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first
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Safety
Bay
SHS
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We started off the first day with a so called form class, and I had a year 12 which was pretty nice. Since they don't have a formal form period anymore at this school as attendences are done during first lesson, this was kinda pointless as I'll probablynot see any of these kids in class again. But we used the time to hand out timetables etc...
After an hour of looking at each other, because handing out timetables took all of 2 mins, we were off to first class! Yay!
For me this was year 10 and they have turned out to be a pretty nice group overall. We're doing Government and Law which isn't the most fun unit to do but I've been covering Hitler/Nazi's a totalitarian regime so that's been pretty interesting. Tomorrow its left vs right wing policies and then onto Communism for a bit before we get to Australian gov't systems etc.
Then I had my year 11 geography class and these guys are pretty chatty and disrupting for the most part. They still haven't quite worked out that year 11 TEE (Uni entrance subject) is not quite the slack-who-really-cares sort of thing that year 10 is all about. So some aren't listening too closely or doing the work and homework etc but then they'll find out when I give them their first test next week (bwhahahaha!!!...). I've already had 2 of the most disruptive change subject on me (good..) but that's OK as they clearly didn't want to do Geog anyway and had just been put in that subjectwhen nothing else on the timetable grid fit... I usually start year 11 with 20 -25 students and if I have 18 or so by end of term in 10 weeks then that'll be pretty stable for the year.
I'll pass on the year 9's for now... !
So onto the year 12 geog. There's only 12 of them in the class. The best and the survivors grade-wise from year 11 so that's fine by me. We seem to have hit it off ok so far. I haven't taught year 12 geog before now and for the first time I haven't got a senior teacher above me to act as a guide for geog at all. I'm THE geog teacher at SB SHS!!!..! Pretty scary but I told them that I'm still an experienced teacher in general and did pretty well in this stuff at Uni so if they could cut me some slack here and there we'd work together and get along for the big TEE (External Uni Admitance exam at the end of the year). So far they're doing that and I can answer all their questions so far so I seem to be passing their test.
Now back to the year 9's....
*sigh*
You've always got to have at least ONE ratbag class and this year, it's the year 9's.... They are a low ability class (no one told me that until I saw for myself on day 1) and I not only trufed 2 of them out during the first lesson for misbehaviour but also kept them in during lunch in that same first lesson! Things have only moderately improved since then as they run out of ideas on what to 'test' me on. So far all their 'test out the new teacher and see what we can get away with' stunts have failed as I've seen it all before.
There are two girls in that class though that shouldn't really be there as they're pretty smart by the look of things and are handling my low ability work with ease. I may have to talk about moving them to a better class or at least giving them some harder stuff to do. Be a shame to lose them though...
I'm also an entire class under load. That is, I'm getting paid to teach full time but am only actually teaching 80% of the time. This is because the timetable structure changed during the holidays since my appointment and contract was made!!! - yay me!
So the school has to either find me some other class to teach, which I have to be qualified for of course, or find me alternative duties. So far I've picked up 1 period of another teacher's English Lit class as she has a clash at that time once a week and otherwise nothing! So still only at 80.25% of full time load!!!
They haven't got much else for me at this stage so they admin are saying that they'll make it up with Library duties (shelving...) or get me to use my design skills and take over the maintenance of the school web site and also doing graphic design stuff like I did for Como SC the last few years - but this time I'd be getting paid for it in effect as I'm doing the stuff when I should be in class and not at home in my own time like at Como!!! - yay me again...! I'll also have to pick up any absent-teacher covers that may crop up (bleah - but I can't really complain as long as I don't get more than 3 a week)
So there ya go. It takes me 70 mins to drive there every day at a distance of 75km and the same back again and my poor little car (1990 Camry) is starting to feel it already but I guess I'll just have to get used to that like I said before. At least the school has air con unlike Como which has been nice because we had a 37 degree C day last week just to rub it in. I got through it without melting unlike at Como where we just turn into puddles.
They also don't have an after-work Friday drinks at the school like Como (bleah..) does but some people are muttering about that and maybe we can get that going again this year in a few weeks.
cheers
Sean
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AUTHOR OF THIS MESSAGE
Little green man
MESSAGE TIMESTAMP
09 february 2006, 14:21:37
AUTHOR'S IP LOGGED
210.50.108.75
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