People...

Life is a funny thing, everything is going so well, you think everything is sorted and ok. Your enjoying yourself with extra stuff at work, although the main bit is a little repetitive, but not bad. Your love life is good, or so you think. Then smack. One thing after another shatters your little safe and predictable world. Hind sight is such an annoying thing. Looking back life was stagnant, stuck in a rut, mistakes made, caught in things that didn’t matter, not talking about the things that did matter. This leads me to the point of my ranting, People. Life should always be about people and relationships. So much other stuff just gets in the way, we forget to take time out for the people who really truly matter to us. Taking to many important things (like love & honesty) for granted...

Now I find myself in a completely different place and feeling freed from so much stuff that didn’t matter and without the one thing on this earth that truly did matter. Still lots of new friends and good times to be had. Hind sight... Why don’t people say things when it is happening, not when it is already done and past. Be open and honest in all you do. You need people. I miss you my good friends... 

You all right???

"You all right?" to start with I thought I must look like I'm not alright, till I realised it just what people say around here instead of "how are you?". To me though it has seems to make the assumption that your not... and you clearly need some help. Maybe it is just me?

Settling in well to the school here. The teaching is better now that i'm past revision lessons for stuff i didn't teach them. Got to use the Van de Graaff yesterday, the MAGS one is better, which clearly means i'll have to come back at some point as I can't live with a sub par Van de Graaff. I did tinker with it though and it did a bit better. Lit bunsen buirners etc... it's like magic for the 11 general science class. Sadly i didn't get observed during that lesson, or the great one today with my 11 physics class. Oh well, I live to be watched another day. I have a bunch of ideas from what they do here that could be used at MAGS, i'll send some stuff soon.

Photos: 1. Wellington Arch in London (just like the statue). 2. The NZ war mamorial in Wellington Park. 3. Mum and Dad with Harrods behind them (was covered in scfolding last time i saw it), 4. The Horse....

Highlights this week... I meet a Horse...  Went to London on Saturday, was ment to be for a course, but that never happened, which was ok cause it meant i got to spend more time with my Family (Mum, Dad, Amanda and her 2 children Matthew and Kathryn), was a great day. I have some video from it, but haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet. Sunday was relaxing, church and general shopping in MKcentral. This weeks teaching has been pretty standard, except the ALD where we took the Y11 for the day and made Horror film trailers. Was a fantastic day, except for the ussual technology issues at the end of the day when editing and saving things.
Go to http://www.waltonhigh.org.uk/ there is a story on the front page and
http://www.waltonhigh.org.uk/images/horror/horror-video.htm to see the winning trailer from the day, it is pretty good for a days work.
Have been out several times with some of the staff here, they are a nice bunch.

Most things seem to be going very well.
God bless you my friends.

Half way to term break... settling in...

Well another few weeks have passed in Milton Keynes, they seem to have flown by, but I fell progress has been made to settle in both at school and the city. Only 3 weeks till mid term break so I'm considering where I should travel to. I have been making an effort to get out and meet people.

School wise most exams are over, snow days seem to be behind us for now. So i’ve been able to start teaching new topics, which is helping to settle my classes and the teaching is easier than motivating students in revision (like my first 2 weeks).  Really looking forward to next Tuesday which is a ALD (Alternative learning day), on this day the science department is running a day where all the Y11’s will be split into groups of about 10 and will spend the day making a horror film trailer.  I hope I’ll be able to upload my groups trailer (with their permission) after the day. We have worked out how to make realistic fake blood and wounds. :D

The city...  I’ve posted a couple of video’s on youtube (& facebook) of the city. Learning my way around the area more and more.

I’ve been out with some of the teachers here. There is a social group who go to the nearby pub on Fridays. Nice to get to know people more outside of work. I have also found a local church (MKCC) and more importantly a small group who get together weekly, they are a great bunch of people (with excellent humour) who are more interested in sharing and enjoying the time together than following any set program or plan. There are also a few teachers in that group from other schools. I’m also discovering how multicultural Milton Keynes is, most of the population has moved here from elsewhere, very few people are “native” Milton Keyneians, one of my flat mates was actually born here though, only person I have met so far who is “native”.

Things i’ve learned...

Seize the moment. Sometimes we have the best intensions to do things but never do them. Actions are far more important that intensions. If something seems like a good idea or you know you should do it, then just do it. Do not get stuck saying “When this happens then i’ll do it” for example “When I have a desk in my room then i’ll do some school work” or “Once things settled down at work then I’ll spend more time with the family”. If you are passionate about something then get into it and do it. And certainly there are more important things than that like friends and family. Life is short, grab hold of the now and do what is good, don’t put it off.

Best intensions don’t mean a thing unless you act on them. Live in the moment and enjoy what you are doing everyday as life is short.

For all my teaching peeps!!!

Just thought i'd fill you in on what i've figured out with teaching here & what it is like for me.

This is how it goes...
The school works on a 2 week time table (Much like Mt Albert, way back when I was just a young thing, Tehehe), 6 periods a day, although monday and friday have 5 with the fifth being a tutor class for an hour (Form Group) in which they do stuff like health etc... Wednesday 5&6 is an elective short course, anything really from chess playing (For Scoll-dog) to creating a Doctor Who monster, teachers seem to get randomly assigned to these, unless you put your hand up to take something in particular.

I have 10 different classes on my time table to teach. Really i only teach 8, 2 are support (I go support another teacher in their class). So I have 2 x Y13 Phys doing A2 level, 2 x Y12 Phys doing AS level, 2 x Y11 Phys doing GCSE (one doing triple science (more science like doing phys, chem & bio seperate) and on double (doing a more general science course)), 3 x Y10 Science (2 of these are support ones) and 1 Y8 science (School starts at this level i think?). Seems a lot, but My year 13 classes have 6 and 8 students in them, my Y12 have 11 students each i think (haven't seen them all yet because of snow days). Y11 classes are about 25 so a bit more normal.

The Y12's and 13's are in the 16+ unit which runs along side the school, they do courses there a bit like uni work and come across to the normal school to do classes when it fits the teachers time tables.

This is the kind of cool bit, I see most class 2-3 times a week, this isn't all the science they get, they are with other science teachers for another set of periods, each teacher doing their own topics, usually their speciality subject. Even my Y13 physics class has 2 physics teachers, we teach different topics within physics each. Seems an excellent idea to me for general science at least, can't see the point so much for physics only senior course.

Seems we have 5 technicians to a teaching staff of 10 ish as best as i have been able to count so far. Orders must be done a week in advance, but they will come and set things up etc...

Relief is simple, they have a massive independent learning room with about 200 computers in it, you set a research task or something along those lines and they go and do it, so as a teacher you never have to do relief and their are no relievers in the school, just permanent staff in the room. You can also book out some computers for a class if you want. The science department also has a small room with about 15 computers in it.

All staff computers are portals, ie; your "personal desktop" is stored on the server, you can pull that up onto any machine around the school with all your work, email and student management thingy. You can also pull it up at home, haven't tried that yet as i only just got my new laptop.

That's about all i can think of for now, sorry to all my non-teaching peeps, probably wasn't that interesting...

Snow...

So much snow. I'm sure the locals find it more annoying than i do. I love it. The snow is awesome. It doesn't even feel that cold and it is still pretty easy to get around.
Anyway...  ~Rewind~

New years.
Went into London for the New Year. Had kind of intended to watch the fireworks, ended up meeting a friend and going a random London flat and celebrating the new year with a nice group of Brits, Kiwis and a few Aussies. Watched the fireworks on TV, oh the irony. I did wonder into the center of London later and the aftermath was amazing so in someways i'm glad i wasn't in it.

Sunday 3rd.
Arrived in Milton Keynes. Looked at some flats, choose one i thought would be ok, but someone beat me to it and put a deposit down before i confirmed my interest. Was ok with that though as i wasn't 100% sure about it.

Monday 4th - Teaching day 1.
Arrived at school with no idea what and when i was teaching. Turned out i had just one class around mid-day. Also turned out to be what will probably be my most difficult group. So a disorganised start wasn't the best with them. I will sort them out in time. Had 3 meetings afterschool so didn't get away till 6pm, also didn't get to look at flats.

Tuesday 5th - Day 2 teaching.
Better prepared today, i knew what was coming and what i needed to teach. What i didn't expect was to be hugged... the students of my first class (Y11 GCSE Physics) were so happy to see a new physics teacher that one of the boys appolagized and then hugged me, another girl made me pinky swear that i was there new teacher for the rest of their year. The next class (Y12 GCSE Physics) were just as happy to see me and i was beginning to figure out what was going on. The difficulty is that the teacher who wasn't coping teaching them physics is still at the school as has been helping me take over from her, so it is a little awquard. Anyway. Both classes went really well and the students seem great, so pretty happy about that.
Went flat hunting after work, saw about 4 places, 1 was great, huge room, just a little expensive and a long way to travel to school by bus. So will wait till i see the rest i'm interested in tomorrow.

Wednesday 6th - SNOW DAY!!!!!!!

Massive snow fall over night has closed the school (first sweet thing of the day). So went down to reception to check out local transport etc & chatted to the nice brittish girl. Asked her for a 30 min internet card, she didn't have any so she just gave me a 60  in one and didn't bother to charge it to my room (second sweet thing of the day). Spent some time looking at the flat listings and made a list of about 7 places to check out. Rank the first 3-4 with no luck, the next one though was home and was not to far to walk, so i set out. Wondered through the glorious snow (Photo's will follow when i can load them). The flat turned out to be excellent, good size living space + a double bedroom with an en suite and close enough to work, so i signed the dotted line (sweet thing 3).

So awesome to have a flat and a good one at that. Thank God for the snow day and the time it gave me to find it.
Made my way slowly home after that with a little shopping, made a snow angel and a little snow man, just for kicks (sweet things 4-5).
Got back to the hotel and got the new my bank account was ready (sweet thing 6) & that my new laptop will be arriving Friday (sweet thing 7). Went down to use the hotel internet again, discovered one of the machines was frozen, so rebooted it as you do, when it came on it had 55 minutes of internet on it, so more free internet (sweet thing 8).
All up it was a fantastic day, full of blessings. Not sure what i did to deserve it, but you take what you get.

Today - Thursday.
School is closed again, dangerous conditions of the grounds apparently. This does give me all the time I need to move to the flat etc... So i've checked out. Goodbye Hilton I so enjoyed the bacon and eggs each morning, you will be missed. About to head to my flat now.

Tomorrow i'll travel accross to Birmingham to pick up a little stuff i left there + my computer and camcorder.

Much love to you all, God bless.