Kids are Kids and Teaching is Teaching- End of Term 2

It has taken me a while to really stop and think about what I am learning about myself as a teacher. Change is always hard and I knew coming to teach in Australia would be different, but I do not really think that I really anticipated sometimes how different it would feel to not have the comfort of my classroom and my routine that I was used to. It was challenging to pick up new and different programs at first and try to fit the mold of what it was supposed to look like.  I realized, but not so quickly, that I was already doing all these things but just not calling it the same. I am really excited for the ideas I have for my classroom.

I have made a brief comparison of the differences teaching at my school in Canada and here at my school in Australia:

Australia	Canada
Uniforms	No uniforms
5 Day weeks all but one week of the year	Lots of short weeks
Sport once a week	P.E. 3/4 days a week
2 Reports a Year	3 Reports a Year
2 or 3 Assemblies a Week	1 or 2 Assemblies a Month
Teacher Librarians	EA’s are librarians
3 scheduled meetings a week	1 scheduled meeting a month
PD done both at school and after school in the meetings	PD done on PD days where students get days off.
Teaching all KLA’s	Have some specialist teachers to teach some KLA’s
A lot of accountability for programming	Not as much accountability for programming
Relief from class given for interviews and planning days	Interviews are done after school and planning days are done without students at school
Year round schooling (4 terms of approx. 10 weeks with a 2 week break in-between)	Not year round schooling (3 terms with one 2 month break at the end of the year, spring break (1 week) and Christmas Break (2 weeks approx.)

One of the things I am liking each morning is the morning song instead of a bell. I am enjoying having a little dance on my steps to greet the students and parents in the morning.


I finished off the term with another teachers versus student touch footy game. We won again! I think I even got the hang of the game.







Canada Day in 2K- As it was the last day of the term, my class had a great finish to the term with a day all about CANADA! They loved learning about maple syrup and that it actually comes from trees! We read Robert Mucsch books and laughed a lot. We sang some Michael Mitchell songs   and some Raffi too!

Moose from one of my students.

 Term 2 has been a big learning curve for me. I have really enjoyed my class and have made good friendships at school. I am ready for the break and really can not believe we are half way through this part of our adventure.