Settling in

If it's not customers opening their hearts to me, it's kids chatting to me about being 'lifted', having a brother who's 'mental', shooting seagulls and taking cannabis, all of which I feel singularly ill-equipped to comment on! I was asked to take an S4 boy away today to help him write an essay, and he seemed to think this was an excellent opportunity to tell me his life story. Perhaps I shouldn't have suggested that he could get some ideas for the plot of his short story by drawing on his own experiences...

I am teaching my first class of this placement period one tomorrow, and of course am rather nervous about it, especially as the teacher is going to go off and leave me to it. The PT at my last school would not let the students be alone in the classroom, insisting there was a qualified teacher there at all times. In some ways I would rather have the comfort of having the teacher there, but of course I'm not going to have that in August (assuming I get that far!), so I suppose the sooner I am flying solo, the better.

Anyway, lesson plans to be finished, seating plans to be looked at, floors to be paced...