I slept heavily the night before my first day, waking up with a start at 6am when my alarm went off. It took me a full few minutes to remember why I had set an alarm and what I was meant to be doing that day. Within three hours I was striding up and down in front of my class doing my best impression of a teacher: shock to the system doesn’t cover it.

“Miss, are you new?”

“Miss, how old are you?”

“Miss, are you Miss Barnes’* sister?”

“Miss, are you going out with Sir?”

“Miss can I use a pencil?”

“Miss is it ok if I fold my sheet in half before I glue it in my book?”

“Miss where did you get your pen?”

“Miss?”

“Miiiisss?”

“MISS?”

Children, it turns out, are very inquisitive. I like to see it as a natural curiosity; others describe it as an incredible talent for wasting time in lessons. Either way, in my first lesson, when the hands kept shooting up and the (totally irrelevant) questions kept popping I was forced to stop my immaculate Power Point presentation on rules and consequences.

“Fine, since you’re all so curious you may have three minutes to ask all the questions you want: questions about the year ahead and questions about me. I will only, however, answer questions so polite that you would ask someone’s mum.”

“Are you a MUM miss?”

“Um no, I’m not,” first failure at not giving away personal information.

“Are you like twenty miss?”

“I am not answering that,” nice recovery.

With the timer going I did tell them my favourite book, my favourite colour, that we would be doing Shakespeare and that they couldn’t eat food in class. It just about seemed to satisfy them. After question time I attempted to lay down the law. If you forget your exercise book, forget your homework and forget the rules expect to: see me after class, get a letter sent home, get a detention. If you work well, try hard and behave expect to: be rewarded with merits, praise and phone calls home. Most of them know this already, but it’s important that they know that I know it.

It’s the end of the first week and I couldn’t say that I feel like I’ve gotten my teeth into the topics properly. Beginning of year admin activities keep forestalling actual work. But I am pleased to say that every pupil could tell you that Miss Eastwood made them write a lot of rules. I feel like I’m facing every day as it comes and am looking forward to getting some long-term goals into my head and writing some marks and comments into my as yet empty planner.

*names changed

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