yesterday was a big day for our school as the marketing team had arranged a day to celebrate our being in the top 100 schools in the country. My class played their Samba instruments as the whole school went on a mile-long conga around the village. I really felt for the ones who had to carry and play the Surdos - large bass drums, but they were the best at keeping the rhythm going! I was so proud of them, they were all listening to one another and continued to beat their drums and shake their shakers the whole way round.

Then in the evening I was off to Preston with our school swimming team for the Preston School's Swimming Gala. Again, another group to be proud of, and I couldn't let my already hoarse voice rest as I cheered and shrieked at the top of my voice! They won first place in our group - a real achievement!

With Holy Week next week and the school term still in full flow, with the production and my own choir's concert tonight I see no let up for the busyness of life in the near future!

WALT: to retell a story about Jesus

As Parent's Evening looms ever closer I have brought home a ridiculous pile of marking to catch up on this weekend. Most of the non-core subjects have hardly been marked at all because we file work now and don't have it in exercise books. It's not so easy to bring home a class set of files to mark a piece of work so I've got woefully behind on my marking. That's my excuse anyway.

On opening the first file this morning I came across one piece of work from RE where the children were asked to retell a story about Jesus that I had read to them. This one is so fabulously retold that I thought it deserved blogging.

Jesus was busy teaching in a house when a hole started forming, three jolly faces looked down beaming. Then they lowered a man on a dusty old mat to the ground, his whole body resting. Jesus smiled and walked over to the man and said, "your sins are forgiven."
"Nonsense," said a man, "only God can do that."
Jesus turned his head and said, "which is easier, to forgive this man or make him walk?" Jesus turned to the man on the mat, "walk" he simply said. The man picked up his mat and walked out and the jolly faces turned to big grins!

A future Bob Hartman perhaps?

Tiredness

I did think last night that I would probably be awake at school time this morning - for the last 2 days I have woken up before my alarm and so suspected I was at one of those points where I am getting the right amount of sleep (they normally last for about a week before I return to the impossible-to-get-out-of-bed stage). I even went to bed at a reasonable hour last night for a Friday - I was away by 11 and slept without waking (apart from to turn the heating off at 1 in the morning because it had been put on boost and the radiators were beginning to moan). I woke up this morning at 11. 12 whole hours of uninterrupted sleep. I must have needed that! Still shattered though... school is exhausting, honestly!

Any Dream Will Do?

When I was in Kenya I spent most weekends in the swimming pool. I love swimming and I always have done and one thing that I have always wanted to do is to be a synchronised swimmer. My mum and dad used to call me a little dolphin because you would rarely see my head above water, I was forever doing handstands and rolls and flips and holding my breath for as long as I could. A couple joined us in Kenya for about a month, Lorna and Ken. Lorna would tell me how I should grab every opportunity and not let something pass because I didn't have the time - if I wanted to do synchronised swimming I should look to find my nearest group and join in! Good advice perhaps. The only problem is that there just is no time to do everything that I would like to do! When I get to be 70 and I look back on my life and think of all the things I didn't get the chance to do, will I be sad at what I have missed out on? Or do we ultimately have to choose just a couple of things that we really enjoy and do them well?

I love to sing, I love to perform. At university I played a part in an amateur dramatics performance of Godspell. I absolutely loved it, after a weekend of performances it was all over and 2 months of rehearsals had come to their conclusion. What a dream it would be to sing and dance and act in a musical...

I love to sing. At university I was a member of 2 college based choirs and the thrill of rehearsing and perfecting a piece of music as a group then to perform it in a church or a cathedral or a chapel was so rewarding. I have happily continued to sing in choirs since leaving college and thoroughly enjoyed my current choir's performance of Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man just before Christmas. Next year I hope to join a huge number of people from choral societies across the country to perfom the whole work at the Albert Hall. Now that is a dream come true!

I find history fascinating. I studied it at university along with teacher training but really miss studying it now that I am working. I have always been fascinated by Time Team and archaeology and even researched the possibility of studying archaeology through the Open University last year before I got my current job. I doubt I would ever have got so far as applying but it certainly crossed my mind!

Yesterday I was looking at the books on my shelves in my bedroom at my parent's house and took down a book called Krabat by Otfried Preussler. I won it as a prize for throwing myself fully into my German exchange trip when I was at high school. I began to read it, but much like children who choose books that are beyond their vocabulary range, I soon became tired and put it back down. I would love to study German again, go to Germany and get to grips with the language properly, something I never managed to achieve at A Level.

I love church and I love God and I love telling children and adults alike stories from the Bible and helping to make them come to life. How often do I sit in church, itching to get involved more, reading, singing, preaching. It would give me great joy to learn how do get better involved and to be involved officially.

But finally I love children and I love teaching. And that is what I do for a living and, for the moment, what I adore doing.

How is it possible to do all the many things that I would dream to do? Or yet do I combine all the things that I enjoy best in a job that I can do well and put my heart and my soul into it.

A challenge for Mike

At school each class is to make a Christmas display for the hall based on a Christmas song, it is not to be a carol. I was struggling with ideas for this one until Sarah suggested the song 'Christmas Wrapping' covered in recent years by the Spice Girls. I couldn't remember the song but began to plan how we could make wrapping paper for our display and this would fit in nicely with our ICT topic of repeating patterns. Cunning I thought. Until I went on the internet and discovered that Christmas Wrapping is the annoying song that goes 'Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, but I think I'll miss this one this year'... not exactly conducive to putting the words up in a Primary School hall I think you'll agree!! So now I'm on the search for another song about wrapping paper or present... any thoughts at all in the comment box please!!

Makin' Music competition

I promised a link to the video of my school singing Karl Jenkins' Cantilena when it was on the internet so here it is. Click on Goosnargh Oliverson's. I'm rather unfortunately in the shot looking like a twit in my over exerting myself conductoryness and for some reason they've posted both our first and second attempts. Don't bother watching the second one though (even though I'm cunningly out of shot) because it's the same but somewhat less in tune...!!! Votes are by buying the Lancashire Evening Post only though it would seem. So go out and buy the newspaper! Then send in your voting coupon for Goosnargh Oliverson's! (not Scotforth St. Pauls noooooo no no no no)

Half term has arrived

This week in school we were visited by the Lancashire Evening Post to film our choir. They arrived as planned on the Monday morning, we rehearsed well and after a couple of takes we made a half decent effort. And so that stress was off my shoulders. Then on Wednesday we had a phone call - the disc in the video camera had been corrupted and they would have to come and film us again. What joy. So on Friday afternoon, having not practiced the infernal song all week we found ourselves back in the hall warming up for yet another filming. Half of the children were in non-uniform and had to go around the other classes trying to find jumpers to disguise the fact. And so we were filmed again and after two takes said goodbye to the lady from the LEP. I won't say what it was like in the end... unless you talk to me in person that is, but I will post the link to the video when it is online for you to make your own judgement!

And now it is finally half term. It has been a very busy term indeed, and I get the impression will remain to be busy in most aspects throughout the year.

Sarah and Kieron have been over for their tea today which is lovely :) and Sarah can still wrestle me to the floor without any effort which is quite sad. I need to work on my... err... strength. I think it's fair to say that I'm weak in all aspects and even when I started to fight her she still had me pinned to the floor within seconds! Sad that. Oh well, nothing like a good bit of fighting :)

School choir?

Time flies when you're having fun - there's just no time to faff about on the internet anymore!

Last week in the staff meeting at school it was suggested by the headteacher that as music coordinator I enter a competition for the school with the Lancashire Evening Post. It is a singing competition. Our school has no choir yet but I am doing singing for half an hour every day with a different class each week so it's not such a huge jump. Sounded like a good idea, so I entered. The choir are going to sing a song and the newspaper are going to come and film us perform it and then post it on their website. Anyone can then vote for their favourite school and the top 10 win prizes. I chose Karl Jenkins' Cantilena (from the Cheltenham and Gloucester advert). Only yesterday I was rung by the newspaper, they are coming to film us on Monday morning...!! Argh! Manic rehearsing over the next couple of days for us and then we go live on the internet. When it goes live I'll post the link and you can vote for us, please!

Dreams

The holidays are coming to an end and the new term at school is coming ever closer at a rate of knots. I seem to have spent much of the last week sat at my computer planning and fretting about all the things I probably have to do before starting school that I don’t know about. I often find that when I am stressed I have dreams about school. At my last school I remember having a dream where a group of children just wouldn’t go out for play and let me go up to the staff room at break time, no matter what I did they would sneak past me and go back into the classroom or they would out and out defy me and stay where they were in my way. I was clearly insecure about my behaviour management at the time. Though thankfully I found that my behaviour management was never that bad when I actually stood in front of the class. Last night I had a dream that my classroom had been extended and that the corridor outside had been knocked into my classroom as well to make it bigger. I was most upset because of all the work that I had put in to make the room look good and now it looked a mess again and wasn’t in the state that I had left it. I don’t think I have anything to worry about here either, there is nothing that will make me quite as ill prepared for school starting as that!

Busyness

I seem to have been ridiculously busy over the last few weeks, just when I thought all was starting to get quite boring back at home. I can't really complain because I hate it when I have nothing to do, but I'm starting to long for an evening in front of the telly...!!! Starting a new job in September seems to mean a lot of travelling up and down the motorway at the moment trying to sort things out, though even up until yesterday I still did not know what class I had so there wasn't a great deal I could do to prepare. Now that I know my class (year 4) I have very little time before the summer holidays in which to collect all the information that I am going to need to prepare for the new school year. Tomorrow afternoon I go to the new school in case any parents would like to know who I am before I start to teach their children!

In the morning I am going into a school that I did supply in before going to Kenya and I have been given a half hour assembly to tell them all about it. I'm quite looking forward to it, though I have to consider that there will be children in the room that are only 5 and then ones that are ready to go to High School - so quite a broad range to entertain for half an hour! I'm sure all will be well though.

Being a TA/SSA/LSA take your acronym pick

I have recently started work as a teaching assistant, a stop gap until the summer before starting a teaching job in September. There are various pros and cons to the job, obvious cons being the rate of pay (doesn't even come close to being a supply teacher) and the obvious pros being the lack of responsibility - I turn up at 9 and leave at 3.15 guilt free.

I love the work that I am paid for - to support a particular child, he responds well to me and I can see how my supporting him in the classroom is enabling him to participate more fully in classroom life, but as he is currently in a reception class the opportunities for me to work one on one with him are not so easy to come by. Consequently, I probably spend about an hour of the day actually working with my specified child and another 4 hours cutting and backing and trying to find other ways of supporting other children in the class. There are already another 3 adults in the classroom, one of whom being the teacher, and the other 2 support assistants have been working there for a while. As a result I often feel at a bit of a loose end, everyone else seems to know what to do when the children are on the carpet and I seem to faff about trying to look like I know what I am doing when really I don't!! After 2 weeks I have learnt today that there is a list of jobs for us TAs to do when not working with the children, but even that I found hard to decifer! It's all about starting a new job and finding my feet I think!

Despite the enjoyment of not having to worry about planning or assessment or acceptable working hours, I am very much looking forward to having my own class again!

The Great Adventure's Great Speaking Tour

The speaking tour got off to a start today, I have been into St. George's High School in Blackpool to talk to their CU about Kenya and the great adventure. I was really nervous about it, I was never quite sure whether I would have enough to talk about (though I was more confident after the success of the Guide evening last week) or indeed whether a bunch of teenagers I had never met before would care enough to listen. Again, I needn't have worried and I really enjoyed myself. I didn't manage to get through all my photos and the kids were responding really well to it and asking questions etc and so I'm probably going to go back again after half term and they might even consider sponsoring! So all in all it was a most positive experience! My next speaking engagement (teehee!) was going to be Ripley, but interview has meant it has had to be postponed. Excitement abounds!

Sunny disposition

Whilst I'm scanning, there might as well be evidence of my year 7 sunniness!!