Flashback Friday: The Enormous Bramble

The past two days have seen me revisiting my old haunts in Reading, our home between 2001 and 2004. This was the place that hubby and I set up our first marital abode and I embarked into the world of teaching for the first time. My final year in my first school was a difficult one; the class had many social and emotional problems and were a real challenge, but I adored them!

We had a difficult first term which often saw me coming home and sobbing on hubby that I wasn't strong enough to win them over or 'break' their toughened exteriors, and my health did suffer with the amount of stress that I suffered in that year, but by the Summer term I had won them over. To quote one little angel (she really was!) who knocked on the staffroom door one lunchtime "I know we should have spoken to the dinner ladies, but they just shout at us. At least you listen first!"

That term to ease the flash-points I set up a gardening club to tackle the conservation area and reduce the incidents with the other children. We met once or twice a week and they adored getting to grips with the overgrown mess. It was a little metaphorical, but by the end of the year I had tamed them in the same way they had tamed the brambles.

So here they are working together as a team, and having a damn good laugh at the same time.

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Now pop over and check out the other Flashback Friday entries on Cafebebe's linky