Day 1 of My Adventure

I arrived at Werribee PS, dragging my plastic wheelie crate  behind me, at a little after 8am. Shelley, the member of the Education Leadership Team who had called me in, looked after me from the start and took me over to 1/2 R, Room 7. The class teacher, Renee McCredden, met with me in her classroom and warned me about a couple of students. She also gave me the timetable and her plan and materials. She was being given time-release while she did baseline assessments of the kids in her little office, which adjoined the classroom.

I started the day off, marking the roll by getting the kids to tell me the name of their pet when their name was called. I explained that I had to learn their names and asked them to wear the name stickers I'd prepared for them. I wore one too and also indicated my name on the board.

Classroom culture is only just being set up, so no jobs had been formally handed out yet, but they were very happy for me to volunteer them when needed.

The numeracy session had a shaky start. I'd selected 'Mastermind' (from Rob Vingerhoets' Maths on the Go book) for the warm-up. I've run this warm-up many times. In fact, it's a favourite of mine. I stuffed it up anyway (not that the kids noticed, hopefully). For some reason I just couldn't remember the exact procedure but managed to wind-up the first round quickly. I then went to my clipboard of plans to ostensibly get another number for them to 'guess' using place-value knowledge. Once I'd reminded myself on how it was supposed to run (how could I have forgotten?) things ran smoothly. It reminded me of a time I sang and played a Polish ballad Zapachniało Powiewem Jesieni by Grzegorz Ciechowski. I played it first to a large audience of non-Poles, then a week later to a smaller audience from the Polish community. The first time it was beautiful. The second time, it was a disaster as I couldn't get the right chord no matter how I tried. It was a bit like that! At least it wasn't so obvious to everyone this time. It just goes to show: never underestimate the 'deer-in-the headlights' effect when you are suddenly on the spot.

Apart from that, the day was fairly full-on. Kids needed constant reminding to quiet down, to return to their seat and put their hand up if they needed my help. It served to remind me just how much work Year 1s and 2s are (little darlings)! I had one kid 'on the spectrum', another who was oppositional-defiant, and two or three who acted like dominoes as a result of the first two. I even resorted to the thinking chair for one of them. Most of the others were great. And as for toilet requests, there was a constant stream. 

I had a round of yard duty, filling in for a different teacher (my friend Oliver warned me to expect this). I ended up doing a double-shift over lunchtime because I was forgotten until the last 10 minutes, so no lunch. Shelley was horrified when she found out what had happened but I told her not to worry about it. Nonetheless, another teacher came to me at the very end of the lunch and offered to relieve me so that I could have some lunch. I thanked her and insisted that it really was OK, she didn't have to do that. Teachers work hard, and I'm only here for the day. No need for others to take on double duty over this.

It strikes me that I may be too 'soft' with the kids but I don't like shouting. I'm trying to apply Bill Rogers' approach, which brings things back to personal responsibility. As for resources, I need to develop more pre-prepared lessons in case the classroom teacher doesn't have any waiting for me. Here are my thoughts on my 'kit' so far:

Things I used

Sticky labels and Sharpie pen, for student names. This turned out to be a great idea. Having spare labels was useful too, as a couple of kids complained that their name tag kept on coming off. I made sure that I had one on too, despite writing my name on the board.
Way To Go stamp, for good work.
Stickers, as a reward for good behaviour.
Yocto Clock app on the iPhone, for ensuring that I kept to schedule.
Spare stationery, especially erasers ("rubbers", as the kids insisted they be called).
Whiteboard markers, because although there were plenty of markers at the whiteboard, finding one that worked was frustrating; I quickly started using my own.
Coffee and mug - quite simply, a godsend!
Clipboard, which I added to my kit last-minute; useful for keeping the immediate task in front of me, whether noting down class details before the beginning of the day, or ensuring the current lesson plan was available.

Things I expected to use but didn't

Bluetooth speaker - I felt uncomfortable taking a radical approach with the class as the teacher was there in the background (I didn't want her to feel upstaged), also it was the first time using Yocto Clock 'for real', so I decided to use it as a personal alarm rather than something to get the whole class doing clean-up.
Feather pen for marking the roll - same as for the bluetooth speaker.

Things I could have used

Collected work container - a brightly coloured container for the kids to put their completed work into. Keeping the teacher's desk neat and tidy throughout the day was a challenge, not even from an aesthetics point of view, but just to find things. Collected work added to the entropy.
Perforated A4 notepad - although I was able to debrief the teacher in person this time, I can see how having something to leave the teacher as a hand-over would be important. Having a notebook with perforated pages will make it easy to keep notes throughout the day and neatly tear out the page at the end of the day to leave for the regular classroom teacher.