Triangular
I seem to have come down with some sort of cold/sore throat/chest infection. I saw the doctor on Monday who suggested that I try Speech and Language Therapy to teach me to use my voice more effectively to prevent the sore throat I get at the start of every new school year from trying to break in the kids. It’s never been this much of a problem before but I have got a very loud class this year. I’ve got three children in particular with loud voices who never stop talking. The rest of the class then raise their voices to compete with these three. It’s a vicious circle and it ends up with me losing my voice.
So, I can’t speak and I’m not in school today because I can’t teach very easily with no voice, plus my chest and head both hurt too. I just feel generally rough. It’s Parent’s Evening tonight though so I’ve got to go back into school for the end of the day for three solid hours of parent’s meetings. At least I won’t have been teaching and shouting all day and making my voice worse.
We’re trying a new kind of Parent’s Evenings this year where the children are specifically requested to attend so that we can talk to the children and the parents about the child’s targets. It’s going to be very positive in that way in that we will have time to talk to each child about their own targets for improvement without having to deal with the rest of the class at the same time. The one thing that concerns me is that it could potentially be awkward to talk honestly about any behaviour problems whilst the child is present. We’ll just have to see how it goes.