Nellie The Elephant.

When I got into school I found out that today was scheduled for a first aid training day. As I'm not a permanent member of staff it wasn't compulsory for me to do but as 2 people had to drop out for various reasons I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss. I did the long first aid course when I first started teaching but that was over 20 years ago. The course was actually called 'Emergency First-Aid in the Workplace' and covered CPR and other basics we might need if an emergency were to happen. Some of the advice has now been pared down but I was glad to find that my memory was quite good. I certainly needed hands on practice for CPR and the Heimlich manoeuvre. Singing 2 choruses of Nellie the Elephant is definitely a good way to get the number and timing right for the chest compressions though when I asked someone to go to the elephant (phone) we all collapsed laughing. There was more merriment as we practised bandaging each other up and but I decided not to embarrass anybody by taking their photos while tied up in fetching pink and blue bandages. Peter and I have been in several situations where we had to use our first aid knowledge, including CPR, and I'm so glad that I had this opportunity today. Romas came back from his weekend at York covered in bruises, good battles, and rather tired. He had to walk from the station to school and then he had to hang around until 4.30 before we went home because of the First-Aid course. Aparently there is still one more muster at Edgehill which he plans to go to from uni. We are now definitely in autumn with wet and windy weather. It feels such a change to go from 5 weeks of freedom where I could spend my days just focusing on the home, to work mode - objectives, targets, assessments and from tomorrow 31 little faces looking to me to run a happy and harmonious class. I do hope there won't be too many tears.