My year 8's have been causing me a few problems recently. There are 32 of them, and they are seriously boisterous. In fact, I think I've blogged about them before - this is the class that have spent my lesson doing somersaults before (I've definitely blogged about that somewhere). Usually we get on fine, but I've felt the respect slipping away as they take longer and longer to get quiet each time. With my recent sleeping habits, my voice is almost completely gone so I can't raise it. Last time I attempted to shout, one pupil asked if my voice was breaking. Non-verbal signals they pretend not to see.
Honestly, the above picture is comparatively calm. So today, first lesson back after almost a week, I thought I'd nail them to the floor and then we could relax again. I had a friend email me last week asking for behaviour tips - I emailed her a thesis on the subject and thought it was about time to practice what I preached.
So I walked in, recapped the rules and consequences. They ignored the rules; I turned into the cow from hell. I had one hour of silence. Almost every child actually completed the work set. And I didn't have to attempt to shout once. No one was sent out (possible for the first time ever). No one left their seat (definitely the first time ever).
Was it one hour of blissful silence? Nope. Was there a productive, purposeful atmosphere? Nope.
It was one hour of sheer awkwardness during which I attempted to evade the rays of hatred emanating towards me. The auras of livid 32 kids require some serious mental shields, I tell you...
To be honest, I absolutely hated doing it. But I was out of ideas - the class are notoriously awkward across the school so other teachers were not a great source of advice. I'd tried rapport and getting to know them as individuals. I'd tried killing them with praise and doing pacey, personalised lessons. Ultimately they just took the mick.
No idea whether I did the right thing. Have I screwed up or can I relax next lesson and hope the fact that they've seen my nasty side will be enough to keep them on track for the next four weeks? I have no idea. We'll have to see what happens on Friday. If no post arrives between now and... let's say about six weeks from now, as I'm not too hot on posting regularly... you know they've eaten me alive.
Question is, can I have a middle ground between discipline and dislike or riots and friends? Cake and eat - ooh yes please.
AMAZING cake hey? Shame it's only just been my birthday and I will probably have forgotten about this by the time my next birthday comes around.
Moving on to real horses, real courses: Sion and I are so busy at the moment. Some of you may remember my blogging that we'd qualified for a competition in Wales - well, that was a couple of weeks ago. I had the absolute time of my life. He did some beautiful jumping and some superb (unplanned) rodeo displays, so we managed to keep the crowd entertained regardless of whether we were actually getting over the fences. I think they knew from the moment that we entered the ring backwards (because the poster opposite the gate was far too scary to walk towards) it was going to be an interesting round.
So, we had no rosettes but it was our first weekend show away from home and I think he did exceptionally well considering that over the four days he went from muscular to skeletal with all the stress.
Last weekend we attended a home show, and he was much more his usual self - he was just on fire (I never thought I'd need to clarify that this was metaphorical, but I mentioned this today in my year 7 class and then had to spend five minutes reassuring/disappointing them with the news that my horse had not spontaneously combusted because of his speed). We entered two classes and got four clears. We won one class by almost 10 seconds, and came second in the other - by 0.4 seconds!
We have another show this weekend, plus a gymkhana. We've qualified to go back to Wales this summer, plus I've applied to attend the Training Academy beforehand - just waiting to hear whether we've been accepted. I hope we are!
Whether we are or not, with all the other shows and cross-country competitions we've entered we have a busy, busy summer ahead.
I'm also off to look at another horse this weekend. She's stunning - hoping to BSJA affiliate with her as Sion is limited to about 1m now because of his hocks; plus he's obviously not getting any younger. We don't compete at 1m anymore - far better to keep it low and enjoyable for him. 2'9 is as high as he'll go over a course, although having said that we'll be doing 3ft this weekend! I haven't told Sion I'm going to look at this mare though - in a daft, unjustified, sentimental way, I feel like I'm cheating on him...
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