Can I go to the toilet?

Well here I am three days in to my primary school placement and I have to say I'm loving it. I am with a year 6 class who are the oldest in the school which means that there's not so much tears and 'accidents' as I hear reported in the staff room at break.

I think going into the primary school is a very clever thing for the Uni to make us do actually because it gets you used to telling off kids, picking them up on bad behaviour and how to praise them. The clear advantage is that the kids are much less likely to thump you if you tell them off!

One thing I am having to get used to is giving the children permission to do things. I find it a very odd notion that I get to decide if a child can go to the toilet or have a drink. Of course I know that most of the time the kids just want to go and mess about or block up a sink but it's still strange. I don't think I have ever had to make so many decisions for so many people.

Besides these rather unusual situations there has been some good successes; I think I managed to teach a kid some division today. I have been trying all week to make a breakthrough with this kid and today with the aid of a humble abacus the penny seemed to drop. It's true what they say; it is a great feeling if you help to open somebody's eyes to something. It also taught me that sometimes kids play up because they don't understand and find a task hard. Once they have a small success they just go on and do even more - its fantastic.

I do appreciate that this is all a but gushy and sentimental but I'm sure this is another reason why we are all dispatched to primary schools to see these first discoveries made and the pleasure that comes along with that for the teacher and the student.

I was told this week that primary school teachers really nurture their own classes and care about them a great deal, I think this is definitely true.

The variety of knowledge that primary teachers require is genuinely astonishing, I doubt you need to know about plant reproduction and gymnastics instruction in one day. And on Friday it's French which I have a funny feeling I might be rather heavily involved in, no doubt making for a pretty interesting blog entry...

On a more personal note it's great to be spending a bit of time with my dad and seeing my mum more than once in a week. Naturally the best bit is that every day when I come home I get three wagging tails waiting for me as three excited dogs leap all over me and try to knock me over, at least somebody loves me....