In Orderly Fashion

So, we had a staff meeting today. Gotta love those.

We are changing the way that our school's timetable works, because our school goes feral in lunchtimes. Seriously, when I say feral I mean feral. Think hanging off of trees feral, picking fights feral, screaming like maniacs feral. It seems like one hour to eat lunch and play is too long for these kids. Even if it really isn't one full hour, it's more like 40 minutes. The bell rings at 1.10pm, we eat sitting down for 10 minutes and then there are two 20 minute lunchtime halves.

NOW we will be having shorter lunch breaks, so there will only be 25 minutes of play time, to see if it cuts down the number of silly feralness playground incidents that happen. Oh. And we also got told we need to start controlling our kids in a more orderly fashion. That means, the kids need to be lining up silently for us when we come out of the staffroom ready to lead them back off to the classrooms.

Please.

There is no way in hell that is going to happen. They are just kids!! Since I got this class, from the beginning of the year, I was always planning on having my kids be perfectly in order and in lines from day 1. And since the beginning of the year, I realised that no matter how hard I drill this into them (or should I say, bark like a drill sergeant - FIND A PARTNER! HANDS BY SIDES! FINGERS ON LIPS! STAY TOGETHER! MARCH! MARCH!) they just aren't getting it. Seriously.

I freaked out about it for a while when things weren't going as planned. I have half my class who are absolutely fabulous, like angels, who wait patiently with their partners for me to get there. They still talk, but they stop whenever a teacher comes into sight. They're lovely. Then I have the other class who have no freaking idea what the hell they are supposed to be doing. These are the ones I have to go and round up every time the bell rings. Yesterday, they were jumping up and down off the seats where they eat lunch. Today, they were jumping in the puddles from the rain last night. Who knows what tomorrow will be.

The other teachers were nice. They told me, hey, don't worry about it, it'll just sort of happen eventually. Great! I feel better now. No freaking out. I'll just go with the flow, make them practice a few times at lunch times, and hopefully it'll all fall into place eventually. What a bunch of lovely supportive teachers! (Although I have a sneaking suspicion that they were only telling me all the stuff about the lines because it made their classes look amazing standing next to my kids/monkeys.)

So executive people (who don't even have classes, mind you) telling us (perhaps, me, since they sort of looked in my direction when it was said --- OR perhaps I am a paranoid freak) to keep the kids in an orderly fashion..

Pah again.

The day that I see my ENTIRE class (every single one!) lining up in two straight lines without speaking, I will have a heart attack on the spot and die. For real.