There are forty weeks of school in the Northern Territory: all of them jam packed!
The first ten-week tern is a time to settle in. It all started on the last day of January and I was new to the Territory, new to the school: the people, school yard rules, policies, acronyms, curriculum, kids and materials available. Heck, after almost ten years working with adults, I was pretty new to teaching.
Most of my wards were under three feet tall, barely spoke English, no matter what color their skin and couldn't write their own name or were remotely interested in learning how. They didn't know the alphabet letter soumds and yet school-yard fights could revolve around who had rights to letters like 'C' or 'B'. "I am the letter C!!! "NO! 'C' is MINE!!! and the tears would begin..
Some could count to 10, for the most part, but had no clue as to what onetwofeefurfive meant. Never mind eighnineten.
They fought over small trucks and marbles, snuck to school in their sparkling new school bags. They would hide them, in their bags, in the room, or up their nose.. They cuddled stuffed toys: old, ragged, also smuggled in to class, to get them through the day.
I spent two weeks with the 'big' kids: teaching years 4/5/6. Week three I spent team-teaching and quickly decided that wouldn't work and closed the doors: shutting my ten K/1 into basically a storage room, by week four.
Ten weeks eventually ran their course as I sorted, and argued, and smiled: blew noses, located shoes, put names on hats, cooked, cleaned, drove the bus, chased the wallabies, called the ranger to pick up snakes and sorted out major issues, including... who got "c"
During the break I was in Darwin with leaders and salespeople doing 'professional development'.. and without a day to myself I was back in the second ten week term: as a teaching principa,l with hardly enough warning to find my own shoes.
When I lifted my head from the construction and moving people.. the emails and a pathetic attempt to do two jobs (principal and teacher) in a foreign construction zone, it was time for a 4 week holiday to Canada.. which was over quickly.
Third term brought a new principal, student teachers, a few weekends to finally organize taxes, immigration issues, my medical, and.. a bit of planning. But at least the construction crew had left and we had our school back.. finished and with a new coat of paint.
Ten weeks flew by and a week in Cairns focused on a Remote Teaching conference, with teachers from all over Australia and a quick drive up to Daintree.
And already here we are on week 2 of Term Four.
But what is amazing, is that through all of the noise and confusion, the kids have learned their letter sounds.. and many have a rapidly growing sight word reading vocabulary as well! They know the days of the week and the months of the year. My kids can count, some are adding and subtracting numbers to 20.. some to 200 and some are even adding three digit numbers and carrying!
They now seem to understand that marbles do not go up your nose and at the end of Investigations, you have to clean up.
Best of all, they know how to take turns and share things.. like IPads and even those small cars and the ocasional rebel marble that sneaks into their bag without anyone knowing just how.
Yup.. 52 weeks in a year and almost 40 of them are gone..
just like that!
The first ten-week tern is a time to settle in. It all started on the last day of January and I was new to the Territory, new to the school: the people, school yard rules, policies, acronyms, curriculum, kids and materials available. Heck, after almost ten years working with adults, I was pretty new to teaching.
Most of my wards were under three feet tall, barely spoke English, no matter what color their skin and couldn't write their own name or were remotely interested in learning how. They didn't know the alphabet letter soumds and yet school-yard fights could revolve around who had rights to letters like 'C' or 'B'. "I am the letter C!!! "NO! 'C' is MINE!!! and the tears would begin..
Some could count to 10, for the most part, but had no clue as to what onetwofeefurfive meant. Never mind eighnineten.
They fought over small trucks and marbles, snuck to school in their sparkling new school bags. They would hide them, in their bags, in the room, or up their nose.. They cuddled stuffed toys: old, ragged, also smuggled in to class, to get them through the day.
I spent two weeks with the 'big' kids: teaching years 4/5/6. Week three I spent team-teaching and quickly decided that wouldn't work and closed the doors: shutting my ten K/1 into basically a storage room, by week four.
Ten weeks eventually ran their course as I sorted, and argued, and smiled: blew noses, located shoes, put names on hats, cooked, cleaned, drove the bus, chased the wallabies, called the ranger to pick up snakes and sorted out major issues, including... who got "c"
During the break I was in Darwin with leaders and salespeople doing 'professional development'.. and without a day to myself I was back in the second ten week term: as a teaching principa,l with hardly enough warning to find my own shoes.
When I lifted my head from the construction and moving people.. the emails and a pathetic attempt to do two jobs (principal and teacher) in a foreign construction zone, it was time for a 4 week holiday to Canada.. which was over quickly.
Third term brought a new principal, student teachers, a few weekends to finally organize taxes, immigration issues, my medical, and.. a bit of planning. But at least the construction crew had left and we had our school back.. finished and with a new coat of paint.
Ten weeks flew by and a week in Cairns focused on a Remote Teaching conference, with teachers from all over Australia and a quick drive up to Daintree.
And already here we are on week 2 of Term Four.
But what is amazing, is that through all of the noise and confusion, the kids have learned their letter sounds.. and many have a rapidly growing sight word reading vocabulary as well! They know the days of the week and the months of the year. My kids can count, some are adding and subtracting numbers to 20.. some to 200 and some are even adding three digit numbers and carrying!
They now seem to understand that marbles do not go up your nose and at the end of Investigations, you have to clean up.
Best of all, they know how to take turns and share things.. like IPads and even those small cars and the ocasional rebel marble that sneaks into their bag without anyone knowing just how.
Yup.. 52 weeks in a year and almost 40 of them are gone..
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