Blog 5: Time is flying and I’m still moaning 🙈!

Almost at the end of week two, so almost half way through this experience and I’m feeling panicky that I’m not getting enough out of the teaching but it’s exhausting due to what I can only describe as a bizarre timetable.  I have to speak to my headteacher but after the weekend and then an additional 2 days off for the carnival, plus us both working across both buildings (primary and secondary) I only see her fleetingly in the hallways with hoards of kids around us so I can’t really ask her anything and we just say hello.  Tomorrow I am going to track her down and chat with her - if you’re reading this you are a witness to me committing to doing this so I’ll now have to be assertive, even though I dread doing that 😩.  I know I need to have a chat with her though because I’m struggling to plan anything in advance - I’m not getting much in the way of guidance from my many teachers or even any course books (even if I have 2 of the course books, I don’t know what they are doing / what stage they are at in the books).  I don’t really have an idea what topics, lessons or activities they want me to plan from one day to the next.  

I have 4 different teachers in Primary and 2 different teachers in secondary.  On Monday’s, I have 4 different English lessons with the same teacher but the first Monday I was like a zombie from arriving so late the night before and only getting to bed at 2.30am for an 8.30 start that she sent me home early and last Monday was the carnival.  So I haven’t really seen her that much.  Lots of my secondary students have been on school trips last week and this week, including one of my teachers who I’ve not taught with yet, and in my final week the upper secondary will have exams so all the lessons are affected by these things.  I only see each class once or twice a week and in primary, some of those lessons are only half an hour so it’s hard to build a decent rapport with the students in terms of their learning although they are very sweet with me in the corridors calling Hello Lauren all the time.  

Some classes have been only 15 minutes as the timetable timings for Primary and Secondary are completely different so I am going from one to the other as the lessons cross over.  It would be better to have Tuesdays and Thursday all in the secondary and the rest in Primary or only one day a week with a mixture between the 2 buildings and timetables because it feels like chaos to me.  The permanent (Spanish) teachers in the school either teach primary or secondary so the difference in timetables doesn’t affect anyone else. 

In the Primary school I have 9 PE and Arts lessons a week and, although these are all mostly conducted in English, the teachers only tell me at the start of each lesson / during the lesson what they are doing that day so I don’t have time to prepare anything, so I feel more like a teaching assistant.  The other 8 lessons in Primary are English but I’ve missed 4 of those a week from them being on Mondays but I feel I could plan something for these with that teacher as she’s my main teacher in primary, I just haven’t seen that much of her.  

My body feels exhausted from all the travelling around and my brain feels frazzled and not from being challenged with the teaching or planning-wise but from trying to figure all this out.  I still feel aggrieved about the almost 3 hour breaks I have each day just for an hour lesson 4-5 at the end of the day.  On Monday’s and Friday’s it’s lessons 3.30 until 5.  I sometimes travel back to the residence to get food and then trek back to school - this takes an hour of my break.  I don’t feel it’s a good use of my time travelling back and forth but equally I feel like a lonely nomad in town for 3 hours paying for food and coffees just to use WIFI.  It’s hard to get a routine with this 3 hour break and it’s really affecting me negatively.  I’m tired of moaning to the rest of the group (and I’m sure they’re tired of me) so now I’m moaning here 🙈.  

I am pledging on this blog to have a conversation with the head teacher tomorrow that I know I won’t find easy so that I feel forced to actually do it, otherwise I’ll just end up smiling politely and trying to accommodate this ‘chaos’ for the next 2 weeks but then regretting it once I’m back in England.  I’ll keep you posted… if you can bear to read another of my blogs after this!! 😬

To try to lighten the tone of this blog I have included a photo of me teaching the song "the wheels on the bus" to my infant class... they were pretty cute I have to say!  They loved the "swish swish swish"!!

L.  X