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My assistant head says this ALL the time. And most of the time she’s overreacting. I know that things have changed from the days when kids ran around and bumped their heads and got up and carried on, but the world is changing and it’s more dangerous than it used to be. I don’t see anything wrong with looking after our children; and so generally I agree with the increasingly restrictive rules they place on us each day.

Until a couple of weeks ago. I was talking to my class of 20 children, when one of the parents whose child has been unwell came to speak to me, with said sickly child in tow. I invited them into the classroom, sat the sicky child down with a book, set the rest of the class about painting, and chatted briefly with the parent. Five minutes had gone by, when the bursar came charging in to tell me that I was ‘violating’ code of practice. I was now in the sole prescence of 21 children, which went against the strict 20:1 children:teacher ratio. It didn’t matter that her mother was there, or that the child was within reaching distance of two adults. No, no. Common sense was not to prevail here. This tiny, ill child was putting us all at risk.

“What shall  I do?” I asked the bursar.

“Well, she’ll have to go in the corrdior,” she replied. So the the tiny, ill child was sent to sit on her own, in the dark corridor on her own; (apparently that’s ok, it’s only when she’s being monitored along with 20 other children that she’s in danger, she’s much safer alone with no supervision), while I finished speaking to her mother.

This time, something has definitely gone mad. It was me.

Every Child Matters is a good thing (depsite what Dan says); and I do think it makes a difference – I know some of the kids in our school have chances they might not before, and that we’ve started to notice things or be able to report things that before would have been missed. But my god it’s a lot of work. This term so far I have:

• Started a club on dealing with bullying (Stay Safe)
• Cleared, planted and maintained a veggie patch  for the canteen (Be healthy)
• Opened and run a school bank for a week (Economic Wellbeing)
• Started extra reading with the less able kids (Enjoy and Achieve)
• Gone out with the older kids in the snow to sweep the driveways of the elderly. (Make a positive contribution)

And my reward? Being made Director of ECM for the entire school. “We’ve made a good start with ECM, and I know Rosie will really be able to make it a reality,” said the head. What the hell was it before? A rehearsal?

…for the SATS boycott. I toyed with this for ages, because I’m not really keen on striking – isn’t striking something reserved for miners, and irrational Royal Mail staff?

But I think SATS are hugely damaging; they not only give an unfair few of a school, but they massively compromise the experience for my pupils, who become defined so early on, for something that seems to decide the rest of their education.

I feel like we have no other choice, which is sad, when it’s not a choice I ever wanted to make in the first place.

We have a pretty serious green agenda at school – primaries are better are this than secondaries apparently – and it struck me the other day how good it is for linking with other lessons.

Maths:  By turning off lights and technology, and keeping a chart we have saved the school £45 a week in energy bills.

Science: We started a garden and put the kids in charge of growing their own vegetables, which we now use in the school canteen; saving the school around £30 a week in food costs, and reducing our food miles and carbon footprint.

English and Art: The kids have been making posters about what we’re doing, and we’re now running an award for the best one.

Drama: We put on a play about being eco friendly, at the school fete, and raised enough money to buy a solar panel for the school. We’re going to use it to power one of our temporary classrooms.

It’s simple things, but the results have been amazing and I’ve been so inspired by the enthusiasm of the children. It’s a good sign if they are the generation of the future, as they might care more about our planet than we do.

I’m not sure what to think anymore – when pupils are supported by crazy parents, how are they ever supposed to learn?

We encouraged all our children to give something up during Lent. Either a food they liked, or television (yeah, funnily no one took up that option); computer games etc. The idea was to teach them about religous fasting, and also to get some discussions going about doing without, poverty, the concept of not having something you loved.

 Most of them went for a food. Chocolate, sweets, biscuits, meat etc. And it was going well, the children were keeping diaries about their experiences and what they missed. We had some good assemblies on fasting, and also on poverty in Africa and parts of Asia.

And then I was on lunch duty. One of the boys – we’ll call him Horrible Harry (it’s quite appropriate I assure you) – was screaming at the dinner lady. I intervened and it transpired that Harry was giving up vegetables for Lent – so couldn’t, not wouldn’t eat broccoli, spinach or carrots that day. Clever kid I thought, but called his parents anyway to explain how the ‘giving up’ scenario worked. 

“Oh we understand,” his mum assured me. “But he wanted to give up vegetables. And he doesn’t like them anyway so we thought it would be a good solution. And he wouldn’t find it too difficult.”

“Yes, but he’s supposed to give up something he likes. So he understands about not having things; it’s meant to be a learning experience for him. It’s not meant to be easy.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Well actually, he really loves vegetables. Yeah, loves ‘em. Tomatoes and carrots and all that. So, yeah. It’s hard for ‘im.” And she hung up on me.

Now I have to explain to a hundred other children who have given up things they love, why this child gets to give up something he hates. And you what they’ll say? And they’re right. It’s not fair.

We have had some sad news here. Budget cuts means we are losing two of our support staff, and it looks like it’s going to be teaching assistants. I cannot begin to fathom how they could think this was a sensible way to save money, without being seriously detrimental for the children.

So many of the pupils we have here have little in the way of support or parental involvement at home. They come to school to get the love and attention they’re missing, and our teaching assistants are a crucial part of that, sitting with them, reading with them, doing homework with them during our extended schools hours.

And not only that. They talk to them about the little things that are happening in their days, they listen to their fears and worries, to the things that make them happy, and the things that make them sad - at least five times we have discovered things through our teaching assistants that has enabled social services to get  involved and prevent a child further slipping through the net. This is exactly what Every Child Matters is all about, and teaching assistants are one fo the key reasons it is working. Taking them away will only mean less support for the children that need it most. It will be a tragic loss.

…and what a bizarre week it’s been.

On Monday I had to contend with Little Susie’s bohemian-but-not-chic parents coming in to tell me that they were taking her out of school for some quality time off. Three weeks of it. Apparently, and I quote, “The school is not meeting Susie’s needs, she needs time to decompress and be peaceful in her own company.” I fear she is being taken on some of alternative therapy retreat. She is six.

This was swiftly followed by one of those Tuesdays that just never ever ends; delights included a two hour long staff meeting on timetabling; an hour of special needs cover and the thrilling job of mopping up sick in the girls toilets. Someone had smuggled Haribo in again.

On to Wednesday, where the torrential sleet kept 400 children under the age of ten inside all day, having to read quietly. They did not read. And they did not not read quietly.

I staggered into Thursday ready to give up teaching altogether, only to be given a present from one of my pupils that showed me to flying to the Big Brother house in a Superwoman cape. With a dog. And a bucket. I told you it was a bizarre week.

A week that finally ended on Friday, where we had to sit through an assembley on internet safety. Someone had clearly not checked the work of the pupils giving the assembley, and so we had banners warning against Internet Softie and Bad Men. Still, I think the point was made.

Yesterday I was faced with classic CLSS (Clever Little Shit Syndrome). My class was working away drawing pictures of their dreams (quite illuminating really), and had been instructred to talk quietly to each other about what the dream meant. Sadly, ‘quietly’ is a word they all don’t seem to have learnt yet, so the volume got way too loud, way too fast.

Asking nicely -  not really an option (is it ever?). Bellowing at them seemed to work for about five minutes (but is also rather counter productive, yelling at someone to be quiet just doesn’t seem to hold any weight). Standing at the front of the class with my arms folded and glaring was also pointless, they just ignored me. So then I attempted to stop the lesson ask them to talk more quietly. At which point CLS Tommy muttered (loud enough for me to hear): “How are we supposed to know what’s too loud?”

 How do you respond to that? I mean honestly? There I was, floored by a seven year old, with absolutely no come back whatsoever.

I am really undecided about this.

I don’t think SATS are really benefitting my pupils anymore, and most of my colleagues are definitely only concerned about how they affect our league tables. Not our standards. All the work we do in school is to make sure the average of our SATS are good enough so we beat the rest of the schools in the area; not that each child is achieving what it should be.

To be honest, they don’t work for the schools, and I’m not sure they work for the pupils either.  But is there a better alternative?

Read this in the TES forum the other day. An article about a troubled and troublesome child – Little Tommy – who used to be a perpetual truant but is now (thanks to Ofsted targets) attending school regularly – much to the chagrin of his teachers. Basically, it’s better for everyone if difficult children truant, because they don’t then disrupt the rest of the class.

This is such a complicated and confusing argument. On the one hand there is the idea that ’inclusion’ for the most challenging minority means ‘exclusion’ for the well-behaved, less difficult kids whose education is usually sacrificed for the sake of a bit of peace and quiet. Keeping a disruptive child in check takes all of your time, and the other 19 children in your class are basically left with no teacher. It doesn’t seem ‘fair’ – but then if you bring fairness into it, you’re looking at the fact that some of these truants have such a hard home life, and deserve all our support and love.  What is fair is ensuring that their awful homelife doesn’t determine their future. But is it fair that this is at the expense of other children who don’t cause trouble?

I don’t know the exact answer; but I do know, and I don’t meant to sound overly idealistic, that opting to have children not in school because it makes our lives easier isn’t what I got into teaching for. It’s just another sticking plaster for a bigger problem.