The First Day (Report from the Front!)

I know that I officially start in the new school on Thursday, but my new manager asked me to come in today and so I had the luxury of being able to observe his lessons before I embark on my own.

Once you are a teacher, you get precious little time to see how other people do the job. Observations are useful in picking up tips and thinking about how you, as the teacher, might handle a situation differently.

These students are not the easiest to teach, as I witnessed today, but once they settled down, they really got on with the work. Yes, I did have to pick a few of them up because they were either playing games (definite no-no) or surfing the web - but in the end, they did produce some work (which was actually not bad quality either).

The teaching staff are very friendly and welcoming and my manager seems like a really nice guy, which always helps. I can see that I've got my work cut out for me and that I will get a considerable amount of responsibility, which isn't a bad thing.

The nicest thing though, is that the school is a half-an-hour bus journey away. In less than 45 minutes, I can get from my front door to the school gates. After spending much of the last ten months commuting across London, this is not an insignificant issue. The school is close enough to allow me some time for a little read but not near enough to plonk the students virtually on my doorstep.

In short, I'm delighted to have the job.

...remind me of this in three months when I complain about how obnoxious some of the kids are!