One thing I'm finding difficult is twice a day rushing across school from my tutor group to whatever classroom I'm going to teach in and having to immediately get a corridor full of noisy kids quietened down and into the room before I have time to get my head together and remember what the lesson is supposed to be. This is where I need a few more decent starter activities to give me a chance to get my breath back and get the objectives displayed.

This was a very tiring week. I look about 30 years older than I did last week.

As expected the year 10 and year 9 classes were trying to find my boundries so I had to be very tough on them. I had both classes standing up 3 times (they hate that) and I had to send 2 lads out of the room in the year 9 class. The headmaster chose to walk in when there was one outside and the whole class were standing in silence. I just said to the class "Okay I think we're ready to continue, sit down" and the he just turned round and walked out.

When I made them stand up, I made them take one step backwards so they can't lean on the desks. It goes against my nature to do this sort of thing but I keep telling myself that unless I sort the behaviour out early they aren't going to learn effectively.