The end of half-term

Well, half-term is nearly over and I'm trying to steel myself for the craziness I'm sure will start tomorrow when I go back to work! :)

I've had a really fantastic half-term though. The first week, I took some time to sleep and relax (and do some marking), before spending the latter part of the week meeting friends, shopping, and basically wandering around. I went in to Cleves on Thursday, which was a bit of a startling experience! My friend had told the staff I was coming (I had to get permission, after all), and somehow the news had trickled down to the children. When I arrived, therefore, the first thing I was greeted with from my friend was, "_____ wants me to tell you that he's waiting by the benches outside, and _____ is in the football area". lol. I raised my eyebrows at her but, not having eaten lunch yet, decided to do that first before going to see the children. Had a short chat with some of the staff in the staffroom as we ate, then said goodbye to my friend and wandered up the hallway towards my old wing and classroom.

I made it to just in front of the dining room before a child IN the dining room spotted me and shouted, "Linda's here!" Immediately I was surrounded by children, all hugging me at once, and wanting to know how I was doing and that they'd missed me and telling me little tidbits about their lives. Meanwhile, a girl sprinted a few metres up the hallway and shouted, "Linda's here!!!" in the general direction of the Year 5/6 wing. There was a thunder of running footsteps and another group of 6-7 children from my class last year came running down the hallway and flung their arms around me. I was totally taken aback - there were so many children hugging me that I was actually pushed back against the window, and the ones who couldn't get close enough to hug me seemed determined to hang onto any part of my arms or hands they could reach. As I said hello and tried to disentangle myself, more children from my class last year came inside from where they were on break to do the same.

It was really sweet that they were so pleased to see me, but I was also sooo surprised that they were so affectionate. The girls were prone to hugging me last year, but the boys were generally too cool and, whilst they would come and joke and talk, they were never very touchy-feely. This visit, though, they were all for hugs! I finally managed to convince the children to go back outside for the rest of their break and went down the hall towards the classrooms, about 10 children still in tow.

The teachers who were enjoying the rest of their lunch in the classroom laughed when they saw me come in with the children and managed to pry them off and send them outside. When lessons started for the rest of the afternoon, however, it was much of the same - children holding onto my hand, asking me to come sit with them, taking any opportunity to tell me about what had happened to them since the last time I saw them.

In any case, it was a lovely visit and I was really happy to see the children again :). I sometimes do miss Cleves and I loved my class - it was so strange to be back there! I've promised to try to visit again before the end of the year, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to. I basically need to be on holiday whilst Cleves is still going, so there aren't very many opportunities. We'll see though!

Apart from visiting Cleves and hanging with friends, I went to Vienna as I mentioned before. I won't go into every detail, but it's such a beautiful city! We did a lot of things but only just managed to scratch the surface of the city - I'll definitely have to go back to get to the things I missed! Some of the 300 pix I took are on my facebook, so check that out if you're interested.

This week should be a bit insane - I've nearly forgotten what I was doing before half-term, so I've been trying to spend today lesson planning. I should really do a week at a time, but I'm finding it difficult to do more than day-to-day planning. Have lots to do in general though and lots of exam prep and revision to get going. As it is, I'm a bit worried about how my 8s and 7s will do, and there are some more bits and pieces I need to teach my 6s, 5s, and 4s before they'll be ready. This Saturday is Parents' Day too, so will have that to look forward to O_O.

Hopefully I'll blog again before Christmas! :)