Crikey, the little 'uns are nearly upon us!

Only a few days left before the children are in (Wednesday the 5th to be precise) and I feel I am nowhere near ready to have them in the classroom. Not only is my classroom still not ready in any way, shape or form; neither is my planning. This morning alone I just spent 3 hours typing up some activities to go up on the IWB (Interactive White Board) ready for the kids 3 days back. I'm not looking for praise here; I'm looking for a telling off !

What's annoying about the whole thing is that I can hear my brain tell me that's it's a waste of time and my common sense says; 'stop working so long on one thing, Mat' and then I can hear Claire (my lovely wife) saying 'Is it right spending all this time on one thing?' So what is it that drives me to spend up to seven hours on three days worth of Literacy Planning? Insecurity with not knowing what to do? Wanting to get things just right? *sigh* Feel free to post any ideas on a postcard :)

So far it probably seems like I have a very negative feeling towards the start of the new year; nothing could be further from the truth. I'm ready in many other ways. My classroom, although messy, has some great additions of which I hope will make the kids laugh and smile. Firstly, I bought this lush leaf (see pic. on left ) that acts like a shade where the sunlight comes in and I also purchased four giant rubber ducks (see next pic. below) that will act as team targets of a sort. A little explanation is probably needed.

When I was training to be a teacher, one of the things that I pondered upon the most was how to entice boys to want to learn and be at school. From one seminar I came across the idea of having four rockets zoom across the classroom with the children being in one of the four teams. Whichever team got the most laps at the end of the year was the winner (and usually won a large tub of sweets).

I really liked this idea and made my own rockets and then put them to work. The whole rockets = rewards thing worked like a charm and kept me in the kids' good books for a whopping seven years.

However, with being moved up to Year 6 this year and also seeing that my rockets were starting to crumble, I thought that something new would be needed. Something that would work with 10-11 year olds who may be a little too 'cool' for rockets. Then it came to me:

GIANT RUBBER DUCKS !

Of course ! Something so daft and ridiculous would surely be a great way to re-inspire the class. When I had the rockets, they were pianted the colours of the four Harry Potter School Teams (through pure luck I might add) and that seemed to work; but Ducks named after the four Harry Potter teams? Nah, it didn't feel right. Some adjustment was needed:

Instead of Gryffindor we have Gryffinquack ( that's what ducks do best :-) )

Ravenclaw becomes Ravenduck (sure to confuse all ornithologists)

Hufflepuff becomes Beaklepuff (a bit like Beetlejuice - such a fab film)

And finally, Slytherin becomes Slytherwaddle (I love those waddling geese from Aristocats)

Anyway, I should get back to tidying and planning before time runs out (as a teacher, time always runs out but I know what I mean). I have photos to take and preperation to put in place before all the staff arrive on Monday.

Preparation - The Summer Holidays and what a teacher really does

Good Afternoon World !

It's now the 17th of August and I've just come back from working on my classroom. This is my first blog post so I'll fill you in on whos and the hows and the like. My name is Mat Tobin and I have recently been promoted/demoted (you decide) to teaching a Year 6 class (I previously taught Year 4 and then Year 5). I work at Wantage CE Primary School and have been doing now for around eight years - so long it scares me !

During the last academic year I became Team Leader for Upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5&6 (9-11 year olds)) and found myself moving to a new class and working with a very new team. Moving into a new classroom has proved to be just as hard, if not harder than when I first moved into teaching itself. This time I bring more junk with me and I also have a lot of junk to turf out from the previous teacher (no offence meant!). For the first week of the Summer Holidays I found myself working normal school hours (if not a tad more) with the intention of completely clearing the classroom, ready for my junk to be firmly rooted and creating all the displays.



The displays, I found, actually took up most of the first week (Check out my funky 'Water-Cycle & Skeleton Display) although much was this was due to the fact that I was having too much of a laugh with my team upstairs and various other members of staff that had come in. I already knew that the team in our school were incredibly hard working, what I didn't know was how hard working they really were! I was flabbergasted to see people staying in till all hours and working well with their co-teachers. There was me colouring in 30 rubber duck pictures. Seriosuly, I must manage my time better this year !



I'm horribly nervous about teaching Year 6 and am trying to prepare myself as much as possible. However, I am still clearing out drawers, labelling trays, washing shelves and fiddling on MSN ! I have left myself two weeks alone to get ready with my planning and organisation. I'm either anally attentive with organisation, or I'm scared that I'm going to find all the planning overwhelming so am hiding behind work that doesn't truly have to be done. I'm praying it's the former problem that I am suffering from !



I've also been working for a educational software company called Sarsen for the past 6 months, which is turning out to be very exciting. I'm helped craft the ideas for a Maths Game that the company hopes to see published in the near future and look forwards to collaborating more with that team. It's all very creative and rewarding as I get to have a huge impact on what goes into the content as well as how the content is desgined and displayed. Again, my time management will have to be kept in check if I am to balance the workload.



I also manage to review some books for a site called Writeaway. I have been doing this for a few years now and really enjoy it. Firstly it's lovely to think that my reviews might make a positive impact on some reader out there and secondly, I love reading and have someone asking me if I'd like to read for them ! Perfect :) This also ties in perfectly with the reading group that I attend on the odd Saturday here and there throughout the year. I've been with the reading group now for years and it's just fantastic; the current book we are going to be looking at is 'A Swift Pure Cry' by Siobhan Dowd.



Anyhoo, back to the classroom. At this moment in time, I've tidied almost all of it up and shall look forward to scrubbing all the kids trays out and then....then...I should be ready to plan !