I have always adored Forster’s novel A Room with a View and wanted to see Tuscany, so you can imagine what a glorious week I had in Florence this spring. My head is still full of beauty, be it Gothic architecture, famous paintings, the fragrance of wisteria blossom or a really well made cappuccino. I look at the photographs and am reminded of the wonders of perspective.

You have known your pupils almost a year now, so how do you view each other? Is your teaching and their learning a one-dimensional experience or have you dared to get involved in one of your school’s extra-curricular activities so that you and your pupils can see one another in a different light and therefore learn from each other in a new way? If not, I recommend you do.

There are loads of possible lunchtime and after-school clubs to choose from: dance, football, choir, justice and peace group, scripture union, brass band, charities and study club, for example. Then there are school trips, to the Continent, adventure parks, the zoo, theatre and elsewhere. I guarantee you will find something that appeals.

In my school, we run a study club for our Secondary 1 and 2 pupils in the autumn term and this year the librarian and I had great fun working with some small groups. Introduction to the Internet was the purpose of our club and it was great fun, largely because the role of teacherpupil was often reversed and the students loved showing us what they could do outwith the confines of the classroom.

The great thing about getting involved in a study club is that you won’t necessarily be focusing on your own subject area or even, for that matter, anything academic. Water polo and candle-making were two of the other activities the children could choose from this session.

You could, of course, set up something short-term that’s yours. When I was a probationer, the film Dead Poet’s Society had just come out and one particular group of pupils loved it so much that we started our own DPS. It took place in a classroom at lunchtime rather than a forest in the middle of the night, it was never very organised and we would go off at every available tangent but we read and wrote poetry and felt the magic of words.

Whenever I take a group to the theatre, I spend half the play watching the children’s faces. The wonder or confusion or delight or dismay (depending on the performance) is a sight to behold and there is no shortage of talking points for weeks after one of these excursions.

An amazing thing happens when you work with your kids outside regular hours. You see them in a different light: the quiet girl suddenly turns into a chatterbox; the poor wee soul is suddenly doing well in something; you discover the bane of your existence shares some interest of yours, and while that won’t wipe out every problem the two of you are ever going to have, it at least gives you a meeting place.

You’re different too. Maybe it is the fact you don’t have a full class, an assessment schedule or deadlines to worry about that makes you more relaxed. Whatever it is, there’s a lightness in your spirit and the students see the difference, and that’s the glory of the fresh perspective.

Diane Allison teaches in Midlothian and is author of The Year of Living Dangerously: A Survivial Guide for Probationer Teachers (City of Edinburgh Council, pound;4.99)