Saving the best until last?...NOT.

So...the last day of my latest teaching stint was a bit fraught.The children were still bubbling over and were loud and noisy. We managed to get things finished for our display and the class teacher had planned for them to complete pages in their maths text books on Subtraction. The plan said to work for 30 minutes with Year 2 while the Year 1's worked at the back of the room with a Teacher Aide and then swap over however I discovered, moments before, that the Teacher Aide was away and had not been replaced. I went ahead and attempted to get them all working at the same time.I left the Year 2's to work independently and the more able Year 1's and took my 'Bananas' to work together at the back.There was a slow dribble of the more able Year 1's and the less able Year 2's coming up to me and whining 'I don't know what to do'. It seemed I was getting nowhere fast and if I had hair to tear out I would have. I managed to keep my cool and finished off working with the 'Bananas' and sent them off to complete something on their own and went to help the others. At this point a Year 6 boy turned up , having been sent to our class from his room for misbehaving. He had never been sent before and so couldn't help me with what the usual procedure was.He was a really lovely lad and was worried now that his parents would find out since his sister was in his class too.I did a quick 'Teacher's' talk about being sensible and doing the right thing and that he only had himself to blame. He said he had hardly done anything wrong but I told him that teachers are not perfect and sometimes they get worked up. I told him that I was feeling pretty fraught at the moment and it was very easy for teachers in that state to overreact but that was why it was really important that he always did as he was told. I told him his teacher worked hard and he needed to appreciate that by being good."So...do you think you could help some of these Year 1's with their maths work?"It was hardly a punishment but it was a big help to me. I even gave him a pen and got him marking their work too.I had another lunch time duty...30 minutes of wandering about in a fluorescent jacket policing goblins. I hate it. Toerag's name kept cropping up with different children so I collared him and chatted to him about his weekend plans to keep him from mischief.It felt like the longest day but at last 3.00 pm came and I sent them all off getting a 'goodbye' hug from the 'Squirrel Killer. I pretty much dashed off after school as we were heading to Brisbane for the weekend but I got the display up.('Peeking Ducks'- hand printed ducks with white feathers from Isis, Odin and Quilla, and red banners with the children's names in 'faux' Chinese writing.)