My First Day at School

Well after eleven months of paper work, mistrust and going round in circles; which Chris told me is a fair reflection of the NSW education system I have finally been given the thumbs up to teach in Australia. I have enthusiastically been round to three of our local schools. The only ones in cycling distance and have been remarkably underwhelmed by their lack of response. So although it might seem a bit of a cheat my best chance of teaching had to come via Chris. Well he has three development days stacked up and owing so Friday November 3rd saw me going to teach for the first time in almost a year, assuming you do not count my guitar lessons. Here Chris took a snapshot as I meticulously got my lunch ready.



I was so anxious to make sure that I had all the right stuff to teach that I then went and left the lunch behind. Great start I thought but the day was saved by a Chicken Salad roll from the Canteen and Nicole, one of the other teachers, who kindly bought me a welcome cake. Just like a British staffroom , "We love a bit of cake." Notice the time of 11:20 am. This was halfway through lunch I don't know how Chris has adapted his eating regime to have lunch so early. It seems really weird.



Despite all my worries that I would have forgotten it all, the day went by quite smoothly. Any characters that Chris said I might meet, I did but they were all quite harmless and I enjoyed my day. To be more precise I enjoyed my Art lesson. Well it was Chris' Art lesson but I thought I taught it beautifully. Not a National Curriculum Attainment target in sight just a collection of pretty pictures.


PS
Chris managed the "take the kids to school "job without too many dramas. He forgot Alex's absence note (who was allegedly ill the day before) and was told off by the children for not standing at the right place to collect them and crossing the road incorrectly but otherwise did a good job. He also managed a good job on his reports, getting halfway through them already.