Anyway, So today was my first day, and I know you're all *dying* to know how it all went... so thought I'd write a post about it :)
I had my rescue remedy spray packed and ready in my bag- but it turned out that it was not required! I woke at 6am and jumped out of bed, into the shower and dressed. I was out of the house by 6.55am and on my way to South Ealing station. I arrived there at 7.05am and was grateful that the 7.04am train was running one minute late and I climbed straight on. It was the quietest I've seen the tube- only one other in my carriage. I said good-morning and smiled at him man but he just looked back at his newspaper. Still, I maintain to say hello and smile when I make eye contact with strangers. Maybe eventually others in London will do the same?! Perhaps not.
My train ride was 45 minutes and then 10 minutes on the bus to the school. To get into the school (which is surrounded by high fences!) you ring a bell and a beaming light comes out of the wall where there is a camera, so the office can see what you look like. I pushed it and a thick London accent asked who I was.... I told her and she buzzed me in. I then had to be buzzed into the office as well. My goodness- security central!
I was greeted by Hazel (the Helen Congalton of the school) and she called for the "Head" (Principal) Anne, to come and greet me. Anne ran up to me and enveloped me in a big hug and seemed genuinely excited to meet me. It was nice actually, and made me feel quite settled :) She then showed me around the school. It is four stories high, and the stairwells are bare concrete, with painted step edges and all smell like pee. Think the smell in room's 5-8 at MBIS and that is the smell it is. Haha. I also met another girl who is a Kiwi also - her name is Sam. AND would you believe it, she grew up in Browns Bay/Albany... and went to Westlake Girls. SUCH a small world!!! She teaches the Year 1's.
I was shown around the rest of the school, a maze of concrete and stairwells, and of course classrooms. The classrooms are *adorable* as everything is so small... I forget how big Year 7 and 8 students are in comparison!! After the tour and meeting many other new colleagues it was time for 'inset', which is their version of "Teacher only day". The meeting began with introductions, I was asked to stand for mine (cringe!!) and the staff all oohed and ahhed in excitement about the fact that they would no longer have to 'teach' their own music. I say 'teach' because from talking to them about what has been done so far doesn't seem to be much... and doesn't seem to follow any particular structure. It looks like there is a lot of work ahead for me to prepare lessons for the different classes, but I will of course need to meet the students and work out what they can already do and what they already know. I was given some useful lesson plan books this morning, but they seem to be quite old-school... not a lot of modern music which would really grab the older students, so I will work on that!
The head teacher started to talk to us all about policies and how things work at Townsend, which I found quite funny because it sounded like everything she was saying, she was saying for the first time, as if everyone was new to the school. She was very passionate about some of her policies, including one about staff harassment. She has a zero tolerance for staff being malicious or nasty towards another staff member, and we have been told to say: "You are not being professional" and then walk away and come and tell her. This sounds extreme. I am not sure how many staff would be awful enough for this to happen?! She also spent time talking about gossip. She said it is not OK at *any* time to gossip about another staff member, and if you hear something, to never pass it on. Again, if someone on staff is heard gossiping about another, we are to say: "You are not being professional" and walk away. Interesting. It makes me wonder if they have had some staff problems in the past? How different all the information imparted today is from what we talk about at Murrays Bay!!! We are not under any circumstances to take photos of the children on our mobile phones, or personal cameras. If we use our personal cameras we must use a school memory card (do they really have different memory cards on-site for all the different types of cameras?!) and the memory card must remain on-site. There are a lot of safety regulations. Apparently there have been some terrible cases in schools involving children, so I guess all this is justified.
The second part of the day was a session introducing www.fronter.com which is a website much like Knowledge Net in NZ. In fact it is the exact same idea. It was really amusing for me to sit and listen to the teacher running it as this is the training I used to run, a few years ago now! Today was all about introducing it, getting staff familiar with how it works etc. The problem I had was that I knew how it worked, how it is beneficial and how to make the most of your pages and was literally *dying* to explain how it worked to staff, because so many were not convinced. Also it was a shame that the teacher running it only had a very basic page that didn't really offer anything for the staff to buy into... but I stayed quiet (and cringed on the inside when something was explained incorrectly and only confused people more!) and helped out the Year 5 teacher with her page when it came time to have a play around with how it works. It was actually very funny, because there were staff today saying the very same things about it that some of the MBIS staff said right at the very beginning. It is interesting we are 5-6 years ahead of this school. Learning about 'fronter' took up two and a half hours of my life that I'll never get back, but never mind! It is interesting to observe someone teach others about something you know a lot about (and I'm not boasting... it is not because I am more clever or anything, just that I have already used it since starting teaching!). I felt many a smile creep across my lips when I heard staff talking about this 'new' programme. The funniest comment was 'oooh do you see awl vhem fings you can do wif the right click then? Blimey."Haha. Saxon - there is even a lady who said 'I'm not bovvered am I?' and I had a smile about that and thought of you!
I had a chance to have a look at my 'music room'. Which is also a reading resource cupboard, a maths resource cupboard, a make-shift library - and an alcove in the hallway!! Sadly most of the instruments are damaged/broken although I did manage to find a pile of chime bars from the xylophones in a box... so I might be able to do some repair work!! It really is all in a pile... it was a little sad to see that this is how their instruments have been treated, and most of the drum skins had holes in them. The posters on the wall are coming down... tomorrow! I am so pleased I made some before I left NZ 'just in case'... turns out that they are going to make my little corner of the world much brighter!!
I have been given my timetable, which is a mix of three days music teaching to each class (each class is allocated one hour of music a week) and a day release teaching in Year 2, 4 and 6 classes, and one day teaching six students one-on-one who are way behind and will not come out achieving the level they should without some intense help... so that should be interesting. I will certainly be getting a mix of different teaching which is quite exciting, because I have only ever taught year 7 and 8, and now will be teaching students right across primary school. The teacher I am releasing on a Monday morning asked me if I would be OK teaching PE and music and reading in the three hours I have her class. She asked if I know how to teach PE. I thought that was funny too - perhaps she assumes I have only taught music - and don't know how to do anything else!
My day ended with the one hour trek home... bus then two trains. The Bakerloo line was nice and quiet so I got a seat (yusss!) but the Piccadilly line was *packed* as it is the one that goes to Heathrow Ariport, so there are people with their suitcases all jammed on there. 25 minutes of standing, UGH! Bryce and I are seeing two apartments tomorrow at 6pm, one in Southwark, and one in Kennington. Both are available now, so if we like them we could have somewhere to live by tomorrow which is quite exciting. I am loving living with Tony and Maria - they really are wonderful to us. But I do still feel like I am just on holiday... living out of my bag etc. It will be good for me to actually settle in to daily life.
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