One day down.

So out of my first six week placement I am left with 27 days of kiddie-contact. How so? Well, the last Friday is a recall day so it's back to Jordanhill for structured reflection, a game of five-a-side football and maybe a wee Christmas drink to celebrate our survival.
Meanwhile, I had a pleasant and reasonably easy day today - my PT andtemporary colleagues are very relaxed and keen to ease me in gently. So I spent three lessons observing (and helping out) some of the classes I am going to teach over the next few weeks. These are:
* 5E (intermediate 1), who are significantly quieter first thing on a Monday than they are last lesson on a Friday, when I last saw them during the induction block. A good chunk of this lot will be leaving at Christmas and maintaining their attention might be an issue come December. Otherwise, they have all the hallmarks of 15 and 16 year olds.... chips on shoulders, attitudes you could beat with a stick and a desire to question every instruction. Should be fun.
* 2B which is a mid-level year 2 group with one pupil with a specific vision problem (which requires forethought in preparing lessons and resources) and four boys with non-specific disruptive problems. I suspect that dealing with these four is going to be the biggest challenge with this class. They normally have someone from Behaviour Support in the room to help with these four
* 3R, another middle band class with 32 in it (the biggest group I'll have). The diagnosis of the class teacher is that they are potentially noisy, but not nasty. But with 32 in the room, as soon as you try to concentrate on one pupil, they all just start chatting. There's one pupil who is significantly behind the others and is only in with this group for behavioural reasons (to keep him away from the set with lots of like-minded pupils in it) so he'll need particular attention.
I spent the rest of the day (and what will probably turn into a large chunk of this evening) preparing for teaching tomorrow. I've got 3R and 2B and will be meeting up again with 1C, though their regular teeacher is going to finish off their current topic before I get let loose on them.
It looks like I'm, going to be teaching areas and volumes to three out of the four classes in the next three weeks, which will probably either make me an expert in the field or drive me mental.