Owls and EYFS

Today has been a very quirky sort of day. On the work front, I managed to come up with my objectives for every literacy and numeracy lesson between now and June [8 weeks of lessons] and I finally settled on my class novel. We are doing The Twits. :D

On a slightly less happy, but rather unusual note, our routines were altered quite dramatically after one of the teachers found an injured owl on his journey into school. The owl was kept in a box and a few of the teachers kept checking on it. It was a really beautiful bird, with bright orange eyes. At lunch time, two of the teachers headed back to where it had been found to try and set it free [as it seemed to perk up]. However, they realised that it had a broken wing. Over lunch, a debate ensued - the local vets said they would put it down if we brought it in. The guy who had found it said he thought that was best, because he doesn't like the idea of a wild animal suffering or living a sheltered life. When the headteacher arrived, he - surprisingly - sided with some of the female teachers and agreed to drive up [a 50 minute journey, each way] to a sanctuary the school has links with. They care for injured animals, as well as having free range hens etc [that is where the school sourced the hens they have]. He didn't know the way, so the EYFS teacher went with him. As I had PPA [as did my class teacher], we ended up covering the EYFS class. It was such a good afternoon! The kids are so cute, so random and are real characters at that age. It was a little awkward as neither of us knew the children's names, but we had grasped quite a few by the end of the afternoon. I really enjoyed it. Hopefully, my STCC will let me spend my 'enhancement' weeks in there - or at least some of them. :)


Update 22.03.2012:
Sadly, the owl hasn't made it. The sanctuary said that the wing was broken right up to the neck, which meant they couldn't easily amputate it [as they'd hoped] and she had a broken rib, sticking out through her back. It definitely put a low on the day, although the people at the sanctuary said we had done the right thing. They said the owl must have been in a lot of pain but at the roadside, it would have taken up to a week to die 'naturally'. And, as my STCC said, they had to give it a chance - rather than just having it put down straight away - and they did that.
Poor owl... :(