Badger Galore
Staying ‘Up Over’ for a while.
Bush Laundry.
Revenge?
So...something keeps nibbling through the wires of the fairy lights that run around the verandah on the house.Yesterday I fixed the lights by the shower and today I found two more broken wires.I thought it was Galore up to mischief but Will thinks it is rats.I haven't heard any rats in the house or ceiling for ages but we did catch a mouse again the other day.I have put my rat trap outside to see if I can get the scoundrel!
Abandon all...and Hope!
So...yesterday was the second of my two days this week in Toerag's and Fidget's class.I must say I was dreading it but the silver lining was that they had an hour of PE and an hour of Music and I did not have to take them for both of those lessons.Mason arrived before school with the note I posted yesterday. His Mum said that it also said that 'his own class teacher was pretty good too' but she made him rip that bit off.Y came in with his family who had come to see him get certificates in that mornings 'Parade' (Assembly). Straight after roll call (for the last two days there has been no Hope) we headed off to the stadium for 'Parade'.The stadium was basically like a huge barn and it was freezing! The whole school had gathered and we had to sit on frayed bits of carpet that the children picked at the whole time we were there.We started off by standing for the National Anthem which for the life of me I could not remember except for the 'Advance Australia fair' bit and only when it had finished did I see the words were up on the wall at the front....Doh!Then we had to endure endless streams of children going up for certificates for 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200 and 250 gotcha bands. Just when I thought it was all over it was announced that we were now going to practise getting into position for the following nights Eisteddfod. We had to sit and wait while each class practised walking up to the choir stand and back again. Parade normally takes 30 minutes but we were there an hour.We got back to class at 10.00.Thankfully there was a teacher aide in to work with Y and so I did not have that to contend with though his antics and constant loud interruptions made it very difficult to get on properly.We did some follow up work on time and then some more mental maths. One boy who had finished his work and was doing an 'early finisher activity' came up to me with the picture he was colouring and said "I am going to give this to you when it is finished.""Thank you" I said."On the back," he continued "there is a word search and you have to find three words in it. I will give you a clue. The words are 'Mr' 'Allen' and 'Awesome' but you will have to look diagonally for them."Soon it was time for Morning Tea. Both Toerag and Fidget were not allowed to play and had to go to the office due to some misdemeanour the previous day.I had thirty minutes of peace and then they were back....well, all of them and Fidget but I was told that Toerag would not be coming back, cast, no doubt, into the Pit of Doom!It was Reading Groups time. Again the parent who was supposed to come did not turn up and one of the Teacher Aides down on the planning did not come because she was not supposed to at that time and I had the Teacher Aide who had been in for the rest of the morning instead. She was supposed to work with Group 2 and Y but somehow I ended up with him in my group.It was a challenging 30 minutes keeping him on his chair and trying to get the book read. In fact we did not read any of it and I only just managed to pass the time talking animatedly about the pictures and the animals in the story. Y wanted to control everything and he thought knew everything.I asked him to tell me about giraffes and he said,"Well, they are robots. I am a robot and in my head I have pain, anger, sadness." He pointed to different parts of his forehead.He suddenly snatched my glasses off and peered at me intensely and said"I bet the people in your head don't wear glasses."I realised he was thinking of the Disney film "Inside Out" and his comments suddenly seemed much less disturbing.Eventually 12.00 came and they went off to PE. I was off the hook but as I was being paid for the day had to go over to the Prep class to cover the teacher for an hour. I got a lovely welcome and it was a very calm hour supervising them copying and creating patterns where I was mostly sharpening their pencils.At 1.00 it was lunch time and I had no duty. They were back at 1.45 and had to go to Music. I took them over with the Music teacher to the Music Room who, poor thing, had them all on her own.Then I had to go to a Year 3/4 class to cover another teacher for an hour.The Business Manager had said that they were a nice class but as I walked in I didn't get that impression. They looked me up and down as if I had just crawled out of a swamp. The teacher looked about 15 and was wearing jeans. She was sprawled across a desk tapping away at a laptop and calling the roll. When she had finished she sent them to their desks to get on with something while she spoke to me."Oh, you have a cruisy afternoon" she said, " we are doing English and you will do some more work on 'Adverbials'. Sorry the planning is not very detailed but you should be OK."It was my worst nightmare! The planning may have said "up chuck thacka wacka poo chuck thuck!" and I would have understood it better.I slowly walked to the front of the class and coughed."Er, hello. You probably don't know who I am.""I think I know who you are," said a girl."Are you Mr Allen?"" I am" I said, " and how do you know?""You are teaching in my brother's class today," she said. It turned out her brother was the boy with separation issues. He has always been fine with me."Well, yes I am Mr Allen and we are doing English so who can tell me what an Adverbial is?" I tried to pick someone who looked intelligent but failed. I was no wiser after their explanation.I suddenly saw something in the planning about writing sentences using words like 'only', 'at first' and 'exactly' so said,"Good, so you know about Adverbials, well we are going to put these words into sentences today" and I wrote only, also, at first and exactly on the board.I just winged it from there for half an hour. I patrolled around checking their work. One girl had written'I only ' and what looked like 'up chuck thacka wacka poo chuck thuck'. She told me it said 'I only like chocolate' so I translated it underneath.One know it all girl kept saying "Finished!" so I added more words."Finished!" It was almost as annoying as Y was."Well, write a sentence with at least three of those words in," I said.For the last 15 minutes I had to take them to the Library, which was a doddle and their teacher relieved me from there to go back for the last 15 minutes to Fidget's class.I spent that time collecting in the gotcha bands they had collected that day and trying to stop Y from stealing them from other people. I was again completely on my own and wanted to shout to him but not really knowing his routines and the ways the school dealt with him was worried it might escalate things.I finally got all the bands collected and their reward cards stamped and the bell went. Y immediately took off out of the door but I couldn't run after him because I still had all the other children to see out. They all went fairly quickly and I frantically rushed off to the Office to tell them Y had run off."Oh, he will be down with the Taxi's" they said at the Office. I had been expecting someone to collect him at home time and take him to the taxi but no one had told me what usually happens.It was the last straw. I didn't have to put up with this kind of thing so I decided there and then that I would no longer accept cover in that class again.I am abandoning all....and Hope!
The Shock of the New.
So...I was back in school today in Toerag and Fidget's class.There are two new additions to the class and as is the way, children who move schools mid school year generally are not easy and have moved for problematic reasons.I was alerted to the new additions when I got the planning for today, last night. Reading the teacher's notes I had already judged them and pre named the new boys Beelzebub and Baal!I was urged to seek out the SENCo first thing and have a chat.I did.OK...so there are mitigating circumstances and I regret now naming them so damningly before finding out about them. They shall henceforward be known as X and Y.Both boys have autism. X loves to say 'No' to everything but apart from that was pretty much a sweetie. Y however was much more complex and hearing about him really made me question whether I really want to put myself in these situations anymore.I have dealt with behaviour problems before and to be honest feel I have done my bit in that department but here I was facing another challenging day.Y had a tent in the classroom which was his time out area. He loved the Ipad but once on it it was hard to get him off it so that was just as a treat for the end of sessions before morning tea and lunch.The SENCo brought him in first thing and he introduced himself and I introduced myself and he was popped into the tent (not by me) with the Ipad with the proviso he came out when the school bell went for the start of the day.When the school bell went lo and behold he appeared to line up outside and the SENCo thought this was a miracle. So far so good.He sat well at Roll call. All the children told me their favourite animals. Toerag's was a snake of course. Fidget's was a Great White Shark! X's was a dog and Y's was a leopard.So far so good.After roll we had to go to a singing practise for an Eisteddfod evening on Thursday. Y held my hand and we all traipsed over to the Music Room.They sang through their songs twice. X wandered about a bit but Y stood and sang with the rest of them and then we all came back to class. So far so good.We had our morning snack. Y had a big red apple.It was then time to start the first lesson on words that start with C and words that start with K and how we can tell which is which.There was a Teacher Aide in with me but she took a group of other children with X as directed by the planning and I had the rest including Toerag, Fidget and Y.I have to say Toerag and Fidget were great and I did not have to speak to them once but Y would not get on with his work. He would offer answers and was right but would not put pencil to paper. I said he could get a Gotcha band (school reward system) if he got three words down on his page but he wouldn't. He got up and wandered off into the teacher's office and I went after him."What's that?" He said pointing at a tub of jelly beans."That must belong to your teacher" I said and took him back to his place.The lesson continued as the rest of the class got more and more restless while I was trying to get Y to put something in his book. I had to have words with another boy who I moved to another desk and it was all getting harder and harder to keep them focussed.The teacher aide left saying she would be back in later and her children joined us and now I was alone with them all.I had been told that I was to ask for help if I needed it but soldiered on for a bit until I decided I couldn't teach and keep Y in his place at the same time so took him to his time out tent.I had been told he liked to sort the dinosaurs so gave them to him."I want the Ipad!" He said throwing the tub of dinosaurs on the floor."You can have the Ipad later." I said.He fetched a timer for me to set which would ping when it was time for him to have the Ipad. It was 55 minutes until that time so I set it accordingly."No, that's not right," he said. " Mrs G doesn't put it like that she puts it like this.." and he set it for 10 minutes.It would have been very easy for me to give in and say OK but then when the class teacher comes back she has to deal with him having the Ipad for lengthy periods.I said, " No, this is the time I am saying and you can have the Ipad then."He ran and started to climb up the bookcase to get to the Ipad that I had put out of reach. Meanwhile everyone else was off task and chatting and throwing rubbers and annoying one another. I grabbed him off the bookcase and lead him back to his chair and asked Donald ( the one who gave us Donald's Disease...see May 17th) to go to the office for help.I couldn't cope with all this on my own and felt a failure but I had to do it. The SENCo arrived and sat with Y and I was able to get on with the C and K lesson then we moved onto Time, o'clock and half past. After about 20 minutes of this the SENCo said she would take Toerag, Fidget, X and Y for some extra physical activity and off they went.I breathed a sigh of relief but it was still quite hard to get the rest of the class back as they have been. I felt they weren't as on my side as they have been in the past.Just before morning tea the Teacher aide came back with Toerag and Fidget and they were allowed to have an Ipad for five minutes.She informed me that Y had been sent home."Y?....I mean Why?" I asked."Well, it seems he somehow got hold of a handful of jelly beans and ate them and the sugar has sent him off his rocker and so he has been sent home!""Oh Heck!" I said knowing where he got them but wondering how the hell he did it. I honestly don't know how he managed to get them without me seeing him.Anyway, the rest of the day was much calmer though I never got the class back to how I had them, though when I read the story at the end of the day it was the best they had ever sat for a story with me.I am back in again tomorrow......Oh, and I am dreading it but they have PE and Music sessions which I don't have to teach so that is two hours out of the day without them. These lessons are when the normal class teacher has her Preparation Time. I am being sent to help in other classes."How was your day?" asked the Business Manager." Hmmm," I said, "A bit fraught at first but it got better.""Well, here is something to cheer you up," she said."Two girls from the class you were in last week came and asked me if they could have you in their class this morning. Isn't that nice?""It is." I said, wishing I was in their class too!