getting the buggers to write...

...actually seems to be more manageable than originally thought. It's interesting: today was my first day of five spent "observing" in the secondary school where I'll be on teaching practice for eight weeks. My timetable for the day was great up to a point: I found myself sitting around a table with a small sixth form class, probably learning more about (the drivel that is) Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter than they were. And then, just when I thought I was getting away with an easy day and a lunchtime departure, I was redirected upstairs to the SEN unit. Oh crap, I thought. Don't get me wrong: six years of youth schemes has given me enough chances to deal with behavioural and educational difficulties to last a lifetime. But in a formal setting... I felt like you could write all I know about how to teach to SEN at a secondary level - primary maybe, but Key Stage 3! A class of 20! - on the back of a rather late edition to the very-small-stamp section of a tiny stamp library. In a 1:20 scale doll's house with stamp library room.

Turns out they were pretty wonderful kids altogether. I don't know, maybe it's more obvious with behavioural, but I personally can't look at a child and automatically tell you that, for instance they're a particular form of ADHD (which is a myth anyway...). I just think they're the type of kid that gives you a pain where you never had a window, as my mother dear would say. If someone is acting up, it's usually got something to do with the eight bottles of lucozade they drink a day - one of the more talkative girls in the sixth form English Lit. class was telling me about this...

Now there's a rant. The primary school I was placed in a couple of weeks ago have comprehensively banned fizzy drinks on the premises. The number of kids newly statemented for behavioural difficulties in the last 12 months has dropped by more than half or something like that. Do the maths.

Coincidentally, Getting The Buggers To Write is actually an English teacher's handbook. It's pretty bloomin' good too.

Now, having just witnessed the decimation of a tragically crap Ireland team by Les Coqs, I'm going to get back to getting friendly with Mr Jamison...