It’s raining! The sky is falling! aaargh!
January 31st, 2008 | Filed under Personal.I like Thursdays, they’re easy. To begin with I have a small group of year 9 students who are quite low ability. We spend most of the lesson doing easy work that keeps them occupied. Then I have a period where I assist in a maths lesson, followed by year 12 groups for three lessons. Year 12s mostly shut up and cause no hassle. After that it’s a free period. The only ballache is an NQT meeting that I have to go to at 3pm for an hour.
Today I had a maths cover lesson last period, rather than a free lesson. Not to worry, these things end up being somewhat amusing. This one was in the grotty little maths computer room. So the kids played educational games on the Internet and I planned some work. We all got along and everything was great.
Oh, except it was raining all day. A great storm blew over us during the morning somehow causing lots of kids to become soaked to the skin. They don’t have to stay outside when it rains, so we have no idea how they get so wet.
Well, we do… they do it on purpose so they can go home. Our kids are sneaky like that. So we tell them they can’t go home if they get wet. So they get their phones out at break and to their parents, with quite a good bit of acting, make it sound like the world’s ending and that the school is under six foot of water. Last year there was a pretty bad flood around here, so the parents ring the school and demand their kids come home immediately. Oh yeah, and for a while it sleeted enough to cover the ground sending the kids into orbit.
And you know what? In my day it was exactly the same, although the snow really was knee deep. Since I used to live within walking distance of my house I was always allowed to go home; this being back before the concept of child safety existed, way back in the dim days of 1991. “What? it’s snowing and you live up the road? OK, bye then keep safe”. Strangely enough that was also the time when I suddenly had loads of friends who were also staying at my house 
