440. Monday morning.

 Today was a rather good day in my work world. I got to the classroom to find the door locked! In three years this door has never been locked and the lock never fixed inspire of several mails etc sent. You get used to everything and I got used to an open door. This morning I was therefore a little surprised . Did this have anything to do with the fact that the wheelbarrow was gone from the staffroom? Did the works took pity on us and fix a few things here and there before leaving the building site? Nice of them.

Except I cannot open the door. I do not have a key for this lock. So I have to run across the yard - under heavy rain - and find someone to open the door for me.

First lesson is with the same bunch of kids I saw Friday last two periods - and yes the teenager with the fringe is here but her fringe is brushed back. I can see her face and her eyes. WOW.

I give them guided tasks with very little room for independent work. They read, they write, they listen and they think (hopefully) and then they note, correct and add from what I write on the board. Very old-school, very old-fashioned, very traditional.

I do not have the heart to go on about asyndeton and polysyndeton. I mean it is Monday morning after all. And the girl with the fringe might not like it. (Blogger does not know polysyndeton either apparently ... there is hope for Girl-with-the-Fringe).

So off they go into the rain with some very old-fashioned homework set for the next lesson.

I adopt the same old-fashioned attitude with the 5th year. Shouting at them to line up in twos along the wall and be quiet (in our school they stand like a flock of sheep, I had to get used to it, I hope you feel for me).

'And we do not eat in the corridors!'

I can hear two or three comments but as I raise my head and give them the look what my kids know so well everyone gets quiet. Once in the class I move two or three kids to strategic places in the four corners of the room. One next to a girl who does not look happy and instantly moves her desk so there is a huge gap between the two.

Then I take a board marker and draw a vertical line.

'We're going to play good guys-bad guys today. Your name gets into the left-hand column, you're a bad guy and you lose a point (on the 20 given to all on the first day of term) and if you're name gets on the right-hand column, you're a goodie-goodie and you gain a point. We are in Hogwarts and I am Professor McGonagall.

Except I do not have magic to work the hourglasses and I am thinking keeping track might prove a head-ache. Who cares, I'll blame any mishap on the Slytherins.

As it happens when I open my mailbox, I realise the Slytherins do exist! And they want to start a cork board war.