Where to start this week? Celebrations seems a good place.
I’ve survived my first Irtiqaa inspection. Irtiqaa means flying higher and is the organisation that is responsible for inspecting schools and reporting on them. Similar to ERO back in NZ. However, these people are flown in, mostly from the UK, so haven’t worked in this system so how they can come for 4 days then tell you that you are ‘unsatisfactory’ I don’t know. I’m sure they are being paid huge money to do so and the head man seemed to get a great deal of ‘satisfaction’ from telling us this.
The team consisted of four members, 3 men & 1 woman. Most were ex Principals, one from Jordan so he could speak Arabic and gave a more real context to the experience.
As a newbie, I wasn’t spoken to at all which is interesting as I’d already formed opinions about the school and the administration that I am now a part of. The only time I saw them was when the head man came to my office to ‘inform’ me that there was a Grade 1 class downstairs without a teacher. I’d just come from teaching 3 periods with Grade 5 followed by lunch duty and had only sat down but said nothing and just got up and headed off. The manner in which the message was delivered was condescending and rude.
But in his school... etc, etc, etc.
Enough said. It’s over and now the real journey begins. Will the systems hurriedly put in place after the pre-inspection continue or were they just there for show?
The other interesting fact is that we are still understaffed by 2.5 teachers. So it’s very hard to showcase your school when there aren’t enough teachers. Also 3 new teachers started the day the inspection began so it’s difficult for them as they didn’t know the names of their students and we were told by the head honcho that he wanted to see ‘wow’ lessons.
And to top it all off, during the final briefing we were inundated with Head Office staff visiting our school to inform us that we are receiving up to 200 new students on Sunday! Fantastic. Already we don’t have enough teachers and now we’re getting new students? Also we don’t have enough empty classrooms. Talk about chaos. Everyone shouting, talking, making phone calls... Oh well, that’s life here.
The reason for this sudden influx of students appears to be that a new school was built close by. A new ‘subdivision’ of large villas has gone up in the neighbouring ‘suburb’ but obviously no-one thought about the infrastructure required to service this development. If you build 7 bedroom villas you will attract families with the average 8 children. All those children have to go to KG & school somewhere. But there are no schools. So they have been building lots of fabulous new schools. Quite something really. But many of them are not ready yet.
So this new one in the neighbouring suburb is open but no-one monitored the enrolment process so it was grossly over subscribed. Also parents liked the sound of a new school so just took their kids their. But on the flip side those who are within the zone didn’t like it as it is co-ed, a new initiative here, and many don’t want their girls to be with boys so took them out and brought them to us.
I often chuckle to myself when things happen here as to how one Principal I know well would be turning in his grave (it’d be enough to put him there) at how things are done here. Parents often just rock up to the classroom with their kids and leave them. Because the school has no systems in place the teachers don’t know what to do, especially the new ones so they get the most ‘new’ students arriving, and the class numbers grow.
Then I get parents arriving demanding text books for their girls (the books are a big thing here) when they are not even at our school. So they want the best of both worlds. And the worst thing is that these parents get away with it most of the time.
Systems and communication are sadly lacking in this country, especially in my new school.
Anyway back to the new subdivision and lack of schools. So it seems that the new school is under-resourced, under-staffed, and over-subscribed with students. So parents have begun to complain to the ‘organisation’ we work for. When nothing happened they began to complain to their bosses. Now it so happens that many of these families have ‘wasta’ or know or work for people with ‘wasta’ such as the Sheikh or the Crown Prince. So now the ‘decree’ has gone out that we must have bums on seats (put much more eloquently than that). This would be wonderful if we had seats or teachers or any staff even to supervise these students. What about duty of care?
Consequently, we are receiving an influx of students who haven’t yet been to school this year, as I suppose some other schools in the area are. I’m sure next week will be hectic. I’m looking forward to being out of school on a HOF training day for one day anyway.
On another note entirely, it was the teenager’s 18th birthday last night. How’s that for timing, I have one son turning 18 now and another turning 21 in February? Both big birthdays within our culture.
So a ‘gathering’ was duly organised. I opted for the traditional shared kai while the teenager opted for the younger version of a piss-up. Now this presents some issues in a culture where drinking is not the norm and the legal age is 21. However, I now have a legal liquor licence, which I’ve never been asked for since I got it, so a trip to the bottle store was in order. After finding some nice Marlborough wine and stocking up on beers and some interesting choices for the teenager we were set for a good night in.
I’d cooked the now becoming famous butter chicken and ‘bought’, yes bought, a birthday cake from the supermarket downstairs. The teenager was shocked at this turn of events - never in 18 years had a cake been ‘bought’. It was almost a sin!
So a chilled glass of the most aromatic Matua sauvignon blanc in hand I sat down to enjoy some catch-up time with my Abu Dhabi whanau. Most of these people are from the group I came in with. It seems that you bond with a few and they become friends for life. Also my Kiwi friends from downstairs who we are blessed to know. So with three pregnant woman in the room I was the only one drinking which left plenty of the wine for me to enjoy.
I kept sniffing my wine, as any good wine drinker does, and the sharp aroma of gooseberries reminded me of many a similar evening at Richmond Street (and elsewhere). Of course, I’d chosen the label especially for the significance to some of us wine drinkers back home so you were on my mind as I savoured every drop. I’m sure many of you will be doing the same tonight (Friday) so have one for me and the boy. You know who you are!
Teenagers trickled in then became a river as more and more arrived. Some I knew well from frequent visits here and others I’d never met. Mr Popular indeed!
I enjoy the United Nations mixture of the ex-pat community here although the girls would never get in dressed as scantily as they were. As always I enjoyed talking to some of the kids about where they are from and what they will do next year after finishing school. Everyone here is so transient that you need to keep on making relationships as people come and go.
Most of the crowd disappeared into the bedroom while we ‘oldies’ sat in the lounge. Only the frequent visitors felt comfortable enough to wander into our domain. Several of the guys were fascinated by my friends Maori tats and kept returning to admire them, much to our amusement.
The icing on the cake for me was not the cake (which funnily enough wasn’t iced) was when the girls began singing happy birthday. Everyone joined in then I remember the cake! So we had an official cake cutting and 18 tea light candles to blow out. Luckily they weren’t on the cake as the candle wax sprayed all across the floor and several close spectators. So now I have a floor covered in red candle wax.
Then one of our kiwi friends made a nice impromptu speech then the guys did a haka. Now that was a bit emotional, as I always find it. The kids here were spellbound and huge applause broke out. Most had never seen anything like it so hopefully they will remember it. Then the discussion was all about what a Maori was, etc, etc. So doing our bit for race relations around the globe.
Throughout the evening there was only one time when I had to step in as some guy arrived who wasn’t invited. The teenager could have dealt with it but he was downstairs somewhere so I just asked him who he was and he said, “I’m leaving.” Now that would never happen in NZ. You’d have a whole group getting involved and things would heat up. But here he just left although he must have hung around downstairs as I saw him again later.
Also if I asked for the music to be turned down, it happened immediately. They were all so easy to manage and I didn’t even have to throw them out. I’d spoken to the moany neighbour to inform her we were having a party and luckily she wasn’t going to be home. So that was no problem for once. Without any prompting from me the teenager had them all rounded up and out of here before midnight, some of them to home, others out clubbing.
One of my kiwi friends had stayed on to help as the bouncer if needed so we sat down to a much appreciated cup of green tea with honey and the sound of silence.
Another milestone passed.
I’ve survived my first Irtiqaa inspection. Irtiqaa means flying higher and is the organisation that is responsible for inspecting schools and reporting on them. Similar to ERO back in NZ. However, these people are flown in, mostly from the UK, so haven’t worked in this system so how they can come for 4 days then tell you that you are ‘unsatisfactory’ I don’t know. I’m sure they are being paid huge money to do so and the head man seemed to get a great deal of ‘satisfaction’ from telling us this.
The team consisted of four members, 3 men & 1 woman. Most were ex Principals, one from Jordan so he could speak Arabic and gave a more real context to the experience.
As a newbie, I wasn’t spoken to at all which is interesting as I’d already formed opinions about the school and the administration that I am now a part of. The only time I saw them was when the head man came to my office to ‘inform’ me that there was a Grade 1 class downstairs without a teacher. I’d just come from teaching 3 periods with Grade 5 followed by lunch duty and had only sat down but said nothing and just got up and headed off. The manner in which the message was delivered was condescending and rude.
But in his school... etc, etc, etc.
Enough said. It’s over and now the real journey begins. Will the systems hurriedly put in place after the pre-inspection continue or were they just there for show?
The other interesting fact is that we are still understaffed by 2.5 teachers. So it’s very hard to showcase your school when there aren’t enough teachers. Also 3 new teachers started the day the inspection began so it’s difficult for them as they didn’t know the names of their students and we were told by the head honcho that he wanted to see ‘wow’ lessons.
And to top it all off, during the final briefing we were inundated with Head Office staff visiting our school to inform us that we are receiving up to 200 new students on Sunday! Fantastic. Already we don’t have enough teachers and now we’re getting new students? Also we don’t have enough empty classrooms. Talk about chaos. Everyone shouting, talking, making phone calls... Oh well, that’s life here.
The reason for this sudden influx of students appears to be that a new school was built close by. A new ‘subdivision’ of large villas has gone up in the neighbouring ‘suburb’ but obviously no-one thought about the infrastructure required to service this development. If you build 7 bedroom villas you will attract families with the average 8 children. All those children have to go to KG & school somewhere. But there are no schools. So they have been building lots of fabulous new schools. Quite something really. But many of them are not ready yet.
So this new one in the neighbouring suburb is open but no-one monitored the enrolment process so it was grossly over subscribed. Also parents liked the sound of a new school so just took their kids their. But on the flip side those who are within the zone didn’t like it as it is co-ed, a new initiative here, and many don’t want their girls to be with boys so took them out and brought them to us.
I often chuckle to myself when things happen here as to how one Principal I know well would be turning in his grave (it’d be enough to put him there) at how things are done here. Parents often just rock up to the classroom with their kids and leave them. Because the school has no systems in place the teachers don’t know what to do, especially the new ones so they get the most ‘new’ students arriving, and the class numbers grow.
Then I get parents arriving demanding text books for their girls (the books are a big thing here) when they are not even at our school. So they want the best of both worlds. And the worst thing is that these parents get away with it most of the time.
Systems and communication are sadly lacking in this country, especially in my new school.
Anyway back to the new subdivision and lack of schools. So it seems that the new school is under-resourced, under-staffed, and over-subscribed with students. So parents have begun to complain to the ‘organisation’ we work for. When nothing happened they began to complain to their bosses. Now it so happens that many of these families have ‘wasta’ or know or work for people with ‘wasta’ such as the Sheikh or the Crown Prince. So now the ‘decree’ has gone out that we must have bums on seats (put much more eloquently than that). This would be wonderful if we had seats or teachers or any staff even to supervise these students. What about duty of care?
Consequently, we are receiving an influx of students who haven’t yet been to school this year, as I suppose some other schools in the area are. I’m sure next week will be hectic. I’m looking forward to being out of school on a HOF training day for one day anyway.
On another note entirely, it was the teenager’s 18th birthday last night. How’s that for timing, I have one son turning 18 now and another turning 21 in February? Both big birthdays within our culture.
So a ‘gathering’ was duly organised. I opted for the traditional shared kai while the teenager opted for the younger version of a piss-up. Now this presents some issues in a culture where drinking is not the norm and the legal age is 21. However, I now have a legal liquor licence, which I’ve never been asked for since I got it, so a trip to the bottle store was in order. After finding some nice Marlborough wine and stocking up on beers and some interesting choices for the teenager we were set for a good night in.
I’d cooked the now becoming famous butter chicken and ‘bought’, yes bought, a birthday cake from the supermarket downstairs. The teenager was shocked at this turn of events - never in 18 years had a cake been ‘bought’. It was almost a sin!
So a chilled glass of the most aromatic Matua sauvignon blanc in hand I sat down to enjoy some catch-up time with my Abu Dhabi whanau. Most of these people are from the group I came in with. It seems that you bond with a few and they become friends for life. Also my Kiwi friends from downstairs who we are blessed to know. So with three pregnant woman in the room I was the only one drinking which left plenty of the wine for me to enjoy.
I kept sniffing my wine, as any good wine drinker does, and the sharp aroma of gooseberries reminded me of many a similar evening at Richmond Street (and elsewhere). Of course, I’d chosen the label especially for the significance to some of us wine drinkers back home so you were on my mind as I savoured every drop. I’m sure many of you will be doing the same tonight (Friday) so have one for me and the boy. You know who you are!
Teenagers trickled in then became a river as more and more arrived. Some I knew well from frequent visits here and others I’d never met. Mr Popular indeed!
I enjoy the United Nations mixture of the ex-pat community here although the girls would never get in dressed as scantily as they were. As always I enjoyed talking to some of the kids about where they are from and what they will do next year after finishing school. Everyone here is so transient that you need to keep on making relationships as people come and go.
Most of the crowd disappeared into the bedroom while we ‘oldies’ sat in the lounge. Only the frequent visitors felt comfortable enough to wander into our domain. Several of the guys were fascinated by my friends Maori tats and kept returning to admire them, much to our amusement.
The icing on the cake for me was not the cake (which funnily enough wasn’t iced) was when the girls began singing happy birthday. Everyone joined in then I remember the cake! So we had an official cake cutting and 18 tea light candles to blow out. Luckily they weren’t on the cake as the candle wax sprayed all across the floor and several close spectators. So now I have a floor covered in red candle wax.
Then one of our kiwi friends made a nice impromptu speech then the guys did a haka. Now that was a bit emotional, as I always find it. The kids here were spellbound and huge applause broke out. Most had never seen anything like it so hopefully they will remember it. Then the discussion was all about what a Maori was, etc, etc. So doing our bit for race relations around the globe.
Throughout the evening there was only one time when I had to step in as some guy arrived who wasn’t invited. The teenager could have dealt with it but he was downstairs somewhere so I just asked him who he was and he said, “I’m leaving.” Now that would never happen in NZ. You’d have a whole group getting involved and things would heat up. But here he just left although he must have hung around downstairs as I saw him again later.
Also if I asked for the music to be turned down, it happened immediately. They were all so easy to manage and I didn’t even have to throw them out. I’d spoken to the moany neighbour to inform her we were having a party and luckily she wasn’t going to be home. So that was no problem for once. Without any prompting from me the teenager had them all rounded up and out of here before midnight, some of them to home, others out clubbing.
One of my kiwi friends had stayed on to help as the bouncer if needed so we sat down to a much appreciated cup of green tea with honey and the sound of silence.
Another milestone passed.
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