Clearing the Space

Approximate reading time: 4 minutes

I’ve finished my proposal!

3 days early….

I feel sooooooo proud.

It was touch and go there for a minute.

I didn’t think I was going to make it out alive.

I contemplated quitting the masters.

(Shamefully, I did)

BUT I PERSERVERED!

(‘Cause in case you forgot)

This week has been pretty amazing.

You are not going to believe this but I am actually going to write something positive about ……

(wait for it….)

A SCHOOL!!!

(It doesn’t happen often, this is true.)

I do realise that I am an Obsessive-Compulsive School-Wining Whinger!

(It’s a terrible habit I know)

You haven’t even seen half of the poems that I still have stored up about some of the schools I have been to

It’s a diabolical disgrace what’s going on out there people…

So, I choose me!

Anyway, you are in luck ’cause today you are getting a whinger-free post

(Well almost!)

So this week I was requested to work with a year five boy, Lorenzo who has autism.

All I can say is it’s been the absolute best week ever.

Lorenzo is so lovely.

The school is so lovely.

The teacher and other teaching assistant I am working with are sooooo lovely!

I have, in the entire week that I have been there, not seen a single teacher or TA shouting at a child.

(This should not be an anomaly- but sadly it is!)

The classrooms are massive.

I think originally they would have been two classrooms that have been joined up.

One-half of the class is the normal teaching side with tables and chairs and the other half has couches, beanbags and 5 laptops set up for independent group work. It is also the space for the children with special needs to work in.

(There are two children with quite severe autism in the class)

In the playground, the children line up quietly.

Not because they have had the bejeebers scared out of them

…..not because there is an angry adult ready to pounce on them as soon as they breathe

just because …um….

that’s what they do.

The headteacher and both the deputies are truly lovely.

Calm, regulated and caring….

as are most of the staff that I have already met.

The PE teacher is in the playground every lunchtime, organising various sporting activities for the kids to take turns in. When he is not there the kids happily play on the 5 four square courts that have been painted in the playground.

The teacher that I am working with is only in her first year of teaching and, honestly, she is amazing.

Being in her class is an absolute joy.

I have not once heard her even raise her voice.

She treats the children with respect and low and behold….. they treat her with respect.

She is fun, and engaging and genuinely seems to care about all her students.

This whole week I have felt so calm and regulated…..

with a renewed faith that there are schools out there that

ARE getting it right.

Ok, that’s enough cheery positivity for one day.

I am not sure if it is worth adding, but I am also currently on a youtube ban.

(Self-inflicted, of course)

Why?

What a good question!!!!

Well, its twofold really.

First of all,

I am all AI-ed out.

It feels like the last 3 months all I ever see is stuff about AI and it is

out of me!

I don’t want to live in a world that is going to be taken over by ROBOTS!

It dawned on me this week, that the reason I am seeing so much AI stuff everywhere could be because for the last 3 months I have been researching Adult Attachment which includes the Adult Attachemnt Interview aka AAI for short.

So invariably I have had lots of AI stuff come up in my research.

(Especially when I don’t type properly!)

Mmmmm so it could be that

…..or the ROBOTS are coming!!!!