We are again blogging on a Monday...oops. Oh well.
Last week was a strange week for us teaching here. Just as a quick refresher...usually we are guaranteed 4 days a week (if we're available) other than the weeks on either side of a break. Last week there was a strike on Wednesday, so our guaranteed days went down to 3 because there was going to be less work.
So, at home all the teachers are with the same union and if there's a strike, all teachers are striking and there's no school. Here, there are different unions so not all teachers are with the same ones...even teachers within a school can be with any number of different unions. So some classes were cancelled, but others in the same school weren't, and unless the school had teachers all from the union that was striking, most schools were open. So...what that meant for us was that there was some work, just not as much.
Monday-I didn't work, Sam was at the all girls high school (the one that's actually not too bad) and "taught" computers...and by taught, we mean she sat around while the kids worked on projects and finished off the day watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Tough day.
Tuesday-Sam taught year 3 and had a really good day. I was at my favourite primary school teaching PE. I had a great day :)
We went to the gym for a good workout after school. Sam also got a letter from her friend Jordan...it was full of confetti. It legit took her about 10 minutes to get it all off the letter so she could read it.
Wednesday (the strike day)-Sam didn't work, and I got an afternoon teaching year 6. It was a really nice school, the kids were fun.
We swam after school and Sam got a fun package from her friend Kelsey.
Thursday-Sam didn't work again, and I got called into South-East...late, and then they gave me the wrong directions, so I was pretty late. I taught year 5 for the morning then year 6 in the afternoon (although I was only told year 5 so at lunch when the year 6 teacher sat down and started explaining the afternoon to me, I was really confused). It was a really cool day though. It was the school's "Book Week" and this day was the whole school's "Book Day". So each year was reading a different book and was writing their own sequel or book in a series, and the areas around each year was decked out fully based on their book. I got to the year 5 class and had to walk through the wardrobe doorway to enter Narnia. They were writing their book in the series, then we went to an assembly that the kids got to choose from about 10+ books and scatter around the school to listen to a teacher read it and then do an activity based on it. It was really cool because you had all ages with each group. After recess they just continued working on their story. After lunch with the year 6 group they were making their book covers, then we buddy read with a year 3 class, then had another assembly to talk about how great books are, and then the day ended. It was a lot of fun.
We worked out for about 2 hours after school this day...longest workout we've done since being here. It was great.
Friday-Sam taught English at the all boys high school and I taught year 3 at a primary school in the same area, so we got to bus together most of the way to school. It was a long day for both of us. High school is exhausting no matter what and the year 3 class I had is just so crazy and loud it's tough just trying to get through a whole lesson.
We had our usual pizza and a movie Friday night.
Saturday we started off with laundry, like usual. We had a bit of a later start but headed up to Oxford Circus with Brianne and Mary and did a bunch of wandering/looking in shops.
After dinner we said good-bye and made our trek home.
Sunday we finished our laundry and then headed up into Oxford Circus again to meet up with Jenna, who is another UVic Education grad and was here for a week. We had lunch at the awesome burger place we found with the girls after our induction day with Engage. They really are great burgers. We ended up sitting and chatting for a long time. She's considering moving over here, possibly to teach, and we told stories and told her about life here and just really had a good catch-up. When we were talking she said she hadn't been to Primark yet so we had to take her there to wander around a bit, then she ended up coming back to our place for dinner and just a bit more time to chat. We did a quick grocery shop on our way home and ended up walking from there. We had a great visit, but were idiots because we didn't get a single picture with her :(
She really made us living here feel real. She just kept saying "I can't believe you girls are living in London" and things like that and to be honest, sometimes we just kind of forget, especially during the week. We just get so into our routine of work, gym/swimming, household chores, grocery shopping that it doesn't really feel different than home. We do try to go into London on the weekends and do touristy things so that we do remember where we are, but having someone from home come here and remind us and think it's so cool and exciting, it just really made it real.
Also, going through all the things that are funny/strange/different here in schools and just life in general, and little tips that we've picked up or been told about really made us realize how much we've learned in such a short time. So we'll probably do a blog post about that at some point.
We are truly lucky to be able to be doing what we're doing. It's such a great experience and even on bad days, we just remember where we are.
Also, we only have 4 days left until our 2 week break!!! We've started planning stuff we're going to do and you're going to be so jealous when you read our blog posts during that time :) Let's remix this business!
Thanks for reading!
We out.
Sam and Lisa
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