Monday 27th February

I got to work this morning to find out that there are two members of staff off with the flu and was asked to cover the maths lesson for grade 4. It looks like I have also given James my flu as he looked how I felt on Friday! I still feel a bit rough but I am definitely over the worst of it and hopefully will be better in no time.
I spent the first part of the morning making a start on the mountain pile of marking that needed doing and then before I knew it, it was 9.15am and time for my maths lesson. The cover lesson plan just said to finish the measuring worksheet so I asked James if he had any work that needed finishing if they finished the worksheet early. I am glad I did as by 10minutes into the lesson they had finished the worksheet that was supposed to have taken an hour! I had them doing the work that they needed to finish for their English class with James which was a poetry book and reading tests on the computers. Surprisingly the lesson went well despite the fact they had finished the work in rapid time, there were no behaviour problems and everyone was on task, a good start to the day!
After break I had the same class for English as James was in a meeting and we had a spelling test, which wasn’t easy as they are used to James’ strong American accent and apparently I “talk funny” but as long as I used each word in a sentence they knew or understood, it went ok. I will know for sure once I have marked their tests! I then went back to the office to carry on with the marking and then it was lunchtime. James came into the office and looked really ill and was going home, felt really bad for the guy as I had given him my germs! This meant that I was covering for his social studies lesson this afternoon now though, three lessons in one day!
After lunch I did more marking and I haven’t even scratched the surface of the pile of marking that needs to be done. At 3.15pm it was time for the social studies lesson where the children had all been working on a project where they had to invent a country and today’s lesson was about putting that all together. The lesson went really well and I really enjoyed it. I think that it is a good class (there are 17 students with a few characters that I have been warned about) but I think that they are all good kids and I am really pleased with how today’s lessons have gone. This is probably where I should be a bit wary and not get overconfident, the calm before the storm and all that, but I am looking forward to my next lesson already!