A lot of you were very interested when I posted about my previous shift day at school so I thought I'd post again.
I was surprised not to have been been in at school sooner since we have a 3 week rota-it was almost exactly a month since I was last in- the rota got switched.
My school had started inviting certain individuals and families to join keyworker children- perhaps vulnerable children, though I was surprised by one or two who were on the list.
When I saw the rota a few weeks ago, I was really worried at being matched with certain children. Thankfully, the one I was most dreading, I wasn't scheduled with though I drew the short straw with having a pair of twins in Reception who my only real experience of them was them wreaking havoc at lunchtime running in and out of classrooms, taking things, evading teachers and one in my one-off music lesson with his class, pushing his head against a large drum and when asked not to, continuing to do so....oh and their Year 5 brother with ADHD. He's fine usually in my lessons though I know he can be difficult.
A few days in advance, I emailed the other 3 members of staff who would be in the classroom with me and the SMT member who would be in with a plan for the day and resources as it really worked having a theme last time.
The alarm went off at 6.35am and I blearily opened my eyes-perhaps going to bed at 1am wasn't a good idea, but I wasn't sleepy...
I got out of bed and left CBC, who'd come to bed about 5am after trying to put together an 'isolation orchestra' recording of his school orchestra all night. (An arrangement by myself and him!)
I got in the shower and after, put on my Galaxy space dress, along with star necklace, star earrings and Space invaders brooch, plus cardie, and headed downstairs.
My pannier was ready for school as was my bag and my train was at 7:38. It was 7.18 so I had time to do something. In retrospect, perhaps a cup of tea or some breakfast might have been a wise idea, but no, I headed straight out to the garden to remove the shanty town of pots and obstructions (to stop the fox digging up my now-planted beans, squash, courgette, cucumbers, tomatoes and my growing rocket, chard, peas and radishes) and to them water everything. It was really nice and cool at that time in the morning- wishing I was better at getting up at this time in lockdown...
It was 7:26 by this point so I headed in and exited the garage on my bike. The side roads were nice and clear so I zoomed along to the main road. Trying to get onto the roundabout, I could definitely see more traffic than last time I'd been to school but it was still better than usual so I stayed on the main road and hiked the hill to the station.
Reaching the ticket machine at 7.34, I was rather affronted to find 2 people in front of me in the queue (I hasten to add at 2metre gaps...well, as far as I could estimate)...luckily they seemed quick at using it so I was able to purchase my ticket quickly....ooof £19.35 for a day return! So much!
I carried my bike over the bridge and came onto the platform just as the train was pulling in. There were about 5 people on the platform. One man got into the same carriage as me (I wanted that carriage as it had the sideways seat which mean I could keep my bike up, thus giving me a natural 2m barrier to stop anyone sitting next to me!). I glared daggers into his back just in case he had the idea to get into MY 'sofa seat' but luckily he went further along, giving us at least a 3.5m gap, if not more.
Surprisingly, in the 5 stops, not really many people got on so there was no anxiety about 'would they come too near'?
At my interchange station, I got off, wondering why on earth my bike was acting weirdly. Ah....yess, it would help if the wheel was facing the right way-it was backwards! I headed along the platform to the stairs, greeted cheerily by platform worker. Along the corridor, another man was coming down the stairs so I waited round the corner for him to finish descending. He apologised but I told him that I had 7 minutes till my train and it was right to wait.
On the next train, I got on (it's the terminus for that train) and another person got on but at the other end of that row of seats....about 7m away I think...
The journey was fine...I was trying to pray but was finding it hard to concentrate so I just sat quietly. Everyone getting on was being good and finding themselves a place as far away as they could until it got to the penultimate station. Er.. young male adult gets on and sits right opposite me. Despite the other direction he could have gone in being COMPLETELY empty. I huffed and muttered about 2metre social distancing, got straight up and moved to the empty side until I could get off at the next station.
At school,arriving at 8.35am, after parking my bike in my music room, I headed to the classroom. E, the HLTA was there already and had already got the black card, glue pots and sticks I needed. We opened all the websites and resources I needed and I went to cut up black card into A4 sheets.
At 8.55am (humph, so much for getting there before me...), the other teacher and LSA arrrived, with printouts they were handed by the Deputy Head who had printed my resources for me.
I started cutting up letters into strips for my first activity asking the other teacher if she could cut the strips into individual letters and put them into envelopes, one word per envelope. She obviously wasn't listening as I checked that she had put them into separate envelopes and she'd put several words in one envelope. Luckily, I realised and she corrected them. She finished putting the words in envelopes and then E went to go and hide the envelopes around the playground.
G, the other teacher and I, the LSA went to go and fetch the children at 9.10am whilst I started putting stuff out and they came back.
We had 12 children in total! The most there has been since the lockdown began! I'd prepared some Space-themed word-searches and colouring in (cunnningly reduced and fitted 2 per one side of sheet, double-sided, ever saving paper...) so they seemed pretty happy to get on with that...
that is until the 5-year old twins and brother arrived, they ran into the classroom and A1, ran over to me and threw himself at me saying. "Hug!". I was not expecting this since I've taught him once!
"No hug, I'm afraid," I said, backing away at 10cm. He looked like he was going to cry and tried to hug me again. "Oh, poor thing," said G, other teacher.
They immediately started running around grabbing things. I could feel my hackles immediately rising at the thought of what might be the possible day ahead... luckily, E took them outside after they started touching things, once she'd come back from hiding the envelopes whilst the other 10 children got on and did their wordsearches.
G seemed to be getting on putting things away- her room has been used all this time and she's a clean freak so she was rather annoyed at all the things lying around so she wanted to clear up.
I'd put on Holst's The Planets on as the children were coming in and put instructions about the 'Word hunt; on the board. A couple of the older kids read the instructions and were super excited.
I suddenly noticed 2 of the envelopes numbered for the word hunt were sitting empty on the desk. I checked with E and she said there had only been 8 envelopes...2 of G's earlier muddle up were still in the same envelopes so E went to go and seek which envelopes had 2 words in and put new ones out.
At this point, I stopped the children and gave them the instructions on the word hunt.
In 3 teams of 4, they had to go around the playground finding the envelopes. They were allowed one at a time and they had to bring it back inside. When in, they had to unscramble the letters to find the mystery word and write it down on their sheet. They had to go and replace the envelope for another team to find and then search for another.
Can you unscramble them?
1. NSU. 2. RSAT 3. NTEPAL 4. NOMO. 5. LAXGAY 6. REOMTE. 7. TERCKO 8. CEPAS 9. RDIOSTEA 10. TORIB.
They ran off excitedly and looked. E had hidden a lot of them very well as it seemed to take at least 40 minutes for them to complete it. The 5 year old twins didn't engage with it sadly, I'd included the easier words for them. They just wanted to ride bikes so E stayed with them. Fairly soon, I received a phonecall from the SENCO telling me that the mum of the boy with ADHD said his Ritalin had run out so he was likely to get more and more talkative, restless, distracted during the day. Oh good. A few of the kids needed re-engaging to keep concentrating but the majority were super excited.
At 10.30am, after the twins had been asking for fruit a lot, all the children were sent to wash their hands and have a piece of fruit outside. They all wanted bikes so I ended up getting into the bike shed untangling Bike spaghetti. Again, had to keep reminding the kids of social distancing as they kept trying to come into the shed to help me.
At 11.05, I called the kids inside and played them a video about constellations. I asked them some questions about what they'd heard and seen and then demonstrated how to use the myriad cut out stars to copy some of the famous constellations. They were given glue, cotton buds, black card and pictures of the constellations to use.
Here's one from a boy in year 2 before he'd finished. Miracle of miracles, the twins managed to sit down and keep quiet for a while and do this. I. the other TA said that the activities I'd planned were really good as she hadn't enjoyed it when it wasn't structured.
G and I were continuing with cleaning and tidying the classroom and disinfecting Lego.
I should explain that I spent 3 hours of watching Torchwood on Saturday cutting these stars out using my star punches. I had a blister on my hand... I used lids from the takeaways we had had. I'd carefully cleaned those lids so they could be reused.
As the children worked, I told them the stories of Orion, Andromeda and Cassiopeia.
This took us up to Lunchtime. Most of them looked quite nice.
At 12, the midday staff arrived to take them to the dinner hall. G and myself went and grabbed 2 slices of pizza and a couple of biscuits as we hadn't brought any lunch and we had a meeting so luckily G had ordered for us both. We headed to another classroom to meet C who'd come in for the meeting as she doesn't have the internet and G from the office for a Zoom meeting with our head teacher to fill us in on plans for 1st June onwards.
He allayed a few of our fears, raised his concerns and talked alot and it was then 1pm, time to go back.
During the lunchtime, the twins had learnt to ride a bike!
We brought the kids into wash hands and then I introduced the next activity of them being scientists who had discovered a new planet. They had to fill out a fact sheet about their planet, the indigenous species, what they looked like, distance from Earth, etc etc.
Again, managed to keep them engaged for a while though as usual, the twins were in my face interrupting (can anyone see an issue with Reception social distancing etc?). E worked with one of them and he did really well with trying to complete his sheet. I tried to help the other one whilst engaging the various other ones with ideas- the Year 5 one was increasingly restless but managed to get him to complete it eventually. I confess to finding the twins highly irritating- they really don't listen to instructions and kept helping themselves to things.
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| Behold the Minmins from the planet Fretegas. |
After this, we sent them outside to ride bikes etc. E and myself were outside with them and she was playing a fun game of Simon says.
Remember those negative strips of stars from above? Well, I sat attaching black elastic to them to make necklaces and told the children they could win a star necklace if they were able to answer 3 rounds of questions. They were eager and one by one, they had to answer 3 challenges which included things like Name me 10 adjectives, name 10 creatures in the sea, name 10 adverbs, name me your number bonds to 10, tell me the alphabet, name me your 6 timestables, depending on how old they were. All of the children wanted a go and even the twins managed it...actually when I asked one to tell me the alphabet, he sang it really sweetly and beautifully and I found that, despite the fact, they were very demanding and tiring, my heart had melted a bit.
An impromptu water fight ensued when I. the other TA pointed the hose at the children after she'd watered the raised beds. The kids loved it.
Some children headed inside and I'd set up Chrome Lab Songmaker on the whiteboard for them to make up some music- the kids loved it and were playing with it a lot, whilst other rode bikes.
Finally, the children were asked to tidy the classroom and pack away and we took them over at 3.30pm
After the others went, I went over the road to see if I could get any Yeast in Home Bargains or Lidl. The queues were long so I headed back to school in time to see my Headteacher leaving. We had a lovely chat (him in his car and me by the hedge) and I noticed the queue had gone outside Lidl and headed into see if I could get any Yeast and other things. I wish I hadn't bothered as nobody in there had a CLUE about distancing. It was disturbingly rammed full of people (er- who allowed that)- everyone walked right past me and someone even asked me what I was doing when I was waiting for an older lady to move! This was intolerable so I abandoned my basket and escaped!
Back at school, going to get my bike and things, I had a chat with the caretaker along the corridor and headed back. I was unlucky with trains and had to wait 13 minutes for both connections but luckily, the trains weren't crowded so I didn't have to go near anyone.
As I cycled up the mainroad towards home, reaching the roundabout, my neighbour in his van passed me so I decided to see if I could beat him home (by bike, you can cut off a chunk as you can go down a no-car access bit) whereas the cars but take a circulatory route... as I arrived, he pulled up behind me and smiled ruefully as I said, "Haha, beat you!"
I had survived the day but I didn't feel as positive about it as I had the last day I'd been in, it was a lot more stressful plus having no proper break at lunch and one cup of tea the entire day made by my Deputyhead when she came over at one point (should have taken my water bottle to the classroom- so, so thirsty)...I was really rather tired and the added stress of the twins (the difficulty in them doing what they were asked, socially distancing and generally being very needy...obviously being 4-5 that will be the case) and their brother plus 2 needy year 1's as well as trying to keep 12 4-11 year olds happy, plus I'd not been able to do all of the activities I'd planned due to the lack of concentration of the children. Also, I did feel that G actually really didn't engage with the children much at all in retrospect- she was cleaning and tidying practically the whole day, give or take a few moments, but gives the impression of having been doing everything to those she talks to. However, I do think the children did enjoy the activities and seemed very happy so that makes it all worth it.
Good luck if you made it to the end!
