My first week as a supply teacher was quite a lot of work... after a day of recovery on Wednesday after my big day in Reception, I was called in the evening asking me for the following days, in Nursery. After discussing with the Deputy Headteacher that I'm technically not trained in Early Years, agreed that I was prepared to give it a go... and because of some long standing plans went out for dinner, coincidentally with some teachers from the school.
The Librarian who had invited me to go along said to the other teachers, that she'd invited me along because she knew that over time I'd be part of staff anyway... but funny enough, and quite reassuringly actually, two of the four Nursery teachers were there, and when I said that I was going to be at school again tomorrow in Nursery it prompted a lot of speculation about which teacher was missing (which I didn't know).
Arriving at school on Thursday morning, found out which class I had, and also was lucky enough to have support from a Mandarin co-teacher that I knew, as she had been my daughter's Mandarin teacher two years earlier. She was so capable with the routines, and because of the young age of the children helped so much with reassuring them that everything was fine, even with this strange new teacher - me.
The absent teacher had left a nice activity for the children to do, and it is quite well managed as the children have the flexibility to choose when they do it, and then can do other activities around the classroom. There are trainsets and dollhouses, a home corner, blocks, a book nook and puzzles to choose from. The children can just help themselves to find whichever toy they would like to use, and the children see what other children are playing with and then float between the different activities.
The activity we did on Thursday was gluing the penguin (we were the Penguin class) lifecycle on a piece of card. The children had to take an egg, a chick and an adult and put them in order. But they could almost go anywhere, and you could work the order out!
Moving the children around the school was tricky, keeping them walking together, and in the same direction, and quiet. Over the two days they had choir and library, both of them are upstairs, and that was a challenge. Library was tricky too because they have to take their shoes off... But lots of time is spent shepherding them around, in and out of the playground, in and out of the lunch hall, don't forget your hat...
On Friday, the teacher had left no planning, so I did a collage activity to make a flower, and then had them draw a flower on a similar size page, then stuck them side by side on a piece of card. The end result was lovely, ability levels varied significantly, but they did look really good!!
After lunch each day, the Nursery children have an hour of scheduled quiet time. While the children are in the playground, the class ayi lies out mats, each with a pillow and a blanket, closes the curtains and turns off the main lights. The children come in from the playground, wash their hands, take off their shoes, have a drink of water and then lie down on the mats, and listen to some soothing music. Some children fall asleep straight away, and others take a bit of persuasion, but on the two days, 14 out of 15 children slept soundly for at least 30 mins. Once asleep they looked just beautiful, with such an innocence, losing all self consciousness, they slept so contentedly. As each one finally dropped off, we tucked their blankets around them and let them rest.
Waking up was gentle too, opening the curtains and letting just the sunlight slowly filter in. They then played or had a snack and then it was time for the last clean up of the day and a story before they were picked up.
I was initially terrified of the thought of teaching Nursery, but they were sweet kids, I'd do it again!
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