Well, it’s been a pretty good end to my week over her e in foggy (and rainy and cold and windy) London-town. As I mentioned previously I was booked to finish off the entire week at Henry Compton School. It’s fantastic that I ended up getting a full five days worth of work but it was definitely a long week. Not having been used to working every day in the week it got to the point where I was starting to feel really exhausted and worn out but I’m starting to really develop a good routine to make sure that I’m getting myself unwound at the end of the day and making sure to take the time to do something enjoyable every night (be it watching t.v., a bit of a movie, reading, etc.) in order to have some time to myself and relax. It definitely paid dividends because I felt great at the end of the week and into a nice week-end.
On Wednesday I was covering for a Geography and History teacher who also teaches some Public Services courses. Public Services are GCSE courses that show students the world of working in areas such as the military that work in the public sector. I had about three Geography classes that had to work on a crossword and the two PS classes needed to complete some worksheets. The teacher also left me a DVD with some Discovery Channel documentaries on it so I threw those on while the students were working. For the most part the classes were not too bad. I had some disruptive students here and there but generally not that bad. The worst ones I ended up having to have taken out of the classroom because they were just getting too out of control.
Thursday I was covering a Science teacher in the school. I had already met this teacher previously and it was nice that she remembered me when I saw her that day. She was proctoring GCSE exams for Year 10 students so she couldn’t be in her classroom that day. Luckily the Year 8 class I had first lesson were being taught by a student teacher, I just needed to remain in the classroom and make sure they listened and help them with the work. I had a Year 10 class after that who were doing revision for their exams that day so I just let them get on with it. No lesson 3 class (it’s nice having spares every now and then) and lesson 4 was a Year 8 class. This particular class was very bottom set and the students have a lot of special needs. The class itself was only comprised of 6 students but it seemed almost like 60 as soon as they walked into the door. Their regular teacher can usually handle them fairly well but as soon as they saw me instead they started (literally) running around the school. I eventually got them into the class and settled and luckily the teacher ended up checking in half way through the lesson and sticking around to help me out. I had never really experienced any class like that before so it was nice to see what sorts of tactics she used to get them under control. The lesson 5 class was a Year 9 Design Technology class. They were apparently supposed to have been using soldering irons that day to continue on a task but the teacher left me a different design task for them to do. They were upset about that and very vocal about it so they ended up not really working at all. I had to have four of them removed from the class just because they were doing really stupid things and being extremely rude to me which is obviously not tolerable in a classroom.
Friday ended up being a great day to finish off the week. I was covering a different Science teacher this day because he has been having some kidney issues and needed to go in for a check-up. I had one Year 10 class for two consecutive lessons and one Year 9 class for two consecutive lessons. They were both very good classes that ended up completing their worksheets no problem so I gave them some free time to work on other things or chat quietly (it was Friday after all). With no lesson 5 class I ended up getting a jumpstart on my week-end at 2:00!!
The week-end itself ended up being really nice. I started out Friday night by heading to the Tup with Nate for a TGIF pint and ended up getting dinner there as well. The rest of the night we just stayed in and watched some TV and had a couple drinks. After a long week it was nice to just stay in and relax after such a long week of work. Saturday ended being a really long but fun day. I got some errands accomplished early in the morning and then headed into the city for 11:00am for the Lord Mayor’s Parade. The Lord Mayor of London is an ambassador position that is annually bestowed on a member of the London City Council and has been since the time of King John. This particular Lord Mayor is the 682nd in the history of the city. The parade itself was pretty cool with a lot of marching bands and different floats from community organizations. It was a pretty big military parade as well with all kinds of tanks, jeeps, and trucks combined with soldiers from all different branches of the armed forces. It was a really cool parade to watch and it definitely made me miss Queen’s Bands A LOT!! It got me into thinking that the Toronto Santa Claus parade is coming up a week from today and how much fun it’s going to be! Oh well….I had my time! After the parade I went around to some places to get some shopping of the Christmas variety done. I don’t have much more to do and am actually really happy that I have as much done as I have! I’ve even bought wrapping paper and cards and everything! I just need to get it all together so I can get them sent off across the ocean which I assume will take a little while. The sooner the better! That evening I ended up meeting with some people that I had met a couple weeks previously at the Halloween party. They are teachers as well, working in Surrey, and one of them is from Sarnia! Which I thought was quite bizarre at the time so we naturally started talking about that coincidence. Another also went to Queen’s last year for teacher’s college! She was in P/J mind you but still rather bizarre! We met up to watch the Lord Mayor’s Show of fireworks on the Thames and then went out to a couple of pubs and to see the Christmas lights on Oxford, Regent, and Carnaby Streets. A really long day but really nice at the same time, worth it that’s for sure!
Today I haven’t been doing too much…just unwinding again. I read the paper, did some grocery shopping (bought an advent calendar and mince meat pies!!!) and now I just need to get my room cleaned up and dinner on the go!
Not too much else to report on. I’m booked for Monday and Tuesday already this week. It’s unfortunately at Bishopsford (my arch-enemy school) BUT it’s work and at the end of the day that’s what matters. Plus, there’s only 25 school left until Christmas break and with 2 of those already covered that’s not too shabby! Other than that…
Cheers, Love, Rock The World!
Erik
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