Teaching in Wales

Teaching in Wales

The school I teach in is small.  Very small.  There are under 200 students from age 3 to 18 housed in two buildings:  one for the junior school and one for the senior school.  The senior school hosts year six to thirteen.  I teach years twelve and thirteen also known as lower sixth form and upper sixth form.  Many of the students I teach are boarders or ‘homestay’ students.  The school has a boarding house which I have yet to visit and they coordinate with some local families for homestay.

Because of the smallness of the school there is a family atmosphere.  The students are respectful and, for the most, hard working.  A lot of the school social events are initiated and organised by the sixth form students.  Two of the girls decided to support a one day charity drive but felt that one day wouldn’t work that well so for a month, every Tuesday and Thursday at break, they are selling milk and cookies for 50p.  Feeding the younger students is a great money maker here – you should see the feeding frenzy at cake sales.  One young man is organising the Halloween party (what ever happened to Guy Fawkes?)  

My classes follow the International Baccalaureate curriculum as we are an IB school.  I teach maths Higher Level and Standard Level.  The more I delve into the IB programme the more I am impressed with not just the maths but the all-round development of the student.  Working with a new curriculum means a lot of work for me.  In Canada I could do just about any lesson out of my extensive filing cabinet but due to weight restrictions I left everything behind (most in the Campbell River dump) and am starting fresh here.  Sixteen years ago I did an exchange to Malvern and my exchange partner, fairly high up in the IB food chain, is extremely helpful.  He has shared a substantial amount of material and is truly a life-saver when it comes to answering questions.  I expect that after a busy initial year I will have a good set of working notes.  

My classes are small but so is my room.  My upper sixth higher level class has two students.  My largest class has fourteen students.  I know that is less than half what my Canadian counterparts have but my room is fit for less than a dozen students.  Instead of a wall I have a partition and any student not assigned to a class is in the room next to mine usually making a lot of noise.  And my physician wonders why my blood- pressure is 30 points higher than it was in Canada!

Every morning we have a headmaster’s briefing.  This is a five minute meeting to go over events of the day.  I am usually late.  If my bus comes on time I will just make it but my bus can be up to ten minutes late.  Every Wednesday there is an assembly of the whole school where general announcements are made and student work is showcased.  We have a number of talented students:  runners, musicians, actresses, etc.  One fellow cycled to Paris to raise money for a charity.  The assembly begins with all students sitting on the floor, staff in chairs at the side and sixth form in chairs (they’re special) at the back.  When the headmaster is ready to enter the room the deputy head instructs everyone to rise.  The headmaster goes to the front and says “good morning senior school” and everyone says “good morning sir.” 

The school is a converted Victorian house and as such has narrow stairs and corridors many of which I have jet to explore.  There is a rumour that there is a third floor.  My room is in a modern extension that was built to house the sixth form.  There is a roof garden that I have not found either. 

There are a lot of people on staff.  Many are part-time specialists like me.  The staff is friendly and very supportive.  There are limited numbers of projectors and one staff member made sure I got one.  I seem to be stuck in my room most of the time trying to get work done so have not spent breaks in the common room and the two lunch hours that I am at school I am teaching so getting to know the staff is a slow process.

We have half term in a week and I am looking forward to the break and a chance to get ahead in my planning.