The Sixtieth Republic - One half term to go - just need to survive Sports Day and Activities Week!

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The walk sounds lovely if the kids weren't there. But trying to get them to walk 14 miles.... Why?! Ours will barely do one circuit of the track!

I remember taking a group of Y7s scrambling up Tryfan, that was an eye opener (week 2 of being an NQT ). Some had only brought their trainers, no-one had brought a water bottle etc. It was actually good fun until one jumped off a rock and twisted their ankle!

We had an annual walk when I was at school. It was about 10 miles in all, to and around a reservoir. Certain private land would be opened up to us for a safe route and it was really lovely actually though I don’t know if I appreciated that at the time.

It was something different than lessons and the chance to see teachers in different clothes and mode.

On the other hand the first school I worked at would have activities week but not allow the worst behaved kids to go. I volunteered to stay at school and it was carnage but it did have opportunities for improving relationships with some of the interesting characters. Leaving me with a load of 16 year old boys for hours as a mid 20s new teacher was pretty off though.

Ooh but also at that school in the first term we as form tutors of year 7 got to take them to an outside activity centre for a day and do high ropes and canoeing and stuff. That was ace.

It’s just dawning on me that I have zero idea what my school does for the last week.

Activities week sounds awful. Whole school walk sounds ok, as long as it’s not 14 miles.

Sports day sounds awful, but hopefully I’ll have minimal involvement.

If anyone has any ideas for a “fun” lesson I can role out in the last week of term. Please let me know, I’m crap at things like that.

There were 3 of us did geography a-level and we took ourselves to a field centre for a week - no staff there with us though there was another school there too. We did sessions with the other school all day then we could do what we wanted in the evenings whilst they all had to stay on site, we were in the pub! Can you imagine this happening today?! I’m still a bit gobsmacked it happened myself. (And I’m sure I’ve outed myself now!)

If anyone has any ideas for a “fun” lesson

Pirate Game!!

@noblegiraffe

If anyone has any ideas for a “fun” lesson

Pirate Game!!

👍. Loved by all of my classes!

@CarrieBlue

There were 3 of us did geography a-level and we took ourselves to a field centre for a week - no staff there with us though there was another school there too. We did sessions with the other school all day then we could do what we wanted in the evenings whilst they all had to stay on site, we were in the pub! Can you imagine this happening today?! I’m still a bit gobsmacked it happened myself. (And I’m sure I’ve outed myself now!)

Our geography teachers were the cool ones. The trips were legendary for their drunkeness.

@noblegiraffe

If anyone has any ideas for a “fun” lesson

Pirate Game!!

The pirate game has been banned in my school as an end of term fun activity. Because it's "not mathematical enough". So it was a special treat for me to be allowed to play it with my year 11 and 13 leavers last week.

Am I right that you're science when? Some of our science teachers make sherbet with the younger years, I saw some snow globes made in chemistry at Christmas, and they often make food over Bunsen burners (popcorn, pancakes, smores, etc)

S’mores over Bunsen burners sounds amazing.

Not allowed in the labs yet. Which is a bit of a pain.

Maths do the pirate game, so I can’t really nick that.

I could show them a Brian Cox documentary. Not sure the kids would agree it’s “fun” but I think he’s great. I’d just have to suppress the urge to shout out “I love Cox” mid lesson

I’ve done the “make your own” who wants to be a millionaire a few times and the kids (secondary) seem to have a lot of fun with it. I usually do subject specific with some general knowledge/news stuff mixed in. With bigger classes you (they!) need to work out how they can get a consensus for answering when they all disagree with each other. On the past, mine have gone for:

• majority vote based on individual votes

-splitting into small groups and deciding the majority vote based on each groups answer

• splitting into groups and each group taking turns to answer

-predicting what the group consensus would be and arguing why that was right/wrong then voting

I always restart from the beginning when they get an answer wrong which I thought they would find really boring, but they usually end up yelling the correct answer with veins popping so they can finish before my (completely arbitrary) deadline

www.superteachertools.us/millionaire/

I only know where MrsH lives. Because it's close(ish) to me. And mistress is North of the border, so she feels pretty close to me too (because I don't know how far north of the border she is). The rest of you are a blur of South.
I love this and can totally relate to the "blur of south", even though I've holidayed in various parts of England the nice bits I doubt I could label a map very well I'm in Edinburgh, so not that far perhaps MrsAD?

Maybe it is a bit of a local thing then, if honey did one here in her youth. And my DD did a shorter one at her middle school.

Hmm, I’m not sure how we get them to do 14 miles, I wonder if it’s a reflection of our middle class-ness - a fair proportion are used to doing “improving hikes” ......

The one three years ago was quite hard work as it was 28 degrees most of the day!

Thinking about it, I’m not sure we tell them it’s 14 miles - can’t remember how the sponsor form is worded now.

Possibly a bit childish for the secondary lot but I got a free set of lessons from a FB group which is a week long ‘trip to Disney’. You play a video of the theme park and then there’s a vaguely related maths/ literacy task.

I do quite a lot of walking and even so, I'm [shocked] at 14 miles! With teenagers, many of whom rarely emerge from their bedrooms to get to the fridge these days.
It must be HELL.

DSs did a school walk so maybe it is local.

The thought of shepherding them all on a walk makes me feel quite ill. Ours can barely walk from one end of the playground to the other without suddenly attracting wasps, falling over, needing the toilet, tripping someone up or falling out with someone.

There’s a marked difference between some of our children who share tales of hiking and fell walks with family (in Geography lessons and general “what we did at weekend” chat) and those who look horrified at the prospect of walking anywhere at all.

@DollyMixtureLulus

The thought of shepherding them all on a walk makes me feel quite ill. Ours can barely walk from one end of the playground to the other without suddenly attracting wasps, falling over, needing the toilet, tripping someone up or falling out with someone.

Yep, that. Sounds awful.

We're going to do a quiz and a singsong.

Quiz will be randomly drawn teams of 4 in classes. Each teacher (4 of us) does a quiz round based on learning from this year. Mostly foundation subject stuff. Do the quiz as a zoom thing across the 4 classes. Some sort of tie break thing that they do in teams before we start.

All classes learn 3 songs, then we have an end of year assembly altogether sitting in separate classes on the playground.

That's about all the effort I can muster. It's year 3 4, so not about leaving a key stage or the school.

Then we're

Most of yours aren’t up for [https://www.tentors.org.uk/challenge/about Ten Tors] then?

I am planning on doing 14 miles over the summer, but I’ve been a bit too lazy to do it so far.

www.tentors.org.uk/challenge/about

Perhaps less classily, DS was the only one in his history class who had been to Butlins.

Taking GCSE kids on fieldwork is always erm... interesting.

Used to do a 1 mile uphill to a river site in the Peaks. Its easy enough, but inevitably one or two would be too unfit and complain/huff their way up. One would hurt a leg on the section without path. Nettles.

Even had one trying ringing his mum to pick him up once (different trip). And she did. Needless to say that kid was an entitled PITA.

As for residential and geography teachers ability to drink, well that's a closely guarded secret 🤣 though I will admit i certainly used to be able to stack it away courtesy of my sporting youth and tours.