His emerald green eyes bore heavily into mine, and I found myself smiling ever so slightly. I remember the day very clearly, and hold the memory dear to me – just like I held every other day there with the same regard. I had just walked him in from the playground and was stood with him outside our classroom where empty pegs stuck out from the walls. Each had a child’s name written clearly under it in large handwritten letters. I was helping him out of his coat in silence, and slowly reached over to hook the hood onto the red peg that was his.

The word ‘Jack’ was concealed suddenly, and I turned to the owner of the peg, and held my hands out with my palms facing up, before nodding towards his own hands. It was so cold outside, and for a moment I wondered why the headmaster had let them out at all. A quick flashback entered my mind and I saw one of the teachers of a senior class say. ‘They need to burn off that excess energy somehow’. I hated how they always seemed to be right about these things.

Jack’s gloves were wet in mine, and making an over-effort to avoid them I received giggling in return for whipping his gloves off in one pull. It had been the same routine for the past month now, ever since it had turned cold. Jack stood by me as I slid each glove into the coat pocket that corresponded with the hand it belonged on, before I stood up straight and nodded to Jack, then the classroom door. He ran in, and I walked after him, immediately walking to the teacher’s cupboard.

After lunch it was routine for him to get himself a drink whilst I found him a ‘snack’. I pulled a large Cadbury’s Roses tin from the cupboard and set it down on the small old desk that faced the rest of the classroom. The classroom itself was very colourful. ‘Jolly Phonics’ ‘sounds’ littered one wall, another depicted a Celt village. ‘Round Houses’ which had been made from straw and material were glued to the far wall. Another wall had chalked ‘planets’ on it, from which dangled ‘aliens’. It was all old to us now, and I knew that sometime soon we would probably have to take the display down to make way for a new project. After Christmas of course. There was so much going on at the moment, Christmas Concerts, Christmas Dinners, Christmas Outings, Christmas Fairs, Christmas Displays, Christmas Songs, Christmas Plays, and Christmas Countdowns.

I shook Christmas from my head and found Jack staring longingly into the tin I had opened earlier. I let a laugh escape me, and he looked up to stare me in the eyes. I had the usual look in my eyes, and knew he could see that, for the minute her focussed on me, he burst into laughter, turning and clutching his stomach before ‘falling’ over onto the floor.

I removed one of his presumed favourites from the tin and closed it up again before proceeding to the ‘laughing boy’. Kneeling down to his level, I held out my free hand and shook my head slowly.

‘Jaaack. Sit up.’ I told, with a slightly annoyed tone. I wasn’t annoyed at all, but I had to use different tones so he would understand. He leant up immediately, taking my hand for ‘support’. I offered him the biscuit, and he stared at it for a while before I re-offered it to him a small motion. He looked up at me, and saw my smile before taking it from me, and patting his tummy.

I raised an eyebrow at him; thankfully I still had his concentration. He knew what the raised eyebrow stood for, and somehow managed to take a bite of the biscuit at the same time as saying ‘Thank you, Miss Applewhite.’ I just nodded and pressed my hand against my knee to stand up. Jack was busy eating his snack now, and I set up the white board for drawing on whilst he finished. A quick check of the clock told me we had five minutes, and I scolded myself for bringing Jack in so early.

After watching Jack draw snowmen for the 34th time running, the bell sounded. It was a sharp-short blast, but sometimes it was just too much for the children. I rolled my eyes and walked over to Jack, leaning down to press a button on the bottom of the screen that would re-play everything he had just drawn. He then leant over and pressed another button, which would fast forward the recording. I should have known to be honest.

After a few minutes the other children came rolling in. Jack was sat in his space on the carpet and I think I must have broken the record for telling children to sit on the carpet that day. A few had been fighting, some were overexcited by the approach of Christmas and few actually did as they were told.

Our Class teacher walked in after the other teaching assistant and took the register. I tried my hardest to coax myself away from Jack and sat beside one of the other more disruptive boys instead. I got a nod from the other Teaching Assistant, and was satisfied by my own actions.

It’s only been 4 months since I started as a Teaching Assistant seriously, before I was here there and everywhere throughout the lower end of the school, and was never really designated a classroom. Maybe I should explain?

The place I work is a school for Autistic Children. I’m in Class Three, for children around about the ages 9-10. They’re supposed to be in year 5, but due to their difficulties find themselves about three years behind ‘mainstream’ children. It’s kinda weird the way the classes work though. For instance, one of the kids in our class could easily tell you which letters in the alphabet are vowels and consonants, how to divide small numbers, and has an average reading age. Another can tell the different between a ‘b’ and a ‘c’, can’t count to 50, and has a reading age of 4. They’re all the same though, sadly.

Autism’s a funny thing, really. Some of the children are placed at my school because they have behaviour problems, others because they lack mental ability. I loved my job though, but there were loads of things about my job SPECIFICALLY... I would have loved to change.