I have made it through to the end of term

I had an aberrant moment when I slumped home today, I went onto U tube and tried to watch a UK film or something from Strictly, but I did not recognise any of the "celebrities" featured.

However, I think I needed just to slump after our rather crazy last day of term which was a celebration of Autumn.

We were due to start at 10 but it took a while longer, there was a great buzz in the school as last minute decorations were done. I actually got time to talk with the Head and she came and checked what the year two students were going to do and luckily and amazingly one group presented fairly well even the two who had been chatting so much that I told them to stand down who today were word perfect.  The second group were appalling but with her help we cobbled something together on the basis that now they understood what I was trying to get them to do all this time.  However, for me they were doing a tiny little bit, in Russian,which is their second language they did absolutely tons.  Each class took at least half an hour including the little ones, their performance started with a little song in English which they delivered beautifully. Then before year one could start their performance we had a power cut.  So everyone had to wait around for an hour because it featured music on the computer.  For a while I just thought can't we just get on with it, but when I saw the results they were beautiful so worth waiting for.  I felt so emotional today and a lot of the kids who have annoyed me this last week really impressed me with their ability to memorise words and performances.   Year one who had just a little poem to do managed the first two lines pretty well, but the last line got a bit lost, but again considering I have had a few minutes here and there trying to control 20 kids who have not got a clue half the time what I am saying to them I am just relieved that they managed that. In the hour we waited I got to talk with a couple of parents which was useful so they took away work for their children to do over the holiday. One of the parents, her real second language is German, but she teaches English it was funny to share the fact that we both teach Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. How English teachers across the globe love that song.

The video I am attaching is the dance from year one as it was my favourite bit. The style of delivery for presentations is not like in English schools as to me it sounds rather shouty, I will try an attach a short example another time, but of course there is no video of year 2A's memorable performance of The Hungry Caterpillar as I was making sure that they delivered their lines which they did very well. I have masses of material on video though that I have to sort out to give to the school though most of it is not really usable (I must try and capture longer clips) , but at least this example gives a flavour of how the last day of term went - a day which compensated for all the stress thus far.