Scattered thoughts

A couple of rants here which need to be got out of my system. Firstly about the pillock in a yellow (bronze?) Honda with the registration number Y106 BKJ who blocked me in last night.



Mine is the little red clio in the middle. The gap between the enormous Ford and the Honda was not enough for me to get out. I was stuck there for ages and I was supposed to be going out. Thank goodness I didn't have to be somewhere at a set time.

Grr! So angry!

The other victim(s) of my wrath are the parents of Blean Primary School children. You would think that the little darlings cannot walk given the proximity to the school the parents feel they have to park. The ones that park at the Sports Ground car park are bad enough, and the ones that park at Nickle Court are even worse (this is the closest PW court to the school) but the ones that feel they have to drive right up to the Crab and Winkle way and the gates of the now closed old car park? Sickening.

Even worse are the ones on the Whitstable Road causing traffic to go single file at dropping off and picking up time (thus causing a major problem on those occasions I have seen an ambulance, police car or fire engine trying to get past). The bigger problem of this is that often the parents and children are crossing the road from behind cars, actually...no, not cars. Giant 4x4s. This may be safe for the poor ikkle children who cannot walk more than 50yards from the entrance of their school but for those of us who have to cross it makes it much more dangerous. The two times a day I have to cross that road with Becky and Paul are terrifying.

Those parents who feel the need to park so close piss me off so much.

GRRR!

Among the things I have been doing at my school placement is helping with lots of classes. I help in at least one class of every year group except year nine (no lessons on Tuesdays/Fridays). Today was my day with the tinies (years seven and eight)* and turned out to be great. Second period I was with a very low achieving year eight group (we're talking the lowest set) and I've been in a few lessons with them before. Typically getting them to learn or engage is like pulling teeth, but today they switched on and wanted to learn about Isambard Kingdom Brunel. They asked me for help and thanked me for helping them. They went away having learnt something and I felt great for helping them to achieve that.

Third period I helped in the year seven class. I've been helping with them for a while too and this class is completely different. They're still enthusiastic in a way that no other year group is. They don't quite have the secondary school jaded scepticism yet. Anyway, they've been doing a topic on Castles this term and the past few lessons they've been making a castle out of cardboard to help them remember the structure of a castle and what castles have in them. They did everything only being reminded of the scale of it sometimes. Today they painted it. Here are the results. Aren't they great? :D

( Castle! )

It was a very tiring but a very rewarding day, capped by a little boy (4 years old) coming in from nursery covered in chocolate (from easter chocolate related activities at aforementioned nursery) and giving me a hug and a kiss. I love that little boy. I shall treasure that chocolatey hand print on my white tshirt ;) He's so sweet! Why oh why do they have to grow up :(

Tomorrow is the scary scary thing. I have my interview at Christchurch. Am really quite scared now. I'm sort of prepared. I hope it's enough.

Feedback would be good on my idea for a source though. I'm supposed to take a source in and say how I'd use it to introduce a topic. My idea was for a picture like ( this ) to introduce the holocaust to key stage 4 pupils (14-16 year olds). (Picture here in original context) I'm thinking this picture could be used to start that topic with questions posed to the teenagers such as "Why do you think there is a pile of shoes here?" "How did they come to be stacked like that" "Why do you think their owners don't need them any more" etc.

What do you lot think? Is there a better way of doing this? A better topic/source I could use?

Any and all help appreciated :S

*for anyone not familiar with this style of naming year groups, year 7 is the lowest at a British high school, with the children in it being 11 or 12 typically

[edit] My watch strap broke this evening so I'm without watch. I feel all naked and horrid :( If anyone has a spare watch they want to lend me before my interview... ;)

Here we go again?.

In other news, it's been a very up and down week from the POV of my recovery from depression but am on the Up again now I think. In terms of things happening it's actually been a very good week.

I have a place to gain experience to support my PGCE application at Community College Whitstable where my lovely employer Sue works in the Science Department. It seems like a really good school and they were really super helpful. I'm getting experience in the classroom (as a teacher's help or assistant or something), doing paperwork (making and photocopying worksheets etc) and observing other teachers (the deputy head is going to teach me how to observe teachers, something that I will apparetly learn for my PGCE anyway).

It all sounds really cool :D So, pending a clear police check (which was sent off on Thursday when I was at the school for an interview) I should be cleared to start this straight after half term. It was worth getting dolled up in a trouser suit and feeling like a bit(read "lot") of an idiot (even though Ben and Miles said I looked lovely/nice/whatever) after all it would appear.

Other excitement is that on March 7th I should be going on a Fun History Trip(TM) to ypres. I'm actually really excited :D Sounds like it will be excellent (if rather tiring and probably wet). I've been before in year 9 of High School but I know so much more now. I will take my camera and take pictures this time too.

OOh, compsoc stuff finally starting to come together :) Not too much longer now, we promise :)

I think that's about it for stuff I was going to say...

The BBC are running a story on "gay history month" and are asking schools to take part in teaching the children about LGBT history. I've thought about it and I'm not sure I agree. I believe that children should be educated about LGBT stuff so that they don't grow up to be homophobes and I agree that violence and homophobic taunts are rife in schools, but I'm not convinced that focusing on history of a specific group like that is healthy. I believe if it's going to be included that it should be included in the course of normal history lessons as it comes up and shouldn't be something that is gone out of the way for.

Hrm. I'm not explaining myself very well. I hope I don't offend anyone. It's just that I don't feel that it is constructive to make such a huge thing about it all. Surely the best way of helping children realise it's all perfectly normal is acting* like it is rather than holding month long events to focus on it specifically.

To anyone I may have offended, I'm sorry :|

*In this sense of the word "acting" I mean "the act of doing something" not "the act of pretending something" Hope this clarifies my point there :)

The BBC are running a story on "gay history month" and are asking schools to take part in teaching the children about LGBT history. I've thought about it and I'm not sure I agree. I believe that children should be educated about LGBT stuff so that they don't grow up to be homophobes and I agree that violence and homophobic taunts are rife in schools, but I'm not convinced that focusing on history of a specific group like that is healthy. I believe if it's going to be included that it should be included in the course of normal history lessons as it comes up and shouldn't be something that is gone out of the way for.

Hrm. I'm not explaining myself very well. I hope I don't offend anyone. It's just that I don't feel that it is constructive to make such a huge thing about it all. Surely the best way of helping children realise it's all perfectly normal is acting* like it is rather than holding month long events to focus on it specifically.

To anyone I may have offended, I'm sorry :|

*In this sense of the word "acting" I mean "the act of doing something" not "the act of pretending something" Hope this clarifies my point there :)