After a long hiatus...

Okay, I really have no good excuse for having been away from the blogosphere for so long. I suppose part of it has to do with being so busy at work - weekdays are filled with work, work, work, then I come home and work some more! Another part of it can be attributed to the fact that my life has fallen into such a routine. I think when you're living your life, regardless of where you live, you inevitably fall into a normal routine that rarely deviates. This is especially true when you're starting your career and are acutely aware of the need to impress people around you.

Take, for example, my routine. The alarm wakes me up at 6am, when I roll over and hit snooze until 6:10. Then I shuffle off to the bathroom for a shower, usually managing to be completely washed up and sitting at my laptop checking the weather at 6:30. After looking at the BBC website, I go downstairs to make breakfast and scarf it down by 6:50. Hair is blow-dried between 6:50 and 7:00, then it's time to get dressed and throw everything I need into my bag. I leave the house at 7:10, reach the station by 7:20, and hop on the 7:27 train to school. Am at school by 7:50, spend 10 minutes checking my emails and getting my lessons sorted in my classroom, then walk into the staffroom to check the cover board at 8. Tea, a chat with friends, photocopying, and I'm back in my class by 8:20. Lessons go all day, then I pack myself up and try to leave school by 5-5:30pm. Home, dinner, working/marking by 7pm. Work until 10pm, then lie in bed with a book and my ipod. Repeat x 5.

Can you see from the above why blogging has become a bit impossible? :) The only break in the routine is the weekends, when I try to get into London to meet friends or catch a ballet or show. By the time I get a minute, though, it's time to plan for Monday's lessons again and I forget about trying to blog anymore!

That's not to say that interesting things aren't happening. My job is an endless adventure punctuated by funny incidents involving my students. There's the excruciating bureaucracy of school politics, the truly entertaining school events that keep popping up, and then there are all my plans for travel.

For instance, since the last time I blogged, I visited Vienna, did make-up for the school play, enjoyed the run-up to Christmas at school, went home for the holidays, and saw 2 ballets and 2 children's productions of well-loved books. I wrote a million reports, met more parents than I would have liked, was put in charge of the Battlefields trip for May, and made some very good friends. I also had my first Afternoon Tea and discovered some lovely restaurants in London.

So, yes :D. That's where I stand right now! I'll definitely be trying to update more frequently now. I'm off to Rome for 4 days in a little less than 2 weeks, and there are a lot of interesting things coming on at school right now - Charities Day, the Bounce-a-thon, Battlefields Trip, Trips Week, etc. PLUS there are plans to be made for future trips (Scotland in June 2010 and Korea/Japan in April 2011!) and hopefully more new experiences on the weekends. Stay tuned!

The end of half-term

Well, half-term is nearly over and I'm trying to steel myself for the craziness I'm sure will start tomorrow when I go back to work! :)

I've had a really fantastic half-term though. The first week, I took some time to sleep and relax (and do some marking), before spending the latter part of the week meeting friends, shopping, and basically wandering around. I went in to Cleves on Thursday, which was a bit of a startling experience! My friend had told the staff I was coming (I had to get permission, after all), and somehow the news had trickled down to the children. When I arrived, therefore, the first thing I was greeted with from my friend was, "_____ wants me to tell you that he's waiting by the benches outside, and _____ is in the football area". lol. I raised my eyebrows at her but, not having eaten lunch yet, decided to do that first before going to see the children. Had a short chat with some of the staff in the staffroom as we ate, then said goodbye to my friend and wandered up the hallway towards my old wing and classroom.

I made it to just in front of the dining room before a child IN the dining room spotted me and shouted, "Linda's here!" Immediately I was surrounded by children, all hugging me at once, and wanting to know how I was doing and that they'd missed me and telling me little tidbits about their lives. Meanwhile, a girl sprinted a few metres up the hallway and shouted, "Linda's here!!!" in the general direction of the Year 5/6 wing. There was a thunder of running footsteps and another group of 6-7 children from my class last year came running down the hallway and flung their arms around me. I was totally taken aback - there were so many children hugging me that I was actually pushed back against the window, and the ones who couldn't get close enough to hug me seemed determined to hang onto any part of my arms or hands they could reach. As I said hello and tried to disentangle myself, more children from my class last year came inside from where they were on break to do the same.

It was really sweet that they were so pleased to see me, but I was also sooo surprised that they were so affectionate. The girls were prone to hugging me last year, but the boys were generally too cool and, whilst they would come and joke and talk, they were never very touchy-feely. This visit, though, they were all for hugs! I finally managed to convince the children to go back outside for the rest of their break and went down the hall towards the classrooms, about 10 children still in tow.

The teachers who were enjoying the rest of their lunch in the classroom laughed when they saw me come in with the children and managed to pry them off and send them outside. When lessons started for the rest of the afternoon, however, it was much of the same - children holding onto my hand, asking me to come sit with them, taking any opportunity to tell me about what had happened to them since the last time I saw them.

In any case, it was a lovely visit and I was really happy to see the children again :). I sometimes do miss Cleves and I loved my class - it was so strange to be back there! I've promised to try to visit again before the end of the year, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to. I basically need to be on holiday whilst Cleves is still going, so there aren't very many opportunities. We'll see though!

Apart from visiting Cleves and hanging with friends, I went to Vienna as I mentioned before. I won't go into every detail, but it's such a beautiful city! We did a lot of things but only just managed to scratch the surface of the city - I'll definitely have to go back to get to the things I missed! Some of the 300 pix I took are on my facebook, so check that out if you're interested.

This week should be a bit insane - I've nearly forgotten what I was doing before half-term, so I've been trying to spend today lesson planning. I should really do a week at a time, but I'm finding it difficult to do more than day-to-day planning. Have lots to do in general though and lots of exam prep and revision to get going. As it is, I'm a bit worried about how my 8s and 7s will do, and there are some more bits and pieces I need to teach my 6s, 5s, and 4s before they'll be ready. This Saturday is Parents' Day too, so will have that to look forward to O_O.

Hopefully I'll blog again before Christmas! :)

1/6 of the way through the school year! O_O

Since I'm on half-term break (YAY!!!), I finally have time to update this blog more thoroughly with everything that's sort of happened over the past 6 weeks.

I suppose the good news is that I'm still alive and no-one seems to hate me yet :D. It's been a bit of a hard slog though - the pace of the school, as I keep saying, is absolutely insane, and I'm usually running around from 8am to 6:30pm, when I finally drag myself home (whether I'm finished working or not!) to continue working at my desk until I drag myself to bed (again, whether I'm finished working or not!) round about 11pm-midnight. I think the hectic pace is due to the lack of transition time between classes, the 24-hour marking policy, lesson planning, the pressure of knowing that exams are coming up and that some of them actually count for a heck of a lot in these kids' lives! Since the Year 8s are writing Common Entrance exams that dictate where they'll go for secondary school, and the Year 7s are being groomed for writing the extremely difficult scholarship exams for their respective secondary schools, I'm feeling a lot more pressure for both of those lots of children. I suppose the first test will be how they do on their end-of-term exams - I'm crossing my fingers that they all do okay, or I'm going to have a lot to answer for!

Other than the pressure and the pace, I'm loving Danes Hill. The kids are really lovely (for the most part), and the staff are friendly. I always say that my happiness as a teacher depends on the kids and, for this school, I'm happy to report that I do love most of them and, as a result, the fact that I'm always exhausted and stressed out isn't a burden like it would be if I hadn't connected to the kids. There are days when things go wrong and you get cross and have to scream a bit (I should actually do that more often), but then you'll have a class come in and make you laugh and suddenly everything's alright again. Teaching is the strangest profession ever! :D haha. Talk about an emotional roller-coaster.

Apart from the normal grind of the school day, there've been a couple of special/abnormal things happen in the first half term. The first thing was Trips Day, which was a lot of fun. Basically, on Trips Day, the entire school goes out - the Y2s went to the Tower of London, the Y3s went to a castle somewhere, the Y4s had a writing workshop/drama day, the Y5s went to Portsmouth, the Y6s went to the Science Museum, the Y7s had a team-building day at school, and the Y8s did some geography fieldwork. Apparently this happens once a term, with a week-long residential Trips Week happening in June. Anyway, since I'm a Y6 tutor and I teach most of the Y6s, I went along to the Science Museum. It was actually a lot of fun - my tutor group is a bit of a handful but, off-site, were quite good. There was some whining ("Miss Choi, I'm HUNGRY!", "Miss Choi, this is booooring"), but they also paid close attention and did what I asked. All I had to do to get my tutor group to come together was stop and look around. As soon as they saw that I had stopped and was looking for them, they'd converge on me and wait until I had made sure they were all there before wandering off again. On the ride back to school, I sat with some of the kids and we played games and chatted. All in all, it was a really pleasant day.

Another strange thing that has happened recently is that I've been kind of made the unofficial Korean interpreter at the school. I had a suspicion it might happen (the Headmaster was awfully interested in my ability to speak Korean at the interview), but it's become a bit of a pain. The first thing I was asked to do was go down to the Lower School to translate a test for a Reception-age child (age 4? 5?). I've since been asked to do a couple of other things, which is fine - the thing is, however, that I'm being asked to write or translate or phone or whatever, and you all know I'm not fully fluent. It does tend to prey on my mind a bit, and it's definitely adding to my workload/stress levels. Ah well.

The final extraordinary thing that's happened recently was that the school was inspected. Schools in the UK are inspected every 4-5 years and, for independent schools, it's kind of a big deal - parents always read inspection reports before deciding where to send their kids, so it's important to get a good report. The team of 7 inspectors were around for an entire week and, basically, they were interviewing staff and pupils, scrutinizing books and policies, and sitting in on lessons. This meant that we all had to do thorough and extensive lesson plans for every lesson we taught, and we always had to be wary that an inspector might pop into our lesson and settle him/herself down at the back to watch at any point.

I suppose I was fairly lucky - I was inspected first thing on the first day of the inspection. It was, however, my Y4 English class - the only English I teach, and the youngest kids I teach. When I had been thinking about which class I hoped they wouldn't come to, it was Y4 English that immediately came to mind. I felt fine when the inspector walked in, however, because I had planned a good lesson using ICT and all the rest, so I felt fairly confident that it would go well. How wrong I was.

The first thing that went wrong was that my projector wouldn't work. My starter depended on being able to show something on the whiteboard from the computer, but the damn thing just wouldn't switch inputs from video to computer. As I puzzled over this, keenly aware of the inspector watching me and the children beginning to fidget, one little boy pulled a chair underneath the projector and said, "Oh, Miss Choi, I can help!". Now, one of the chief inspector's pet policies is Health and Safety, and we were all instructed that we were in no circumstances allowed to have children get up on their chairs. You can imagine my panic when this boy, therefore, started to get up on his! I immediately yelped, "No! That's alright, don't get on your chair!" and, thankfully, for once the boy obeyed. I ended up salvaging the lesson by writing things out on the whiteboard instead, but I know the whole thing must have seemed disorganised and I was pretty drained by the time I walked out of class.

That was, of course, also the day that some of my Y7 scholars stayed behind after class to talk to me about how they were frustrated by the other kids messing about, and how they felt that we were wasting a lot of time trying to get to the point of the lesson because I constantly had to deal with them. Yeah. It wasn't a good day!

Anyway, the inspection seems to have gone well and the Senior Management is quite pleased with the preliminary report. I'll post a link to it once it's published (it's supposed to take about 2 months!) but, in the meantime, I'm going to forget about it. lol.

In more recent happenings, I'm visiting my old school on Thursday to say hello to the kids and staff, which should be fun :). I'm also off to Vienna on Monday for 5 days before having to head back to school the week after that.

Expect a big update after Vienna (if I can find the time!) :D.

House points and hymnbooks

Things at Danes Hill continue to go well. I've now been observed by the Headmaster with good results, and everyone seems pretty happy. Inspection is coming up and the marking is starting to pile up, so I'm definitely beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed! It's alright though :). Half term is coming up and, yay, I've received my first paycheque!

This post is just a quick one to comment on 2 things particular to the Danes Hill experience (well, apart from the Wednesday BBQs, which are also a Danes Hill experience!). The first is the hymnbooks. Now, I know that most prep schools do sing hymns at Assembly whether they're religious or not, and St Paul's certainly had hymnbooks that all the children sang from and picked up from Year 8s at the door.

Danes Hill does things a bit differently though. Whilst St Paul's had generic hymnbooks (I think it's called the Book of Common Praise, or something like that - it's available in shops) and they were school property, Danes Hill children each have their own hymnbook. It's blue. It's small. It's specially made for Danes Hill. The school emblem is emblazoned on the front. They pay for them and, if they lose them, they must pay for another. Every child MUST have one - no sharing!! The first day, I was bit like, "O_O". Now I think it's kind of cool and laugh at how Danes Hill it is :D.

The other thing I find amusing is the house points. Again, all prep schools seem to do this and I remember teachers at St Paul's always handing out house points by writing "1HP" at the end of work. At Danes Hill, however, the house points have a physical form. They actually look like little poker chips - each colour represents a different value (red/orange=1, purple=2, brown=5), and you give them out to the children to take to their form tutors. The kids love getting house points and, thus, it's a huge motivation for them to be good! Who said teachers were now above bribery? lol.

I've taken a photo of my hymnbook and some house points for you to see :).



Until next time!

Surviving the first week of school

It's been a week since I started teaching at my new school and I'm already EXHAUSTED. I think it's partly the frenetic pace of the school, partly that I'm creating lesson plans from scratch for 11 different classes (2 of which are quite challenging because they're, a. scholars, b. Y8s who are taking exams at the end of the year that will dictate what schools they get into), partly that I'm trying to make a good impression and consquently always "on", and partly because I'm a type A personality and try to get everything done perfectly! In any case, it all translates into a very sleepy me in the morning...and the afternoon....and the evening. lol.

I'm really starting to love it though. I struggled a bit the first week, just because I didn't know anyone on staff and was a bit lonely, and also because the kids were being a bit too lively for my liking. I spent the weekend relaxing and trying to come up with strategies to help them settle down and, as of Monday, I've put those strategies into place. So far, they seem to be working, especially with the younger kids! The older ones are currently being controlled with sweets (:D Hey, I never said I was above bribery!), so it's all fine.

In the meantime, the kids and I are getting along really well. In addition to the form teacher who told me her class remembered me from my interview lesson and couldn't wait for my class (they're my Y7 scholars, actually), I've had a colleague whose son is at the school tell me that his favourite class is history (apparently a huge compliment because at the same time last year, he told her he liked lunch best), and another form teacher tell me that his class has come in saying that I'm brilliant :). I've also had kids telling me their favourite class is history (though those particular kids might have been influenced by the sweets I had just given them ;D), others saying hello in the halls then whispering to their friends, "That's Miss Choi! She's so nice!", and children just generally being as sweet and lovely as children can be.

I walked into my first Y4 history class last Friday and was met by a chorus of, "Oh, it's Miss Choi!!!" from the kids who are also in my English set. At the end of the lesson, one little boy put his hand up and asked if I was going to teach their next lesson. When I said no, I had to go teach another class and their regular teacher was coming back, he cocked his head at me and said, very seriously, "Can't Miss Holden go teach them and you stay here?" haha.

And last night, which was parents' night for the Y6s and 7s, I was standing at my table, waiting for the parents of the kids in my tutor group, when a woman approached me. She introduced herself as the mother of a girl who's NOT in my tutor group, then said, "I just had to come over here and tell you that Rene absolutely loves your class. She's so excited to be doing her history homework at home right now, and she says that History is her favourite subject this year!" She then thanked me for getting her daughter into it. I smiled and said thanks very much, that was very kind of her, and told her how lovely her daughter is. I was both flattered and taken aback, though. I've only had her daughter's class twice and I have to say that the subject matter so far has been incredibly boring! Ah well, I'm not going to complain about children enjoying my class :).

All in all, things seem to be going pretty well. Now it's time for bed so I don't keep yawning though my morning classes!

The start of the school year

I really shouldn't be updating my blog right now because it's nearly 8pm and I haven't done ANY of the work I need to do for tomorrow, but I wanted to talk about my first couple of days at Danes Hill.

The first thing I have to say is that it's been absolutely manic - the pace of the school is intense!!! To give you a taster, this is what my day looks like tomorrow: arrive at school at 7:30am to prep for day's classes. First class at 8:30am in my room, followed immediately by another. Then I dash to the main building for Y4 English, followed by a mad dash back to my portable for tutor group, followed by another 2 classes of history. Short break, 30 minute lunch duty, 30 mins to collect myself together, then another dash back to the main building to teach Y4 history. 40 minute break, another class, then dash back to the main building to register another teacher's form, hand out notices, walk them to the pick-up place, then back to my room for a meeting with my Head of Department. Organise papers strewn all around the room, do some photocopying and planning for the following week, leave for home at, optimistically, 6pm. Whew.

I suppose the one good thing about the pace is that the day flies by because you're so bloody busy. The bad thing is that I keep forgetting what I'm teaching and to which class :D. They'll walk in, sit down, and I'll be like, "Err, this is....6AVH?"

There are loads of positives though. The kids are, for the most part, lovely. I'm in love with a few of my Y7s, my Y4s, and assorted Y5s, 6s, and 8s. They've already sussed out that I'm easygoing (translated: a pushover), so are...well, let's say they're lively! None of their liveliness is malicious, however, and a lot of the children seem very bright.

I spent the morning of my first day worrying about the children until, at break time, I sat down next to a form teacher who had spent all morning with her Y7s. She turned to me and said, "My class are already talking about you! They remember you from your interview lesson, and they keep saying, 'Oh, Miss Choi is LOVELY!' and how much they can't wait to have your class!" Needless to say, that made me feel good :). I was highly amused and pleased, therefore, when her class walked into my room later that day and, when I said, "I know you guys don't know me..." instantly raised their hands and told me that, actually, they did because I had taught them in my interview! haha. There are a few real sweethearts in that class and, being the Scholars (the brightest children who have been selected to go for the big academic scholarships), they're also amazingly talented. For example, I mentioned the year 1485 to my Y8 class the same day and got a bunch of blank looks and, "What happened in 1485?" The year somehow came up in my Y7 class and immediately there were exclamations of, "Oh, 1485! The Battle of Bosworth Field that ended the War of the Roses! It was fought between Henry VII and Richard III!" I just had to raise my eyebrows :D. They're definitely going to keep me on my toes!

There are some lovely children in my other classes too. Lots of the children are saying hello as I pass them in the corridors, though in most cases I have NO idea who they are yet - it's hard to place them outside of my classroom, for the most part! I'm working on names though, and have done a pretty good job. I've got nearly 200 pupils though, and a lot of them have the same names - think Henry, Joseph, Alexander, Thomas, Sophie, Eleanor, Georgina, Emma, etc. It's like being in a novel set in the 1930s! haha.

I overheard some boys talking about me today, which was sweet - they were saying how much they liked me :). And another boy in one of my classes told me, very bluntly, that I was one of his favourite teachers, to which I said, "Already? Is it because I haven't yelled at you yet?"

There are some cheeky/naughty kids though, mostly boys. I had one boy tell me the wrong name, but I caught him out on that and happened to mention it to my Head of Dept as we were chatting later. He found the boy at lunch and had a good yell at him (he told him that he either had to go tell the registrar he wanted to change his name, or he had to come apologise to me. Needless to say, I had a very contrite looking boy knock on my door at the end of the lunch break), and the boy's form teacher apparently also spoke to him at the end of the school day. I've also moved him to the desk in front of me and taken to calling him Freddie, which is the name he pretended to have. Consequently, he was sooooo well-behaved today in class. I feel a bit bad about it, but I'll give him another chance to prove that he can behave soon :).

Anyway, it's all going fairly well so far. I'm sure the kids will calm down a bit as soon as real lessons start, and I'll have to crack down on them a bit starting from their second lessons. I'm completely exhausted though, and there's so much work ahead! Roll on the weekend!!!!

New house and moving day

Another thing that happened recently was that I moved. Those who have spoken to me in the past few months will know how much my former flatmate annoyed me - her tactlessness, complete unwillingness to buy anything for the flat (like toilet paper!), and her frequent guests were all thorns in my side and I couldn't WAIT to get out of there!

So, on Friday, a friend's father arrived in his tiny little hatchback car to help me move. My first thought as we carried boxes and boxes down the stairs to be piled up around the car was, "God, this is never going to fit in there!" Sure enough, we got about 4 boxes in and the boot (trunk) looked full. As I stood scratching my head apologetically, Robin, my friend's father, shrugged good-naturedly and said, "Well, let's see what we can do!"

Amazingly, about 15 minutes later, every single box and bag plus 3 people were in that car. I still don't know how he did it. I'm half convinced that he's a wizard and somehow magicked us in. Sure, none of us were comfortable (poor Johanna couldn't move an inch because she was literally wedged into the backseat), but we were in! Robin took multiple photos for posterity's sake, and then we were off.

About 30 minutes later, Robin was dropping us at the door of my new house with all my boxes and bags. Johanna and I carried them up to my room then collapsed, exhausted on the bed. Still, after some waffling about, we managed to find the energy to go out to lunch, and then I returned home with some groceries, ready to unpack.

I'm proud to say that it didn't take me that long to get my room in order and I was really pleased with the end result! Even nearly a week later, I still love this house - it's absolutely gorgeous, and my landlord/landlady, their children and cat are lovely.

Speaking of the cat, she's hilarious - she's more a dog than a cat :). Every day I hear her scratching at my door and, when I let her in, she'll come in to sit purring at my feet. Every once in awhile, she'll put her paws on my leg and look up at me imploringly. If I oblige and lift her into my lap, she'll settle down and just go to sleep, still purring contentedly. She also follows me around the house and, to my amusement, pets herself.

Let me explain that last bit :). By petting herself, I mean that if I'm sitting with my legs crossed and thus have one foot slightly raised, she'll come squeeze her head underneath and go back and forth under my foot. It's so sweet and she's so lovely. Too bad she sheds so much and I have a bit of a cat allergy because, otherwise, I would carry her around everywhere! lol.

Anyway, without further ado, here are some photos of my house.

Margo