In honour of them...
Ten Memorable Memories of My Tutor Group
1. On induction day, when they were still officially in year 6, C had a massive strop because B had spent the whole day hanging around K and C was jealous. C drew a disturbing picture on his whiteboard of K being shot in the head while he pointed and laughed.
2. C ate a lot of sweets in registration. One morning I confiscated them and replaced them in the bag with satsuma segments, and then hid in the cupboard until he came back. His reaction? "Apple would have been OK but she knows I don't like orange."
3. K sprayed aerosol over the bottom of a desk in textiles - LOTS of aerosol, ie so much it was dripping off - and then flicked a match at it and set fire to his own bag and singed his eyebrows. The class had to evacuate while Miss Hawker put it out with a fire extinguisher.
4. The boys came to afternoon registration every day for a week or so with a new toy and told me they were being sold in the canteen. I naively believed this until I was alerted to the fact that they'd been leaving school at lunchtime and buying these toys at the local pound shop.
5. Hat day, Christmas of year 11. When the girls suggested, as I sat knitting in my deckchair on sports day 6 months earlier, that I knit them all hats for Christmas, it seemed like a good idea. Then I actually had to knit them. But it was all worth it, they were so pleased with them.
6. When we changed classrooms at the end of their year 9, we all crawled into the bottom of the book cupboard (one at a time) and signed our names on the wall of the old room. They're still there.
7. In year 9, we did a tutor group assembly about the litter problem in school. Half the class dressed as rats while the other half went up on the gantry in the studio and threw scrap paper into the crowd. Then the "rats" ran around to the Benny Hill theme picking up the paper. The HoY's face was an absolute picture.
8. Tutor trips. I maintain we had more than any other tutor and they were all amazing, even the one where L had been ill all day but still really wanted to come and then vommed on the floor of the ice rink boot room.
9. The year I got married, Rihanna release Mr DJ and whenevr it was on the radio in the morning the boys would turn it up. M told me it was the official tutor group song. It still makes me think of them (and driving around running wedding errands).
10. The ball - has to be. They all looked so grown up and I realised how proud of them I was, even though this is a little weird because they're not my actual children. But it was amazing. S even managed to create drama one last time....she has been creating it for several years and was banned from the ball, but turned up fully dressed in her finery anyway and her parents had to be called to fetch her home. They were not happy. But, well...send your child to school on time, in correct uniform, and teach her not to scream obscenities at staff members and it all might have been avoided.
(Same mum bought her 13 year old booze to drink at a morning school event earlier in the year - that made national news).
Anyway. In a strange way I am impressed that S stayed true to form right to the end - she may have been vile to me but she has a lot of spirit and one day it might be useful. They're all good kids, really. Here they are - induction day, 2004, and last day, 2009.
Next year, I'm taking on a tutor group going into year 11 who are losing their main tutor - which is just as well: I don't think I could cope with the emotional rollercoaster so quickly again!
1 comment:
My goodness, the difference between those two pictures! There's a lot of development in those few years.
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