"Play is a child's work."

As I've been observing the past couple of weeks in my new school, you can imagine that I've taken LOTS of notes and jotted down tons of questions and things. I thought that today I'd just share some random bits & bobs about everything that I have found to be interesting compared to what I'm used to. Before I do that, I forgot to mention something yesterday in my post all about driving. My US license will be good here for up to one year upon arriving in the country. After that, I will need to have my UK license in order to drive, which I'll need to take a driving test to receive. My plan is to take the test sooner rather than later because our insurance rates are also quite pricey at the moment since I only have a US license. I was considering taking a driving lesson or two for practise to see if that might help. I figure a driving instructor might help prepare me specifically for the road test. We'll see what happens! 

Moving on...here goes some interesting things about my new school! :)

*The first day of school for teachers is on Thursday September 3rd. Our school calendar is similar to what we would call year round schooling. I think I'm going to really like it. We have 3 terms: autumn, spring, and summer. We have a week off every half term and then 2 weeks for Christmas, 2 weeks for Easter, and 6 weeks for summer. Here is what our school calendar looks like. It drives me CRAZY as OCD as I am that it goes up and down instead of like a regular calendar, however, I'll deal! :)

*For the most part, the entire school follows the same basic schedule. Everyone teaches phonics at the same time. This allows children to move to different groups in different grades (if necessary) based upon their needs. We had a lot of children in Reception that went to groups with Year 1 (Kindergarten) classes. We even had some children that were in Year 1 or 2 come and join groups in Reception classes because they were pretty low since they had just moved here or because of language barriers. It really targets student needs. It seems to be pretty effective and the teachers seem to really like the program from what I've seen. Phonics is always taught in a small group setting, even at the start of the year! The teachers taught the higher and lower groups while the TA's taught more of the middle of the road kids. It was really interesting! The phonics program incorporates reading, phonics, and writing. They use readers known as "ditty" books. You can believe that I wrote the word "ditty" with about 80 question marks after it!! I guess we had our sunshine books and they have "ditty" books. 

*Uniforms. All the students wear them. From what I understand, it's up to the teacher to really enforce that and encourage students to follow the uniform policy. Currently, it seems that it's pretty laid back but I think with new head people coming in next year, it will probably be a bit more strict. Teacher dress is same as usual for me (thankfully!). 

*School starts at 8:50. Students are not allowed to enter through the gate until 8:40. In that 10 minute time period, parents are allowed to bring students into the room. I was afraid that parents would linger and want to talk to the teacher constantly but it's actually quite a smooth process. Students have been taught responsibility about unpacking and getting work started and parents really seem to respect that. It's impressive to have 60 students and parents all arrive within a 10 minute time period!!  I haven't seen the dismissal process yet but I will be there today for that. From what I know, it's basically the same as in the morning. All parents come for pick up and I will just need to make sure I know the parents really well. Anything is easier that having different car lots, different walker lots, zillions of buses, and tons of daycare options! :)

*In reception we can have up to 30 students each. Right now for next year we each have about 26. Each teacher has a teaching assistant. The TA's rotate from teacher to teacher every half term. This helps them get to know all the students a bit better since all of the classes interact with one another so much. I think that it is a great idea to rotate the TA's!!

*PLAY! There is so much learning through play going on. It's wonderful!! I am so glad to be working on a team with other teachers that truly understand the value of play for young children. 

*There is no snack time for students but we do have "fruit circle" every morning. The school provides fruits for students between 10-10:30. For the first 15 minutes, the TA helps students get fruit and water while the teacher goes to "have a coffee" in the staff room (totally unheard of!). The TA gets her "coffee" for the last 15 minutes while the teacher cleans up and sings a few songs. It's bizarre and I can't say that it's something I even feel comfortable with. Time is precious. I think my plan is to use it more as a quick bathroom break for myself and then hopefully add a read aloud somewhere in there since 30 minutes is a lot of time!! I'm told that it's not like this at all UK schools and with new head people next year it may not stay this way. Needless to say, I was in shock!! :)

*Lunch lasts 1 hour because it includes recess. Teachers take the students to the cafeteria, maybe get them settled and then they generally leave for their own lunch. TA's stay with students throughout lunch and recess. I think some teachers stay once a week or something but again, this might change next year. I like that we don't have to serve the lunch but I do like sitting with my kids and talking with them during this time. A break is nice once in awhile and this will be the only real "planning" time, too, since there are no "specials" for Reception classes. We will have PE several times a week but we are the ones that teach it! Art and music are incorporated into our day and I think we take the kids to the library once a week. There is no one in the library though, each teacher is in charge of it whenever they go. 

*There is no word wall. I'm struggling with this and I am going to try to see if I can add something like it to our space. The kids know high frequency words really well BUT I'd like them to be displayed somewhere if I can!

*I need to start working on my British words and phrases of praise for children. The two things I really need to say more are "brilliant" and "well done." The kids looked at me funny when I said "good job" or "nice work." I was told that I sound like I'm from the Ned show. I don't know what that is but it's apparently something "American." They have this cute thing were they say "1, 2, 3, well done me!" They do fairy claps, and super sitting, and other cute things, too. I love learning new words and phrases like this!

*Everything I thought I knew about handwriting is now incorrect. Instead of straight lines and circles to make letters, our letters are written in d'nelian print. I guess the letters are written curlier to help lead into cursive writing. There are talks that we may even have to teach children how to connect the letters next year in Reception!! For those of you that know me, you know I like cute fonts. Most things in the current Reception rooms are in this style font or comic sans, neither of which are cute. I have no words for comic sans. It's one of my biggest pet peeves and I have no idea why. I have a thing for cute fonts and I plan on introducing this to my new team ASAP! :)

*There is no homework in Reception. We just encourage parents to read often at home. We do a family project type thing once every term. Newsletters are a team thing. We will all send exactly the same thing home every Friday. All I can say is that from what I saw (comic sans), I'd really like to "cutesy" them up a bit with some clip art and different fonts, however, we'll see what happens. I don't want to step on toes!

*There is a school discipline plan, however, it's probably going to change with new head people next year so there isn't really much to say about that. From what I have seen, I am really impressed with the overall behaviours of the students. It's just different. They are more respectful and really more well-behaved. I don't know what it is. We had an assembly last week and students in all grade levels entered in complete silence. Not a whisper, no talking, no laughing, no nothing. They just did what they were told to do. Students definitely have a different level of respect for teachers than what I'm used to. I'm not saying they are all angels, however, you can tell that it's different.

*I don't know what I thought schools were going to be like here. I thought every aspect of everything was going to be completely unknown to me. In the staff room I overheard some "teacher drama" and I then realised that some things are just in the nature of a teacher. 

*Every class has a drama queen and/or king. Every year, no matter what. The class I've been in the most has the best Drama Queen of all times because she a British accent. :)

*We have a new school wide assessment starting next year. I'm glad it will be new to everyone. The other Reception teachers have already been to the training. I am signed up to go before school starts in September. The best part of the training is that I get to go in to London for it! How cool is that?? I just love that it's London!!

*I love children's literature. During a planning meeting for next year, I realised that these teachers do not know most American authors. They know Eric Carle and that's about it. I asked about Pete the Cat, David Shannon, Cynthia Rylant...they had no clue. WHOA. 

That last point leads to me to talk about all of my teacher "stuff." It is all in storage in  Myrtle Beach. Haydn and I looked at several options of getting all my things here. A shipping company would have cost a fortune and we don't really have room here for all of my things any way. All I brought with me is pretty much my clothes. We each had 2 free bags checked luggage and it cost us each $100 extra to bring a 3rd bag. Basically we had 6 bags. One was full of Haydn's things and the other 5 were stuffed full of my clothes. All bags were just at the 50 lb. mark, too! I didn't bring anything school related because I didn't know what I would need. I didn't know anything about my school or resources that might be available. Now that I've spent time there and we've mapped out a plan for all of next year, I can see exactly what I'll need. Mostly books and a few other things, too. I was originally going to ask my family to dig through all my stuff in storage and ship it to me. Books are heavy. That would cost us a lot. I then thought that maybe I could just re-buy what I needed. A calendar pocket chart is completely unheard of over here and it would cost about $100 to buy one and have it shipped here via Amazon! That's crazy!

We've decided that the cost of shipping things or re-buying things would cost us the equivalent of a couple of plan tickets to go home and get all the stuff I already own. SO...we booked some tickets and we'll be in Myrtle Beach from August 18th-24th. I can't wait!! Not only will having my specific school things that I want make me feel more comfortable starting the year, BUT I will get to have a proper goodbye with my family and hopefully see friends that I didn't get to see since everything was so rushed last minute. I know that HCS probably starts school around that time so hopefully I can stop by to say hi! We'll see how emotional I am!! :)

The last thing for today is to give everyone an update on Haydn's mum. So many have asked and we truly appreciate the thoughts and concern. We've been going every weekend to visit her. She is still in hospital and will be there for an unknown amount of time. Overall, she is making progress. It's a slow recovery but it's been positive so far. She can now eat pureed food by mouth which means her swallow reflex is coming back. It's a bit easier to understand her when she talks and she can almost sit up by herself. The goal they are working on with her is to be able to stand. We don't know if she will ever be able to walk again but you never know. We are just taking it one day at a time! Thank you all again for your continued thoughts and prayers!