I made a child cry at school! Yes…you think I don’t have it in me but it happened. Though of course it wasn’t on purpose and I felt very bad afterwards, but he had been warned! There were four pupils messing around in one of my singing classes and I’d already moved them to the front of the room as soon as they stepped in the door because I remembered they’d been chatty last lesson. They were reluctant to move but realised I wasn’t budging on the matter. They were messing around so I said if they carried on I’d take their ‘carnets’ (A carnet is a little book with their timetable on the back and space to write between teachers and parents inside). Taking a carnet means a child is in danger of an ‘observation’ being written in for their parents to acknowledge. They carried on so I took all four, and said that if I move their book from the edge of the table to the middle, it was being written in. The boy (the other three were girls) was playing with glue and got it on his neighbour’s trousers…I hadn’t seen everything but I had testimony/complaint from five girls nearby so decided enough was enough. He was grumpy for the rest of the lesson, and I decided that I had to carry through with my word and write otherwise they’ll think they can get away with anything. So I wrote and he didn’t read it but went out of the classroom crying. It was the first time I’d had the courage to write in a carnet so it wasn’t nice for me…but sometimes these things are for the best!
On Sunday I went to Rochester for the day. I enjoyed myself very much there, visiting with the Frenchies (three teachers and one of their husbands). We went to the Dickensian Christmas festival, and there were many town folk and shopkeepers dressed up in Victorian-style clothes, most of them taking on the particular dress of a
Dickens character. We were supposed to cross paths with other teachers from school, but managed not to see them despite the small size of the town. We wandered round shops, ate well, saw performances and parades and went to a carol service in the Cathedral. It was so lovely and the weather held out well. I found some mince pies to bring back for my pupils to try (only the ones in my English club because you’d have to have the money and the means to bring back mince pies for an army for all the children at my two schools!!) so it will be interesting to see if they like them or not.On Monday, a very strange thing happened to me. I was coming home from work and got off the train, parted ways with my colleague/friend and then a French girl a couple of years older than me approached me and asked me (in French) if I was English. So I said 'yes' wondering what was coming next. She asked me if I was a languages assistant, so again I said yes. She added that she'd heard me speaking English on the train and that she had been a language assistant in England a few years ago! Her name is Stéphanie, and we chatted for a while and exchanged numbers…it was such a random meeting, but hopefully it becomes fruitful! Just one of those things where you wonder if God has a plan because it was so at chance!
I must pay tribute to Alene Baldock, a wonderful lady who I knew from church, who died on Monday 30th November. I didn’t imagine that I’d come away this term not to see her at Christmas time. She was such an inspiration to me and will continue to be. She has now gone to Heaven to be with her saviour Jesus, in a place of no more suffering :) but I and many many others will miss her dearly :(
Fiona x
P.S. Sorry about the dodgy alignment of the photos...they change position from draft to preview to publish!
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