The Day Arrives

Monday morning found me in the kitchen baking a selection of wheat free flans and cakes. Having been vegetarian for over 22 years, I realised a couple of years ago that I was becoming 'rather lazy in terms of food choice' and so I had to do a complete turn around and detox. I am now determined then, that even though I am increasing my hours at school & could even be home late every night, that I am not going to revert to convenience food. Hence the baking session.

I went into school just before dinnertime and did some preparation for the new group again, before doing a final dress rehearsal of some of the GCSE Drama group. I also made a point of seeing the appropriate member of senior management to insist that the 'girl of the abusive outburst' - see last Thursday's blog' be removed from the Drama course and consequently the exam too. At the end of the rehearsal, I had to stay on at school for what has been called a disaggregated session, which basically means we are given the latest policy or initiative to work on for one and a half hours. This session required us to link our IIP to our DIP and the CIP whilst cross-referencing it with our Departmental SEF!! Although I was keen to sit down & do such an exciting task, I am learning to prioritise so many of my jobs at the moment & I have to say I decided to put this particular job rather low down on the list. Instead, I used my time to do even more preparation for Friday and to search out 'Mr X' to give him Suzi's article on working with autistic children.

Another early start on Tuesday, as I had lots to do before the two examiners arrived for the start of the GCSE exam. I do not know what it is about the kids at the school where I teach, but it is like they always press the 'self-destruct' button on the day of the exam, as they tend to do things they have never done before and this can present a bit of a 'wobble' for the rest of the group. Today was no exception to this rule and a couple of the pupils did not perform as well as expected. Luckily though the examiners agreed with my marks, which means that marks for earlier performances are now valid.

On Wednesday I had to change 'hats' and become an examiner for a school 60 miles away in mid Cornwall, doing the same job that my examiners had done the day before. The journey to the school required me to travel through some beautiful countryside and it was lovely to see that wild daffodils, crocus and snowdrops were already in full bloom. But the most amazing sight on the journey was when I spotted 2 young deer in a field at the side of the road & the traffic had to slow down as a third deer ran across the road to join them. Although I have seen deer before, I have never been fortunate enough to see 3 at one time. I took this to be 'a sign from the universe' & this was confirmed when I looked up the meaning of deer in Animal Speak which is written by Ted Andrews. It is always interesting to go into another school and to see the pupils at work. As far as today's school was concerned it was a little like, how the other half lives for the pupils there, were very different to the ones I teach. When I told the teacher about 'last Thursday's incident at my school' she was horrified as there has never been a case of having to suspend anyone for use of the 'f' word in her school. I have to say it is a weekly occurrence where I teach.

Thursday can only be described as a 'test from the Universe'. I was owed a day by my job-share colleague as I had taught one of her days at the start of term as she wanted a longer Christmas holiday. Instead of staying at home though, I had decided to use at least half of the day doing the final organisation of the room for the new group. Not sure if I have previously said, but I have called this group the Rainbow Warriors. So, yet again I found myself in school armed with a long list of 'jobs to do'. Things were going slower than expected, but then they ground to a halt when to my horror I discovered that several things were missing from the room.

These were my own personal things that I had taken in to use with the group, the most important being an amethyst crystal and some essential oil. Knowing where I had left the things, I realised that whoever had taken them had obviously been in the room for quite a while as some of them were not on view but stored in containers in cupboards. I have to say that I felt very uneasy when I discovered all this & I found it hard to 'remain centred'. It was not so much the value of the things but more the principle and I began to identify with the many people I hard heard talk after a robbery when they say it is the thought of the thief rummaging through your personal things which is the most upsetting. This is how I felt at this point. Obviously this 'event' had all occurred the day before when I was out of school for the day.

So I had to stop everything and go through the whole process of reporting the incident to the hierarchy, finding out when the room was unlocked, who the supply teacher was, talking to reliable pupils who may have seen something, making a list of what was missing etc. At the end of all this I then took a little time to centre myself, let go & re-focus on the most important job of the day which was to finish my organisation of the room. At the time of writing this, I do not know what the conclusion to it all is on a physical level as the Head was 'interviewing' all the pupils involved.

By the time the bell went at the end of the day everything was ready. I took a moment to look at it all & I was pleased with the end result, especially the potted primrose plant I had added to each set of tables. I collected the Head from his office and brought him along to look at the room. Whilst he was talking & looking around the room, I became aware of a mass of 'golden energy' in the corner. There was a real feeling of unconditional love from it, so I took it to be an Angelic energy. This was certainly another test of 'remaining centred' for although the Head has been brilliant with this project & opened up to change, I am not sure that he is quite ready yet to be told that there is an Angel standing behind him. However, my next visitor was the man who had made this whole project possible i.e. The teacher who used to work at the school where they originally set up such a group so when he paid me a visit and the same golden energy appeared and this time it was joined by an emerald green energy, my mouth was opened & I just had to tell him. It was quite amazing to see the expression on his face as I said this & considering he is a very grounded person i.e. Head of Boys PE, he took it very well. I have always known him to be very balanced and he was keen to know all about 'seeing energy'. He said that he had no idea I was able to do such things, which I think just sums up most of the people at school as they really do not 'know me' that is up until now!!!

I arrived home to find there had been a delivery of beautiful spring daffodils from the Isles of Scilly - a present from my wonderful friend Hazell in Essex. She has been such an inspiration in my life and as I would have expected from such a wise lady, the symbol of 'new beginnings' was so appropriate. Those have now been added to the energy of the room at school & fit perfectly.

There was also a lovely Rainbow Good Luck card from another dear friend whom despite having a lot of things to deal with in her own life at the moment, she had still found time to think of me. This is most definitely time to step back and give thanks.
As I pulled back to the curtains on Friday morning I was very relieved to see that there was no snow. Many parts of the country had had significant falls of snow and knowing how quickly our rural roads can become blocked; I did not want the new group to be prevented from arriving at school. All was well though and off I went, keen & ready for the new venture. Have to say it is a long time since I have felt excited about going to school. There was a little 'blip' at the staff briefing when one member of staff had a 'go at me' but I recognised that this was someone who was really wanting to resist change. She would not even give me time to answer her question but just went off in a huff.

The first possible 'hurdle' of the day ran smoothly as all of the pupils arrived at the room and at the right time. There had been a lot of concern about this as we had basically rewritten the whole of the year 7 timetable. I got the pupils organised in the room and then launched the whole project by playing 'Brand New Start' by Paul Weller. In case you did not know, I am a real 'fan' of Paul Weller plus the words were very appropriate. My first question to the group was then could anybody guess why I had chosen that particular track, the hands went up & we were away. Their responses were quite philosophical, containing phrases like 'forgetting the past'. One of the boys even likened the group to being like a form of reincarnation. Oh yes, the plan had definitely come together.

I had structured the 'timetable' to include lots of group bonding / team building exercises whilst still allowing time to get round them all to 'chat on their level'. I have to say the time just whizzed by, with every activity taking longer than I had anticipated. The whole emphasis is on a positive reinforcement & I lost track of how many times I used the words 'excellent, wonderful, brilliant etc'. When the bell went at the end of the day I was tired but pleased. How do you judge a day like this, well apart from one boy in the group there had been lots of smiling & laughter from the others. Also there had been no fights or arguments & considering a lot of the pupils have real anger management issues, I took this to be an achievement. It would be interesting to hear how they relate the day to their parents, as some of them have been rather reluctant to change the system even though it was obviously not working for their children.

Again I was visited by numerous members of staff, keen to know how the day had gone as they had heard that there was a really lovely 'feel' to the room.

It was another late night and I arrived home at 6pm to be greeted by news that my husband had had a 'coming together' with a tractor and that as a result the car would probably be written off! Luckily he was not hurt & I guess the universe felt I maybe needed a little 'grounding' after a day like today!

Friday evening was spent talking to friends either verbally or through email and so here I am at another weekend. My head is full of thoughts & ideas and I know I have to re-structure my time as I adjust to my 'new life'.

Have just received a text message from another colleague saying that he had come across one of the boys in the corridor and he was happily telling everyone that he was a Rainbow Warrior and that it was good!! Things are definitely looking up.