A Time To Reflect

It’s the winter hols. Hip! Hip! Hooray! No more school for a fortnight.. What shall I do? Go snowboarding, go ice skating at Lake Ida, go surfing (apparently the water is at its coldest in spring when the melted snow from the mountains is flowing into the sea not during winter) or shall I just watch DVDs whilst curled up under my Saints duvet on the settee. Ideally, I would do all of the above but I have a feeling that I will be doing jobs around the house and of course planning for the next school term.

As the winter hols are the mid-point of my first year of teaching in New Zealand, I suppose now is a good time to reflect on how it has gone.

The main thing is that I have survived. I can’t say I had any doubts that I would but I did have a few worries before the start of the school year. Particularly, as there seemed to be a lack of class and planning information available for me to peruse. As I have since found out, that appears to be indicative of the looser and less accountable kiwi system. By the way, as far as I know there does not seem to be a New Zealand equivalent of Ofsted. What a shame!

I have made a few mistakes along the way and got through some things with some last minute planning and quick thinking (No change there some of you might say). Somehow, I have managed to organize our class camp trip, two field trips, get to grips with NZ’s Numeracy Contract, manage ‘Inquiry’ and organize two hockey teams to take every Tuesday to Hagley Park for the intermediate schools’ sports afternoon.

So how are the kids? They are not a bad lot but they sure are noisy and a couple are rather 'trying'. I think, I gave them too much slack to begin with. Being older (12/13) I thought they would be more responsible and understand expectations. However, I have been proved wrong as they are rather work shy and rather obviously (thinking about it now considering their age) are more interested in gossip. Initially, I was rather surprised by the poor quality of work served up but have since found out that the cream of the kids are in two extension classes. Of course nobody had bothered to tell me this at the start of the year!

What is ‘Inquiry’? Basically, it is a ‘subject’ that is meant to develop thinking skills and independent working. It does not have a curriculum but has themes that can go in any direction depending on how much freedom is given to the pupils. Last term’s theme was ‘Conservation’. Some of my kids wanted to set up ‘walk to school buses’, some groups did something on recycling and a couple of groups investigated setting up worm farms. Needless to say, none of these inquiries are yet to bear fruit. Next term is ‘Popular Culture'.

I suppose both teaching and kids are pretty much the same wherever one is and it is not that hard to adjust to a new work culture.

Post Script (a couple of weeks later)

It is now Sunday evening and I am feeling the blues because the holidays are over and tomorrow is a school day. Boo hoo! So what did I do during my time off? I did manage to get up to Mt Hutt for some snow boarding but I did not make it to the beach for a surf (not with the cold southerly winds we have had). As predicted, I did some jobs around the house and did some school work. Unfortunately, I did not spend any time watching DVDs or continuing my quest to steer Redbridge up from the conference to Premier League. Oh well! Next hols then!