EDITOR: Masterminding a class is no walk in the park

As a teacher I make a good journalist.
My wife is a primary school teacher and this year she has been looking after a new-entrant class.
Her job is to take a rather large bunch of 5-year-olds completely new to school and teach them the basics of writing letters and numbers and the basics of reading and mathematics.
Simple you may think. In reality it is far from it.
Over the past couple of months my wife has been flat out at school as her classroom has grown to 21 children.
Combined with three children of her own to look after and a needy husband and you can see she has been a busy lady.
So I decided I'd take a day off work and volunteer to come into her classroom as a parent helper.
My wife tells me that parent helpers are one of the godsends of the education system. It can make such a difference to have another set of hands in the classroom listening to a child read or to help with some simple maths.
So that was my role _ the parent helper. My first problem in the classroom was trying to get down to their level.
At 1.9m I have a fair way to go down to these pint-sized people so most of my helping was done by sitting on the floor alongside them.
I asked my wife to sort out some tasks and just let me know what needed to be done.
I started out with two children learning some of their basic maths. They had counters and they had to work through sums like 2+0=2 and 2+2=4.
This wasn't necessarily easy for the children either. And being 5-year-olds they were easily distracted.
I would help a child on one side of me with a sum, then turn to find the child on the other side daydreaming or watching his classmates.
By the time I had him back on track, the other child was away with the fairies.
I found these children really responded to one-on-one attention _ an absolute luxury in a normal class.
While I helped just two kids at a time, the teacher was a constant flurry of words and movement looking after 19 children. I got tired just watching her. Throw in some children being naughty and it could easily turn to mayhem.
After the morning-tea break we turned our attention to reading.
All the children had reading books they had taken home to read to their parents the previous night.
They now had to read to me and also read a new book.
I was lucky. The kind teacher gave me her best two readers to start with and they were incredible considering their age.
They hardly missed a word and were fluent as well.
I then moved on to other children who also read well but not quite at the same level.
After the lunch bell went, one of the good little readers came up to me and asked whether I staying for the rest of the day.
When I said I was he asked if I was staying for lunch.
When I said I had to go home for a while he sighed and said: "I wanted to sit with you in the playground at lunchtime."
It seemed I had made a friend. I felt guilty leaving the school grounds.
During the afternoon the teacher decided I could be a good pair of hands to do a few necessary jobs in the classroom.
She set me up at a desk and I had to help finish making cardboard musical instruments. By the end of the day I was tired and yet I really hadn't done very much.
I first spent a day in my wife's classroom 14 years ago and my this visit reinforced to me what an important and difficult job they do for us.
I know that I couldn't be a teacher _ I wouldn't have the calm and control to keep anarchy at the door.
If you are one of the people who think teachers have a cruisy life with lots of holidays, do what I did and spend a day in the classroom. Trust me, your opinion will change.
We can be sure that if our children emerge from primary school struggling to read and write their futures aren't going to be too bright.
It is the skill and dedication of teachers that prevents that from happening.
- It is time for me to sign off for this year. I trust you have a lovely Christmas and that next year delivers on your hopes and dreams.