Day one with my class went off without a hitch.
(And also without a clock, but that's another story.)
They are very lovely kidlets.
(Be proud to know I smiled. The. Whole. Damn. Day. So much so that people even commented on me smiling so much.)
At the moment there are only sixteen (!) of them in the classroom, because one is still away on holidays and another is being kept in his usual class. So the room looks really empty when everybody is sitting at their tables. It's really necessary though, some of these kids have a loooong journey ahead of them. And so does their teacher!
I've stayed back late all of this week which is tiring, but it's helped me get my head around things. I think this weekend I'm going to really start with a programme, because I just can't get around to it when I get home from school - I'm bloody buggered! (Just for you, BD, matey.)
The little girl I had last year with severe learning difficulties (but no government funding so no support, typical) is in my class again - and she's gone backwards over the holidays. She cannot write a sentence on her own. When I asked her to just plain tell me a sentence about school so I could write it down FOR her, she stared at me blankly. I then told her a sentence and left out blanks and she couldn't fill them in. Next was a sight word recognition test, where she managed to read three words. I, my, it. Have I mentioned she's repeating Year 2? It's so sad, and really painful.
But then, all of the kids are lovely and I think they're going to try hard this year. They loved the bright classroom (what's not to love? Hee!) and all the struggles aside, it's lovely to have my own class.
Hooray for 2/3S!
Hooray!! Glad the year is off to a good start.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the kids are just slow to come back from holiday mode, and haven't really gone too far back. Even for us grown-ups, our brains turn to mush.
ReplyDeleteI'm so proud of you. I will be thinking about your little girl with the disabilities. I'm sure you will teach her so much and hopefully she will improve a lot this year.
ReplyDeletewoohoo for well-running and hitch free days.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get many more of them.
Good luck with that little girl. Teachers are saints. I really don't know how teachers do the job they do. I don't know how they handle hanging out with kids all day. That in itself would drive me batty. Bad mom here.
ReplyDeleteMy kids go to a Montessori school, and I couldn't have asked for better teachers. I always feel like I owe them for all they do.
I'm sure you'll do great with these kiddies! Slow ones are a handful. I wish there was an alternative for them. It;s just not fair on anyone. I have on my class a 10 year old who can't spell his name or recognise numbers and letters, another 10 year old who only knows her name and VERY early year one stuff like some sounds and one who speaks no English. So that's 3 separate programs to run as well as my composite class.
ReplyDelete