Thoughts and Amusings

As some of you know I am back at the school I regularly relieve at – my low decile intermediate (for my American readers I am what you guys know as a supply teacher currently with 6.7th grade students in a low socio economic area) anyway my current class are one of the hardest at the school and normally run amok for relievers so the fact that we have learnt some things this week is an achievement, even though it is not as much as I would have liked. I am having to be very tough, and it is reminding me a lot about God and justice. lol. I am there for 6 days and am back for 3 days next week in the same class.

A couple of the ‘naughtier’ kids have been removed for me for the 6 days that I am there, (and probably will be removed next week when I come back for another 3 days) but that still leaves me with a very tough class of students who have very high needs. I have one child with full time teacher aide support.

As I continue to teach at this school on a regular basis I find my self liking the challenge more and more. You constantly have to be on your toes and constantly have to be keeping kids engaged in material, more so than other schools otherwise you loose them.

In the past previous one reliever had the class break out into all out punch ups (east side vs west side gangs, which is very prevalent). Due to the grace of God we have not had this yet. I put this down to the fact that when you engage kids and don’t go in with an attitude that the kids are ‘bad’ and going to cause trouble it is less likely to flare up. Also a general awareness of the culture of the kids tends to help. Also the school has an awesome team feel so have been really highly supported and valued by the other teachers. Unfortunately we have had a few flare ups though but they have been minor in comparison to all out class fights. .

I am also teaching the top maths stream (the whole syndicate is streamed and I have the best kids in the syndicate) which is really awesome! I have just started a fractions unit with them and am really enjoying doing real teaching as opposed to normal relief work. Tomorrow I get to teach Spanish – for the school wide rotation! (I don’t know anything about Spanish, but that’s okay because the kids are only on there 3rd lesson)

I think one of the reasons I like it so much here is because it reminds me that I have to rely on God a lot especially his grace and the Holy Spirit. I have to humble myself and am constantly reminded that the last will be first.