New School
Well two weeks back at school have flown by. My new school is a long drive each day so I am battling both the traffic and the school environment. Most of my time seems to be taken up with sitting around waiting for others to arrive at meetings.
In those two weeks I’ve attended two day’s training and led two training sessions for the staff with another day’s training this week. Training days are great as breakfast is available when you arrive at the Park Rotana Hotel, then morning tea is served and usually a buffet lunch. So no-one minds a day out of school.
We are currently short 6-9 teachers. Why 6-9 you ask? Surely it would be one or the other. Well no, it depends on whether we have western EMT’s or Arabic EMT’s. Western EMT’s teach 30 sessions, usually split into two classes of 15 sessions. Arabic EMT’s only teach one section of 15 so if the teachers college sends us any of these teachers we need more of them to fill the vacant slots.
Good news though, we have 3 new western EMT’s who are in the country. In fact, I’m taking them to work tomorrow morning although they can’t teach yet because they haven’t been cleared from their medical. So we continue to wait.
At this stage we are short 1 teacher in Grade 5, 1 teacher in Grade 4, 1 teacher in Grade 3, 1 teacher in Grade 2 and 3 or 6 teachers in Grade 1. So many classes have not had a teacher yet. As I entered the Grade 5 building the other day to check on the teachers, there were four classes of girls sitting on the floor inside the doorway being supervised by 3 bus monitors while they coloured in a picture. Mmmmm!
I am careful of not saying too much about it as HOF’s are expected to teach 15 sessions as well as do their job so if I have too much to say I’m sure I’ll be teaching. Still, it’s difficult to see so many children starting their new school year in such an environment.
I have my own office and now have a desk, chair, computer, table, and two seats I managed to find in an empty room. I’ve learned that if I want anything I have to find and acquire it myself, even down to stationery.
On that note, I was impressed to see all teachers given a large container full of stationery supplies for the year. However, it came to my attention this week that some of the EMT’s supplies seem to have been removed before they got theirs. No laminating sheets or coloured pencils for them. Mmmmmm!
We received some interesting new last week. Our school is to be inspected next week. Wow, you say. Not quite what we said. The school has a new Principal, new VP, new HOF so why wouldn’t you inspect it? So some stressful times ahead this week as the inspection team arrives for it’s pre-inspection and to collect all the relevant data they require.
I’ve got a rental car now. Had a Nissan Tida but didn’t like the shaking when I reached 120km on the highway. I couldn’t even get up to the speed limit of 140km so I took it back and it’s been temporarily replaced by a Nissan Sunny which is much nicer to drive, also more expensive. The Tida is AED 1800 per month, the Sunny AED 2000. I’m not so sure about the brakes on the Sunny though as I need to depress the pedal a lot to slow down. I’ve never used the brake so frequently in my life. As there is no stopping distance left between cars on the road it’s a constant stop/start/stop/start dance. And this is at 100km per hour. I cringe every morning when I join the steady stream of traffic on Salam Street.
I’m dropping the teenager at school so need to go a round-about way to get back onto the road I need for work. The first week I was lost at least 3 times and did a 15 minute circuit back to where I started. I just got the hang of the correct turn off when school started and I found the road completely blocked over 3 lanes with banked-up traffic - school mums getting the kids back to school. So now I’ve had to find another route as I couldn’t handle that each day. My route now takes me through the airport then a loop back onto the correct side of Airport Road. You need to drive here to understand what I mean but the road only goes one direction so you have to keep driving to an overpass to get onto the other side. Nothing is easy here.
Yesterday I had an unpleasant experience. I’ve often wondered how people drown when they get cramp while swimming. Well I was on my last length (20) and just slowly swimming breaststroke (which I seldom do) when I was suddenly struck with cramp in my calf. Without a word of a lie, I couldn’t even make it the two feet to the side of the pool. I thought I’d have to get my lifeguards to jump in and rescue me! I managed to reach the side and then drag myself along to the ladder. Even now, a day later, my calf feels as if I’ve ripped the muscle just under the knee. So no swimming or walking today as I’m limping badly.
I’m enjoying having a car and last weekend I picked up another kiwi friend and headed out to the Saracens clubrooms to watch the All Blacks play Argentina. Imagine my surprise when we arrived and made the numbers up to 6. All women! I missed the rugby today though but heard we had a good win against South Africa.
Today I headed off to Marina Mall to do the groceries. I stopped in at Centrepoint shops to check out the furniture store and ooh and aah over the lovely items available. I even found hand woven rugs which were replicas of Grandad’s rugs. My favourite is the fabulous marble dining tables. When I got back home with my groceries and had to lug them from the car to the lift (3 trips) then into the lift and out again on our floor then drag them to the door, I remembered why I just use the supermarket downstairs. Sure it might be more expensive but the hassle wasn’t worth the savings.
The down side is that the teenager thinks I’m a taxi (only once!) Speaking of the teenager, this morning I was rudely awakened by a loud group returning home from last night. Oh the joys of teenagers. So the house turned into a marae with bodies sleeping everywhere. Then this afternoon when I came home it’s a different group of boys here to go down to the gym. Never a quite moment here...
Well two weeks back at school have flown by. My new school is a long drive each day so I am battling both the traffic and the school environment. Most of my time seems to be taken up with sitting around waiting for others to arrive at meetings.
In those two weeks I’ve attended two day’s training and led two training sessions for the staff with another day’s training this week. Training days are great as breakfast is available when you arrive at the Park Rotana Hotel, then morning tea is served and usually a buffet lunch. So no-one minds a day out of school.
We are currently short 6-9 teachers. Why 6-9 you ask? Surely it would be one or the other. Well no, it depends on whether we have western EMT’s or Arabic EMT’s. Western EMT’s teach 30 sessions, usually split into two classes of 15 sessions. Arabic EMT’s only teach one section of 15 so if the teachers college sends us any of these teachers we need more of them to fill the vacant slots.
Good news though, we have 3 new western EMT’s who are in the country. In fact, I’m taking them to work tomorrow morning although they can’t teach yet because they haven’t been cleared from their medical. So we continue to wait.
At this stage we are short 1 teacher in Grade 5, 1 teacher in Grade 4, 1 teacher in Grade 3, 1 teacher in Grade 2 and 3 or 6 teachers in Grade 1. So many classes have not had a teacher yet. As I entered the Grade 5 building the other day to check on the teachers, there were four classes of girls sitting on the floor inside the doorway being supervised by 3 bus monitors while they coloured in a picture. Mmmmm!
I am careful of not saying too much about it as HOF’s are expected to teach 15 sessions as well as do their job so if I have too much to say I’m sure I’ll be teaching. Still, it’s difficult to see so many children starting their new school year in such an environment.
I have my own office and now have a desk, chair, computer, table, and two seats I managed to find in an empty room. I’ve learned that if I want anything I have to find and acquire it myself, even down to stationery.
On that note, I was impressed to see all teachers given a large container full of stationery supplies for the year. However, it came to my attention this week that some of the EMT’s supplies seem to have been removed before they got theirs. No laminating sheets or coloured pencils for them. Mmmmmm!
We received some interesting new last week. Our school is to be inspected next week. Wow, you say. Not quite what we said. The school has a new Principal, new VP, new HOF so why wouldn’t you inspect it? So some stressful times ahead this week as the inspection team arrives for it’s pre-inspection and to collect all the relevant data they require.
I’ve got a rental car now. Had a Nissan Tida but didn’t like the shaking when I reached 120km on the highway. I couldn’t even get up to the speed limit of 140km so I took it back and it’s been temporarily replaced by a Nissan Sunny which is much nicer to drive, also more expensive. The Tida is AED 1800 per month, the Sunny AED 2000. I’m not so sure about the brakes on the Sunny though as I need to depress the pedal a lot to slow down. I’ve never used the brake so frequently in my life. As there is no stopping distance left between cars on the road it’s a constant stop/start/stop/start dance. And this is at 100km per hour. I cringe every morning when I join the steady stream of traffic on Salam Street.
I’m dropping the teenager at school so need to go a round-about way to get back onto the road I need for work. The first week I was lost at least 3 times and did a 15 minute circuit back to where I started. I just got the hang of the correct turn off when school started and I found the road completely blocked over 3 lanes with banked-up traffic - school mums getting the kids back to school. So now I’ve had to find another route as I couldn’t handle that each day. My route now takes me through the airport then a loop back onto the correct side of Airport Road. You need to drive here to understand what I mean but the road only goes one direction so you have to keep driving to an overpass to get onto the other side. Nothing is easy here.
Yesterday I had an unpleasant experience. I’ve often wondered how people drown when they get cramp while swimming. Well I was on my last length (20) and just slowly swimming breaststroke (which I seldom do) when I was suddenly struck with cramp in my calf. Without a word of a lie, I couldn’t even make it the two feet to the side of the pool. I thought I’d have to get my lifeguards to jump in and rescue me! I managed to reach the side and then drag myself along to the ladder. Even now, a day later, my calf feels as if I’ve ripped the muscle just under the knee. So no swimming or walking today as I’m limping badly.
I’m enjoying having a car and last weekend I picked up another kiwi friend and headed out to the Saracens clubrooms to watch the All Blacks play Argentina. Imagine my surprise when we arrived and made the numbers up to 6. All women! I missed the rugby today though but heard we had a good win against South Africa.
Today I headed off to Marina Mall to do the groceries. I stopped in at Centrepoint shops to check out the furniture store and ooh and aah over the lovely items available. I even found hand woven rugs which were replicas of Grandad’s rugs. My favourite is the fabulous marble dining tables. When I got back home with my groceries and had to lug them from the car to the lift (3 trips) then into the lift and out again on our floor then drag them to the door, I remembered why I just use the supermarket downstairs. Sure it might be more expensive but the hassle wasn’t worth the savings.
The down side is that the teenager thinks I’m a taxi (only once!) Speaking of the teenager, this morning I was rudely awakened by a loud group returning home from last night. Oh the joys of teenagers. So the house turned into a marae with bodies sleeping everywhere. Then this afternoon when I came home it’s a different group of boys here to go down to the gym. Never a quite moment here...
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