Another week, another dollar

Another week, another five days of work, and this time around all five were at Wembley.

Monday and Tuesday, I was back in the second of last week's Year 3 classes. The class was so good Monday morning, I thought it likely the children had been replaced by alien replicas. The teacher's absence was sudden, so the lesson plans were provided by the teacher next door and I modified them as needed as I taught them. Literacy (in which they wrote their own stories based on a picture and then read the myth of Theseus) and Numeracy (which was more work on how to tell time) went very, very well. But the afternoon was a disaster - it was physical education and their former wildness returned with a vengeance.

Tuesday proved to be more of a balance, behaviour wise. Literacy went exceptionally well - the students were shown a short cartoon summarizing the myth of Perseus and Medusa and then were asked to recount the myth in writing in their notebooks. They did an amazing job! Numeracy was more work on telling time, which also went well, and the end of the day was History - they compared Athens to Sparta. I was a very happy teacher and was pleased with the students' work not only then but for the day as a whole.

Wednesday I was in Reception - in the fourth class, as a matter of fact. Consequently, I  have now completed my tour of the Reception classes; I have officially taught all four groups, have replaced all four teachers, at one time or another. The class was learning about the Three Little Pigs, focusing on speech bubbles, and about addition - how to do it, how to write it. After lunch, it was decided to bring the kids outside for a spell after they had an indoor recess. Downside here was that said indoor recess was on account of rain and, while it wasn't raining more than a drizzle at first, there was still mud all about and within fifteen minutes the rain was back to a regular pore and this led to a bunch of wet, muddy children. Who had had a lot of fun getting that way.

Thursday and Friday I was in a nursery. Nobody threw up this time and both days we watched YouTube videos about the 5 Speckled Frogs and prepositions (Thursday - Where's the Monkey?) and days of the week (Friday - set to Addams' Family theme). We also watched Dumbo - which I swear I remember as being longer. Each day had two classes - one in the morning, one in the afternoon - so it was a bit of wash/repeat going on but that wasn't such a bad thing. A teaching assistant and nurse were present in the classroom at all times, so there was a plethora of adults and help about, which is always nice.

On a completely different note, outside of the classroom I had another problem going on. When I got my payslip this week, I noticed the rent hadn't been included among the expenses, so I messaged JSA to let them know. The reply was swift and, hey, what do you know - while they were looking into it they realized they'd had me in the wrong tax bracket all this time. Apparently, they never corrected a mistake they had told me about - and supposedly fixed - back in September and were thus under the impression that I was working another job. They had to correct that as well and ended up owing me almost £300 from overtaxing. I was a very, very happy camper. ^^

No plans this weekend - taking it off to rest and relax - and so far no bookings for the week ahead. Hopefully, that will change soon. Until next time, my freaky darlings, adieu!