February can be fun!

Back to school and it's daylight going in and coming out again! I feel less like a miner!

I had a slow start to the week which gave me chance to recover from a week off with the kids! The house also had to recover. The carpet had to breathe without biscuit crumbs and the beds without sweat. What is it about a teenage boy's room after a week off? How can a room smell that bad? Is it the amount of time that body is in the bed for? Up to 20 hours a day, weather permitting.

The other smell has resurfaced since then. Wet dog! I do not have any pets, I might add. This is footballer induced wet dog. Half the field comes into the porch and down the plughole in the bath!

Thank God they are back in school and I am out there again on supply! Last week I was in a leafy suburb in Cheshire, a bit of a contrast to the previous week! An entirely different mindset is required. These children are not grateful for a smile, chuffed to bits with a bit of praise. These children are spoiled and hard to impress.They have had a week of skiing or Tenerife. The odd one slummed it in Paris! I resorted to tales of my year in France! Still unimpressed! I tried to make them laugh about my dad being James Bond. ( He actually is James Bond, as was my grandad). Not a flicker! As there was no work set I decided to launch into my vaudeville act and we finally got somewhere. "Talent Show planned for the end of the day if you work hard!" (This was a ploy on my part because it involves no marking!)

They were talentless but that is never an issue! Look at Britain's Got Talent and X Factor. I was the impartial judge. How come the Irish dancer won then, you may ask?

2 days in Y5 and I'm laughing! They loosened up and we had a better second day. I discovered their inability to draw and correctly label graphs. They can do it now! Success criteria achieved. Learning Objective achieved. Books full of marked work. Home to the zoo!