Mid Afternoon Update

Its Lunchtime in the TES so I decided to add a quick comment about COVER work. Today I was tasked (As expected) to cover a class, since my Grade 6´s were away for the 3 day trip. It was a Grade 9 class a group I don´t teach or see. The subject was Anthropology and as soon as the class realized I was not their regular teacher things started going wrong. It was in effect no different from UK where a cover teacher has little opportunity to develop any sort of rapport with the class, BUT then add to that that the work left is all in Spanish, with no translation of what the pupils should achieve and the fact that the class is always given in Spanish it left me with a difficult job to do - I can either allow a certain amount of Anarchy to take place or I can be heavy handed and discipline. (I´ll leave it to your understanding of me those who know me, which way I went). One pupil complained .. "Why are you like this with us sir, If we dont do the work set out for us it is not you who is affected it is us" Now I cannot fault his logic but he still did NO work during the whole period and caused disruption with others even after I moved him to the front of the class and made an example of his behaviour as being what you would expect from a Primary pupil (In truth I am doing a great diservice to Primary Pupils). Most classes certainly all of mine show some respect and I would hope if I left work out for them they would at least attempt it - This class showed a great deal of disrespect to their subject teacher and school and I took time at the end to tell them so. (It also meant they were late getting to the Dinner Queue so not only will they have had problems with my taking them they also had to queue longer to get fed.)
Some days I can be a right B#$%&rd and sad to say it felt good. More later.......