Confessions of a Classroom Assistant
Last Thursday I had a day off. The reason was partly because I was travelling to a gig (Paul Weller / Wolverhampton) in the evening – but also because there was a Christmas decoration afternoon at my children’s school. Parents were invited to help supervise for the afternoon. How could I resist?
I arrived a few minutes early and caught the tail end of a description of the tasks by the teacher. There were three activities for the crafty year 3/4’ers: a potato printed card; a lolly-stick and card wand; and a stained glass type tree decoration. Throughout the instructions the rest of the parents trickled in. The chaos was about to start. Once I was running my own lolly stick wand factory I wouldn’t have time to even notice what the other parents or the teacher were doing.
The task was fairly easy. First take a lolly stick. Paint one side black. Using templates, cut out a pair of black star shapes from card and a smaller pair of star shapes from gold paper. Paint the other side of the lolly stick. Assemble the star shapes and decorate with glitter or metallic pens. Sandwich the stars around the stick and write a Christmassy wish on the stick.
I saw how much or little of the instructions the children had taken in. Some needed hardly any help. Others were unsure of the steps. But there was a bigger problem and that was rationing the scarce resources. Card and paper had to be carefully divided to avoid waste. Messy stuff like glue pots and paintbrushes had wisely been limited by the teacher. Rarest of all, the metallic pens. There were two per table, but only one had the coveted unclogged fine nib required for decoration and wish writing.
When all the wands were made, the choice of wishes was the final amusement. One girl wished for Peace. My son wished for Snow. Another lad wished for ‘A Massive Present’.
Overall, it was great fun. An insight into what it’s like in a classroom. It did make me wonder about teaching a class of up to thirty – a table of nine was a handful. It was a bit sad to be the only dad there, but gratifying to be appreciated by the kids.
That evening, the Weller gig was to be a complete change of scenery. But not changing my jeans, I went with traces of PVA and glitter… more later!