Reflection the first

Having managed successfully to post a blog, I'm going to follow up on this great success by adding another. This one is more in the direction of where I actually want this to go, so it's going to be a lot more full of teachery type stuff.

Now that I've finished teaching my first term as a full-time teacher with classes who are my sole responsibility, I feel the need to look back at term one and reflect on what has happened to me. In my head this is going to be something that takes me several posts to do, but perhaps I will be more concise than that.

The first few days of any teaching year are dominated by inordinate amounts of administration. You have to sort out timetables and clashes, class teachers, where students who have registered late are going to go, who has what duty when, what the big events for the term are, term plans, year plans -- LUNCH -- subject meetings, orientation for new teachers (this year it was basically only me in the college, so I just spent some time with the deputy head going over school policy and procedures.) Thus concludes day one. Day two was a little less intense with most of the time being dedicated to finishing staff meetings. I live in the boarding house at the school, so I had to go for the pre-boarder arrival meeting and then had to help when the boys started arriving at 16:00.

After my first dinner in the cafeteria--which was delicious despite all the warnings I'd had about boarding house food--I went back to my room to plan lessons. Now, this is the first thing I'm going to gush about when it comes to my school. Most schools I've worked with or at generally spend the first few days of the year getting admin sorted out with students. Each teacher has to help their homeroom with when they have which lesson and where, they have to help get textbooks sorted out etc. At Bridge House, the students arrive and are handed their timetables. Each grade is divided into random sets and these sets are assigned teachers. To cut a long story short, I was teaching on the first day of school. Add to this the fact that we started two weeks earlier than most other schools, and you get the idea that this school is focused on getting academics done properly.

I was right, this is going to take several posts. I do fear that this one might be a tad long-in-the-tooth, but as it is primarily for my recording purposes, I'm not worried anymore. Either later or tomorrow, depending on how I feel, I shall take time to reflect on my first term of English teaching. Till then...