School News

Hi everyone,

 "...some school news"

 We're well underway and now at last we can say that the dust has settled.  We're into our 4th week of teaching.  Kate, seems to have the library under control.  There's been a lot of reorganising to do and tossing out of old materials.  The next job is to order $2000 worth of books.  I'm really enjoying the Math teaching and feel I have a handle on it.  The students are fun to teach.  They are mostly quite receptive and like to have a laugh. Some interesting features of this school.

·                     Student elections:  students running for Student Council are video-taped and their speeches are piped into the classroom TV's installed in each room.

·                     The librarian, (Kate) records any TV programs required by the staff and these are then piped to the relevant classrooms, including Channel 1 news programs.  Channel 1 over-rides any TV programs currently being watched in individual classrooms.

·                     News flashes are piped to the classrooms via the telephone, which is audible to the class.

·                     Daily bulletins are sent to the classrooms to be read out in period 3.

·                     Class attendance is done on your classroom computer in the first 10 minutes of each class.  If a student is "tardy" this is marked with a “T” and the student is automatically put on a half hour detention after school.  This seldom happens.  Skipped classes is an automatic detention after school.

·                     All students have a passport diary to record homework etc.  This is also used to sign if a student leaves to go to the washroom (time out - time in).

·                     Classroom marks are put in for each test on your classroom computer.  This automatically grades the students as A+ ,  B-, etc and is relayed to the office straight away for their records.   It progressively upgrades. The computer lists also generate parents phone numbers, year levels etc.

·                     Lots of teachers, janitors and admin staff have “walkie talkies” and the office seems more like a base for truckies calling in at times

·                     All the staff are required to do extra-curricula activities such as coaching etc.  Kate and I are responsible for Student of the Week and Student of the Month.  This involves teachers nominating students.  Their pictures are put up on a display board. They receive an award and a badge.  Their pictures are displayed on the school web page.  I’m also involved in music tuition for two hours a week.

·                     The whole school is really a well oiled machine.  Everything is governed by the clock to the minute.  You have to bolt your lunch down – you’ve got 23 minutes.  There is a 5 minute break between periods. The first warning bell goes at 8:14, the second warning bell at 8:17 and the third at 8:20.  That is the start of the first period.  If you come in at 8:21 you are deemed to be “tardy” and so a half hour detention after school.

·                     Today we had some students visiting us from Chicago.  I spoke to one girl - Ryan.  She was a Senior (grade 12).  She said they had 700 grade 12’s in her school and 2800 students in grade 9 – 12.  They had a full time police officer at the school – like most large schools.  She said there wasn’t too much trouble at her school.