I teach 6ème and 5ème SVT, which is only three hours a week for each class. I may add an English class or two next year because I feel like a bit of a slacker compared to the other teachers.
Also, I call them rugrats, and in terms of their schooling, they still have 5-6 years to go before they could go to University, but age-wise they're older than you might think! 5ème is 15-16ish, and 6ème is 14-15ish.
In 6ème I have 69 students, and in 5ème I have 88. That's pretty normal among volunteers, although some have classes of 100+....yikes.
Needless to say, classroom management was a daunting prospect before I started, but I think I've been managing pretty well... How, might you ask?
Okay. It's time to confess...
I may or may not have re-read Harry Potter during training when we were discussing classroom management and group work. So I figured, why not get some team spirit up in this place and have a little competition?
Each class has four teams (not houses, sorry) based on the four columns of desks in the classroom. They win points for participating in class and doing well on tests. They lose points by being disruptive, cheating on tests, or deciding that they don't want to take notes that day. At the end of the year, everyone on the winning team gets a point added to their average.
It was a little hard to explain the idea at first, but once I started dishing out points for participation, they got very competitive very quickly. ;)
When I was home for Tess' wedding, I got candy for my students, a week or so after I gave it to them, they started begging for more. The new rule was this: if EVERY team has more points than Madame by the end of the year, I'll bring candy again...BUT since I already brought 69/88 pieces of candy, I started off with 69/88 points. (I had to catch up somehow!)
Just for your enjoyment, here are the team names:
6ème: Butterflies, Cats, Lions, Rabbits
5ème: Lions, Panthers, Workers (lol), and my personal favorite... Team Solidarity (hahahahhahaah)
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the little weirdos:
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Student A: Meow...meow...
Student B: Madame, it's the cats! Minus 2!
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(Going over the test)
Me: Okay, if you only wrote this part, I gave you 1 point because I'm nice.
Student A: THANK YOU Madame!!! Plus 2, you're nice!
Student B: No, only plus 1...
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Student A: Madame, we're done, right? We're hungry...
Me: I'm hungry too! But we're not finished. We have to finish this page.
Student B: Madame!!!! That's so much!!!
Student C: Minus 2 from Madame!
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This past week they've been begging me to add points to their averages...
Me: No, ce n'est pas necessaire
Students A and B: Madame! C'est NECESSAIRE!!
<< after that same class, a couple of my favorite girls were walking in the same direction as me - NOTE they're both the type that like to pretend they're sassy, but really they're super sweet >>
Student A: Madame...I am not happy.
Student B: Yeah Madame, not nice...
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And last but certainly not least....
I took these pictures during the last tests.
The one from the back of the classroom is 5ème, and the one from the front is 6ème.
Can you spy the clown (Cedric) in 6ème who caught me taking the picture? Kid's cheesin hard. ;)
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