Are you a full time cycle trainer @vanorak ? Cool job if so! I did a course at my wife's school a while ago. It was a success but did end with a fight, bogies on my car window, and a narrowly avoided incident at a macdonalds!
I am indeed....Love it... great age to teach kids (9, 10, 11), great hours, school holidays, dreadful pay....but the plus points far exceed a little financial hardship
In one ff my previous schools I worked at I used to walk children with learning difficulties to the local supermarket to buy the ingredients that was needed for cooking with them and breakfast club that was until the head asked which way do I walk the way I've always walked for the last two years along the canal so we can see the nature talk about it on route which was only about half a mile. I was told I'm not allowed to walk that way due to health and safety because of the water I had to walk on the main road which was longer and along the main duel carriageway going through the town. My answer was to the head would you rather me get wet jumping in after a child if they fell in the water or a child run into the duel carriage way and get splated by a lorry. Needless to say the head won the argument and I refused to take children shortly after I was told my contract was not being renewed with that school. I found a job in another school been there for six years and the heads are no better health and safety this get the right tick in that box, make the statistics look good. But on the plus side we did have news come through a few weeks ago that we were in the top 16 schools for reading and writing in the country.
I'm with you on that one I'm an assistant/ dogs body/ dinner lady / jack off all trades at school but I loves it. I'm mainly based with 4/5 yr olds but had the pleasure off spending some time with the yr 3/4 amazing too see how much they have come on in the last few years. And yes the pay is pants. But theres not many people who go to work and say they enjoy what they do. So at times I do feel lucky to do what I do. I've gone just a bit grayer than I was a few years ago.
I think the scope for enrichment is huge, stuff that kids really benefit from, but they can be difficult to quantify....this is the stumbling block...everything has to be quantified...aside from the safety issue, that canal walk may have been a real adventure for those kids, and a great opportunity for them to learn outside a formal setting....but if it ain't ticking boxes... Glad you found another position...one of the lads I work with is a caretaker at his local primary two days a week...he does all sorts of stuff...gardening, craft, eco club, chickens...sports....you name it.....non of it is formally recognized, but from a holistic educational point of view, it's just as important IMO.... unless we want a society of highly academic, sociopaths....
Jan and I are childminders and love it. We have a filing cabinet full of our risk assessments so OFSTED can check that we're doing paperwork properly. We get all sorts of blanket permission documents signed by the parents for things like transporting their child in a vehicle, letting their child use swings and climbing frames at the park, etc etc. Then we use our common sense and go out and play. We make dens in our local wood, we go biking in the country park, we walk the dog across muddy field, we go on Bear hunts (we're not scared) and we never leave a muddy puddle unjumped in, the kids ages range from 18 months to 6 years old. The children are regularly handed back dressed in spare clothes with the clothes they arrived in filthy dirty and soaking wet in a carrier bag for Mum to wash. I especially love it when I get the paints out and we have old rolls of wallpaper to paint on out in the garden. We do actually start out using paint brushes but the kids soon realise its much more fun painting with your hands, or feet, or their whole body. I love the job most because I spend a great deal of my working day actually laughing out loud, oh and the pay is good as well.
Whenever I go to my barber now, I always ask him for a Billy Casper......the haircut that is...he doesn't make me run around a field in massive grey shorts n no top....
All the older kids, 4, 5 & 6 have made wooden gifts for their Mums and Dads birthdays. I had one of our previous children's grandmother's telling me about something the child had made in my shed as a gift and apparently the item still had pride of place in Granny's home and this was made about 12 years before. Won't be long before I'll need a load of geese eggs for the kids to blow and decorate for Easter.
I've a great recipe for making crystal meth, using 'cracked' Playdoh and Calpol....let me know if you're interested
