Hello sweet friends
and family!!
I have had an insane
week but I will try to give you a bit of a summary! It’s still hard for me to believe that I am a
real teacher/career woman –I’ve signed a contract and I will be getting my
first paycheque at the end of next week! Five years of university and I am finally doing
what I have been working toward for so long.
Crazy!
Tuesday and Wednesday
were INSET (IN SErvice Training) days at the school so I was just meeting with the other staff to go over
vision and goals for the year, sanctions and procedures and needs of certain
students and to plan in our learning areas.
These days were crazy and overwhelming as there were so many details
about daily school procedures and teaching focuses for me to learn on top of preparing
for my students’ arrival on Thursday.
Since I got the job at the last minute these were the first days that I
was able to set up my classroom and meet with my teaching team to get ready for
the first couple of days.
All of the staff who I
met were very friendly and helpful and were always happy to answer my millions
of questions. This continues to be a
huge blessing but I am doing a lot of learning on my feet as well!
When Thursday came, the
first group of students that I met was my mentor group who I will meet with
every day before the morning break for the rest of the year. Each house in the school is split into
several of these groups all lead by a teacher who is associated with the
house. I have 25 students in the group, a
few from each year group (7-11). That
morning we had time to hand out planners and timetables, talk about school
rules and uniform policy and to get to know each other a bit. The girls in Year 11 helped me to know where
to pick things up and volunteered to give the Year 7’s a tour of the school so
that they would know their way to their other classes which was really nice. That group is going to be really lovely and I
am excited to do more getting-to-know-you activities during mentor time in the
coming week so that we can get more comfortable with each other.
In the afternoon I met
my regular Year 7 class for the first time!
I will have the same group of 23 for their Literacy, Art, Tech, Science,
Humanities and Maths lessons so I am going to get to know them very well this
year. We had a Literacy lesson that we
had to deliver during this time and since our team of four teachers has to stay
at the same spot with all four classes of Year 7s I did not have much time to
just chat with the students and get to know about their interests. I hope to do some sort of fun activity with
them on Monday morning before we get down to business so that I can start to
connect with them more.
They were pretty
chatty and excited since it was getting to the end of their first day so I was
glad that the lesson included a lot of discussion and group work! They all seem like good kids but it feels a
bit strange because they also seem really little to me since they are only 11
and I am more used to teaching 15-17 year olds.
It’s going to be a bit of an adjustment that way. When they first heard me speak, one of them
thought that I was Irish and then another asked if I was American. It was cute! They are still at the age where a lot of them want
to call me over to show me the work that they have done so that I will tell
them that they have done a good job which is pretty cute too :)
On Friday I found out
in the morning (through my school network account) that I had to cover a Year 9
English class but I had no idea where to find the cover work so I had to go
find one of the other teachers in the department to help me at the start of the
lesson while the kids went wild. Once I
found the USB stick and the sheet with instructions for the lesson it went okay
but I was pretty stressed out at first!
After that I went to meet with my mentor class and we talked about who
Brunel was (since our house is Brunel) and started brainstorming what the house
motto, logo and anthem should be so it was pretty low-key.
Next I had my Year 7s
for two lessons in a row. The first
lesson was Art and we began talking to the whole year group about their first
Tech/Art project of creating a Japanese restaurant. They will be combining food tech, graphic design
and artistic elements over this half term to create the end result. The students seemed VERY excited about everything
which was really encouraging. The Art
project that we started was Japanese block printing that will be used to
decorate the restaurant space. We
introduced the art to them and gave them example photos to inspire them as they
began sketching their own designs. They
are going to start working on the design and food parts of the project on
Monday during Tech class.
During the second half
of the time we were back down in my regular classroom and we began a lesson on
the attributes of a good learner as a foundation to the project based learning
Year 7 program. The kids worked well but
they seemed pretty excited that it was almost the weekend! I had a prep period during the last lesson
and after school the four Year 7 teachers went to meet with the Tech teacher
who will be helping us with design lessons on Monday to make sure that
everything was ready.
I was happy to get
home after that as I was SUPER exhausted!!
I am going to be very
tired and stressed over the next little while as I get the hang of the routine
of the school day. Also I am not used to
collaborating so much with other teachers in my lesson planning but the nature
of the program that I am teaching in requires constant planning with others so
that we are all on the same page in the department and so that we receive the assistance
we need from subject specialists. In a
way this makes planning easier but in another it makes things more complicated
but I’m sure I will adjust after a few weeks of working with the team.
One super huge
blessing is that I have found another teacher in the school who lives very
close to me and who is willing to give me a lift to and from school each
day! No more trains and walking for ages!! I am just going to pay him cash for gas every
week and my commute will be much shorter and cheaper! He is really easy to talk to as well so I
think it is going to be a really good arrangement.
Overall I am feeling
really positive about my first week and I think I am going to have a good
year. There is still a lot of learning
and adjustment time ahead of me but that is the nature of the job! I must say I am glad that I am going to be in
one place rather than all over the place doing supply. I am excited to get to know my kiddies and my
colleagues better in the coming weeks.
Please keep praying
for me and everything is going to continue to be exhausting and stressful!
-Heather <3
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