(no subject)
Day Four of my new ETA job...and it's going well.
Have had three days with the kids so far, as last Friday was a training day. I've learnt about half a class worth of names, so it's getting easier. On the training day the teachers were saying that it is utterly pointless addressing a child unless you use their name, because they will not answer you - I thought that was a bit of an overstatement, but have found it to be completely true. Which meant that my job was very hard when I knew NO NAMES WHATSOEVER.
I've so far done lots of things, like literacy, numeracy (English and Maths no longer exist), reading, ICT, SULP, photocopying, laminating and ripping blank pages out of books (my degree was put to good use with the last three). I had to do playground duty on my first day (Spar skills came in handy when I had to get rid of some teenage chavs who were hanging around the school gate) and on Friday I have to do BIKE DUTY where I teach some children how to ride bicycles!! I'm really looking forward to that!
SULP (can't remember what it stands for) is really fun. I sat in on it today. The kids learn about eye contact, good listening and how to sit nicely - things like that. Must be Social Understanding something something. Hmm. Maybe I should know that sort of thing? Scarily, Ofsted are going to be coming while I'm working there. And not just to do a routine check - they're checking to see how things have improved since the last check they did, when the school got very poor results, so the pressure will really be on. I will definitely have to know things like what SULP stands for by then, methinks.
Have come across some difficulties when trying to explain certain things to the children, such as why two thousand three hundred and twelve is written as 2312 and not 200030012. Also, why you spell it forty instead of fourty, even though you just add t-y to all the other numbers (seventy, eighty etc.). You realise as you're met with puzzled looks that there is actually no good reason for a lot of things - it SHOULD be fourty!
Tomorrow I have a real live staff meeting to attend - how much of an adult am I?! Also, I have to be quicker in leaving tomorrow, as so far I have missed the once-an-hour bus on two out of three days. Even though it comes to the stop, which is five minutes' walk from the school, twenty five minutes after I officially finish. I really don't know how I managed it once, let along twice.