Monday 6th September 2004 - Day1 I start out with all good intentions of arriving at school by 8.15 this morning�?get there at 8.25 so not too bad! Fiddle around getting some things out ready for the onslaught �?playdough, colouring, mobilo, lotto, puzzles etc Pop upstairs to the staff room for my early morning coffee and inform the Year 1 teacher  that her new boy is downstairs waiting for her, sobbing for England!  The Year 2 teacher pipes up with �?“no you’re alright, the boss has got him�?  To which about 3 of us reply “no wonder he’s crying!�?So the Y1 teacher takes her tea and descends to her fate!   8.45 I go back downstairs and pull out the coat trolley, check that I have my roll of sticky labels, already prepared with the children’s names, in case I forget who's who. 8.50 the bell goes, I fix an inane grin on my face and throw open my classroom door.  “Hello do you all want to come in?�?Two of the little girls who couldn’t wait to start school rush in leaving mummies, bags and coats behind in the playground.  A couple are carried in clinging to their mothers for dear life!  Looking as if to say ‘don’t leave me here with that dreadful woman!�?/FONT> Coats and bags are put in the appropriate places and we go through to the classroom �?a room of parents and children standing around waiting to see what will happen next �?I think they are expecting me to ‘perform�?�?that wasn’t in the plan!  Eventually they are persuaded to have a go at some activity or other and the parents all leave �?some with looks of glee, others in tears! We leave the children to play for a bit �?all seem happy �?the only sound of crying is from the new little boy in Year 1! I call all the children to the carpet and we run through the routine of the register and putting names on the wall to show which snack they want today.  Count up numbers for each snack. ( that’s todays maths out of the way!)  Read a big book( literacy)  and suggest that it’s a good idea to put your hand up and not call out when you have something to say  - it makes NO difference at all to a couple of the children, who just put up their hands but carry on talking! I think things are going quite well and glance round at the clock�?it’s still only 9.25!  Send the children off to explore some more and get a few more things out, and switch the computers on by popular demand.  10.00 We tidy up and I explain about playtime and the bell ringing at the end of play. 10.15  We venture out onto the big playground, where the Year 1 children are already happily playing and we are soon joined by Year 2.  One little girl stays clinging to my hand for the whole of playtime, but the others go off and just keep coming back to make sure I am still there.  10.30 The bell is rung and the children are shepherded into the line.  I do a head count�?all 16 are there!  We watch the other children go in and then it’s our turn �?usually this is where it all goes wrong and I end up with children running  5 different ways back to class�?but this year, they all file in PERFECTLY! (at this point I’m beginning to wonder when they will start showing their true colours!)  The children are all sent to go to the toilet and wash their hands, I even remember the special soap for one little girl who has eczema.  Sitting down in a circle proves a little tricky, but we get there in the end, and the fruit and drinks are handed round�? And then there is�?. silence! All that can be heard is the sound of munching and crunching.  The Year 1 TA pops through and asks what I have done to them all, because they are so quiet!  Following fruit we do a few songs and rhymes �?some old some new.  I try them on ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes�?and am suddenly aware that half the children are just staring at me, dumbfounded by what they see!  I give up the singing as a bad job and we go outside into the garden.  We have a large wooden pirate boat in our garden, and some of us go on a ‘trip�?in it.  I start warning the children to be careful of the ‘sharks�? and one of the boys comes up with the idea of filling the ship with the old tyres we have in the garden, so that we can roll them at the sharks if they come too close.  Another girl decides the sharks can’t catch her because she’s Peter Pan and can fly away, then Tinkerbell and Wendy arrive to join in her game.  One little girl decides she’s tired and wants her mummy.  It’s about 11.30 so we go in and have a story , sort out all the lovely works of art that have been produced and match jumpers, bags and coats to children and sit them at the tables.  I choose a little girl to go with me to find the mummies, and we go to invite them in.  I chose the wrong child �?her mummy isn’t one of the ones that are there!  As we walk back into class, the child that was saying she was tired earlier bursts into tears at the sight of her mum �?how to give a good impression! (I know her mum quite well and she calls me a wicked old witch for upsetting the child!) All the children go home and I collapse, worn out with the effort of being NICE all morning �?it can’t last!