Another month..

...gone by. It's amazing how quickly it's flying now. Some days quicker than others. Some lessons quicker than others!
Today I taught a lovely RE lessons, talking to my yr 4s about Sikhism - they're so interested and full of questions (which I can't always answer!) and enthusiastic to learn.
An hour later I was coviering the Yr 2 class from hell and crowd control was definitely the correct term for it!
For a while we sat on the mat and talked about transport and they were pretty good (low level disruption but nothing too awful) but as soon as they had to go off to their tables and do some work it was horrible!
The 'good' kids were desperately trying to get on while I constantly stamped on (not literally, though I felt like it) the horrors who at best were wasting time, and at worst were walking round the class bothering each other and waving scissors about.
Even that wasn't so bad, but when they had to change for PE..aargh!
Thank God someone else was taking them for PE - I ended up tidying the room for about 20 mins and then just really trying to recover before picking them up again to get them changed for hometime.
Getting changed again was better - lots of stickers and stars given out!
I was knackered at the end of it. More knackered than a whole day of teaching the yr 4s!
Thankfully my mentor has promised me I won't have to return to that class - if I had been in there all the time I would probably have decided teaching wasn't for me (if I hadn't had a nervous breakdown already!)
I had to talk to me DRB and my mentor very honestly about not wanting to go back into the class and why (which was a bit worrying) but it was worth it.
If you have trouble on your placement make sure you tell someone - something good might actually come of it!

New term, new class, new me

Well, I've been back to school for just over a week now and I can't believe how much more confident and relaxed I feel!
I can't work out if it was just the christmas break, being in a different class (away from the troublesome child who drives us all up the wall!) or because I'm finally in the year group I always thought I'd want to be in.
Somehow I feel like all the things I've been struggling to put together over the last term have slipped into place when I wasn't looking over christmas, and now I am able to relax and teach!
Weird.
I feel quite confident.
And now they want me to plan and put together a class assembly - parents invited! Arggghh.
'Think of the standards you'll meet' my mentor keeps saying!
I feel the pressure of the paperwork now. Making sure I am covering any standards which look a little bare - making ticksheets for observers to use to say I hit certain standards, and then making sure I do it well on the day!
I had the best observation done of my teaching the other day. Everything went so well!
And the best thing, is that my mentor, when she realised how much happier I am in yr4, is looking into me doing at least part of my final teaching practise in yr 4, rather than all of it in yr2.
Woohoo!
Loving it.