Moving on and up

As I stated on my running blog the other day:

I’ve been waiting a long time to make this news public but now that I have all the necessary documentation and the children in my class and their parents have been told, I can finally tell everyone that I have a new job!!!  Hence why there was not too much running in January; I really, really wanted this job so was too busy studying and it paid off!

So after the spring break I will only be travelling 15 mins to work, just over the Erskine Bridge, to a school in West Dumbartonshire where I will be the principal teacher, particularly of the infant department which has 6 classes. This is definitely the job that was meant for me as the ethos in school seems great, there is lots of outdoor learning and other initiatives, it’s 15 mins from home after years of lots of driving and the head teacher whom I liked immediately ran the WHW race a couple of years and has done the Fling etc!  I’m really excited about starting and things really feel like they are going in the right direction for me.

I will be sad to Castlefield as it and the people there have been a big part of my life for quite a while now but I’ll still be keeping in touch with, particularly for our reciprocal visit I am arranging with the headteacher and the deputy head teacher of Gwengwe Primary in Malawi.

I plan to start writing on this blog again now to reflect on my new role and responsibilities.  I concentrated on my primary 2 class blog this year and really loved what that offered the pupils and parents and will definitely do that again but I want to use this one for me again now.

Not only have my class been blogging but my primary 2 pupils are getting very used to using Glow!  At first they were just using it to play glow games but now they can find the log on page at school and home, log on themselves, get to our class group and into our wedding topic group.  I have been using the text editor web part a lot to put in hotspots to direct them and this has worked very well.  With, and now for some of them without, adult help they are able to add to discussions, use weblinks, use the news web part and view and add pictures on our photo gallery.  I am loving using these things with them, as are they and the parents.  One parents comment when they found out I was leaving was:

“How will I cope without having the blog and Glow, I hope someone is going to carry them on!”

I’ve just had two fantastic days RM update training on various software programmes that are going to be of use in school after the refresh, some of which we already have and I have used before like Podium, textease and Comic Life and some others like Stop motion pro and revelation.  One of the things we were focusing on was how these could be used as some kind of eportfolio and I think there are huge possibilities for this with these programmes.  We also mashed different programmes together, putting a lot of what we did in other programmes into textease to then enhance it further.  Here are some examples of what I was working on, they are very much just a quick taster. 

Our class blog

The class are loving our blog and lots of parents are very on board with it too.  I am using it kind of like a very basic learning log for the class.  We talk about what they have been learning and I just type it for them.  The first term was hard going, getting used to being back in school, and in infants but am finding term 2 easier so far!

Check out the blog:

http://p2castlefield.wordpress.com/

It’s as if I’ve never been away!

Loving having primary two this year and being back in school.  After 3 weeks I now feel as if I am getting on top of things but the first two weeks, particularly in language, I felt that it was never going to get any easier!

I have 28 pupils, who were in two different classes last year, one a composite P1/2 so we have been doing lots of socialising and I have begun using co-operative learning which I am going to find very interesting to try with primary 2.  So far we have just done think, pair, share, group brainstorming, created their groups and voice on the table.  Some of these have been more successful than others but the voice on the table has been really good.

They have been using Glow games during the technology days of our soft start, plus the dance mat, ebeam, word for practicing their spelling words and RM Starting Graph as well as BBC bitesize and cbeebies.  I am determined that they will extend their skills in using ICT and that I will develop how I use it with infants.  In relation to this tomorrow we are going to start our class blog.  This will be at:

http://p2castlefield.wordpress.com/

This blog was started three years ago or so by a previous teacher in primary 2 so we are going to carry on using the same address.  I hope the parents will get as involved as they did previously (as well as other people) and I will be sending them a note home tomorrow about it.

We started the year with a mini inter-disciplinary topic on Jim and the Beanstalk which I developed from a topic my sister-in-law did in P2 last year and this included all aspects of language, measurement and data handling using RM starting graph, technology with creating their own glasses using pipe cleaners and wigs with wool, art, and planting their own magic seeds which was followed with a writing lesson on how to write instructions on planting.

I am now going to start a 5 week topic on the Commonwealth Games that I have written, although I will see where it goes with the children helping to plan it too (hopefully!).  It is ideal as having just been in India and Delhi I can tie in both the games and the country…and who knows what else!

At the moment I am writing daily evaluations as I feel being at a new stage after two years out and at such a critical time in Scottish education it is good for me to be recording the good, the bad and the ugly of what is going on in the class…hopefully there is enough good!  I am finding this very useful and am developing how I evaluate and how I take action on it.  I hope it also helps me to keep close track of what the pupils are achieving and what they need to develop further.

Photos

I had a fabulous time away, a really good personal learning experience, by which I mean learning about what I can deal with and do by myself and I am so glad I did it.  I may write more about it on one of my blogs but here are photos if anyone is interested.  If anyone wants to use any for topics etc feel free.

Nepal:

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044393&l=71c2dbfee8&id=1316921298

 

India 1:

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044397&l=ca14207404&id=1316921298

 

India 2:

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044998&l=9469cc4dc1&id=1316921298

 

Ladakh:

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044812&l=904069f308&id=1316921298

End of…

My secondment!

It’s back to school in August with a primary two class and as I’ve had little experience in infants this is going to be a great opportunity, although nerve wracking as well!   Going in to meet my class and watch the school show in the last week or so has made me really excited about going back and getting to develop all the things (well maybe not all…at least not in the first term anyway) I’ve been learning about over the last two years.

It’s been an absolute blast working at the advisory and there are a lot of people and aspects of the job that I will really miss. Not seeing the three other girls that started at the same time as me every day is going to be strange and will take a long time to get used to as we all got on together so well personally and professionally.

Although I had been developing confidence before going on secondment this opportunity increased it and my professional development way beyond what I thought I was capable of…bringing me to my latest adventure which I am sure two years ago I would never have dreamed of doing.

Next Monday I will be going off to India and Nepal MYSELF for 4 1/2 weeks! I’ll only have about eight days total by myself as I’m joining an imaginative traveller group tour and then joining another group for a climb. I will hopefully ascend stok kangri, India’s highest mountain, in the Himalayas and at 6150m and over 20,000 feet it is higher than last years kiliminjaro climb. Like kiminjaro it is not really a technical climb although we do cross an ice field using ice axes and crampons one day and my mum pointed out that it looked like there were some scary ridges!

The bit that worries me about going solo is not the days when I’m by myself but rather the time in the groups, in case it’s all couples or something like that. And I don’t mind sharing a hotel room with a stranger for that two week trip but I’m slightly more apprehensive about sharing a potentially very small tent with someone while climbing!

Still, I feel like this is a really important thing for me to be able to prove to myself I can do. Now it’s just a case of trying to juggle the amount of kit I need to climb with the space I need for all of the things I will inevitably buy!

Help required!

On Saturday myself and four other teachers from East Kilbride will be attempting to complete the Caledonian Challenge – 54 miles in 24 hrs or less on the West Highland Way.  That’s two full marathons in distance and more up ands downs than two ascents and descents of Ben Nevis.

If you would like to support us then we have a sponsorship page here:

http://www.caledonianchallenge.com/teams/TopClassTeam

The sponsorship money goes towards the Scottish Community Foundation, which supports children and young families in Scottish communities.

Any donations are very gratefully received and if you want to provide some moral support on the day then text, facebook, twitter, email messages or blog comments  between 9am on Sat and hopefully about 5am on Sun would be great!

Thanks

I can do this!

Finished my lessons at Xscape for snowboarding over the holidays and it certainly taught me not only about snowboarding but more about myself as well!

We had the third lesson on the last day of term and I’m not sure whether it was just me, tiredness, my ability or the accupuncture which I had in in the afternoon while working the office (a strange and bizarre experience and a different story!) but I had a terrible time!  I managed to get through the lesson, just, but it really made me think about how the kids in my class must feel when they are not sure about something, not feeling well, not enjoying being in a group etc.

Going for the fourth lesson though (after a fabulous day at Glencoe as well) I just had a total mental block and couldn’t get it.  This was partly due to number of different instructors with different ideas about when to do things, I’m not going to get technical, and I was getting confused.  I remember sitting in the snow saying like a kid ‘I can’t do this’ and being told exactly the same things I would tell a pupil in my class about how that was not the right attitude and if I was more positive I would get it.  I did not like being behind the others in the group in this lesson and feeling like I was holding them back at times, knowing how I had felt in previous lessons when this was reversed.

However when I repeated the lesson it made the ‘eureka moment’ all the more sweet when I did get the last turn that had been defeating me!  I just needed someone (yet another instructor) to walk me through it holding onto to me (sounds pathetic now!) so that I knew I would not lost control and then I had it!  So just another tiny bit of support got me through plus this is where the positives of a different instructor came through as he had just a tiny little different way of doing things that clicked with me!  And there’s no holding me back no,  going back to Xscape next week to practice, I just wish the snow was still good enough on the mountains to get out there again.  Just the little matter of saving up for nice new kit now!