Markets and Parents Evenings

Hello readers! I hope your week has gone splendidly well. It has been a pretty good week for me in the UK.

On the career side, it was rather busy. I had my first parents evening, for my Year 8 students, on Wednesday. It was a busy evening and I saw a lot of parents --most were of my best students. There were a few students with behaviour problems that I am happy I saw their mums and dads; however, there were a lot I wish had showed up. Favourite moments were when students who cause a lot of behaviour issues for me in lessons, were waiting outside for other teachers and avoided making eye contact with me because they did not want me to talk to their parents. I am still debating if I should make some phone calls home to those parents.

It has officially been verified that I will be in Poland from Feb 3-5 on a school trip with the Year 9 History classes. We leave early on the Monday morning and arrive back in the afternoon on Wednesday. It is a short trip, but I think it will be amazing. We spend most of Tuesday at Auschwitz on a tour, it will be heavy yet impactful day---hopefully the students can take something away from it.

I feel that since I have been back, I am definitely trying to see more of England itself---even just different areas of London. Yesterday, I went to Portabello Market. It is a huge market in London. When Sarah was here, we wanted to head there but never got  the chance. The market runs all week long, but on Saturdays it thrives with extra shops and mass amounts of people. There were antique shops everywhere and tons of clothing shops with cute dresses--I didn't buy any but it was tempting.  The food on the market was AMAZING! We ended up eating at a small restaurant on the street of the market, but outside there was tons of food stalls cooking the most delicious smelling food. I could have eaten all day there. There was even a live band playing in a small building at the end of the street, where we entered just in time for a short 15 minute hail storm and indulged in some yummy mulled wine.

I am hoping to venture to Bath next weekend and do some site seeing there. So much to see!

On a different note, it has been a great week/or two hearing from some of my Canadian friends finishing up their education year and thinking about coming to the UK. Good luck to everyone and feel free to ask questions/we can have a chat about it :)

Back with the Limey's

Hello followers, 

I can't believe its already been two weeks since I left Canada and made my way back to England. It has been a crazy two weeks at work with lots and lots to do but things are going well. I have started enforcing a stricter behaviour policy with hopes of improving this area in my professional development. We shall see how it goes. 

In travel news, there have been some new advances. 

Just yesterday, I was in Dunstable. Dunstable is just outside of Luton, so a 20 minute bus ride or so. It was good to just get out for the day and walk around some new places. Dunstable is actually pretty cool in terms of historical background. The very first place we saw was a church- the Dunstable Priory- which was created by Henry VIII and used for his first divorce to Catherine of Aragon. We also made our way to pub that had once been a location Henry VIII stayed at while in Dunstable. 

In terms of foreign travels, I went to a meeting for my big trip to India in February. I got to meet the team that will be going with me and learnt more about the details of the trip. We are staying at a school in Bihar, India. We work with four different schools of teacher candidates and each (or in pairs) give a training session in our area of expertise. I will be doing a training session with another team member on Drama in Education and active learning. Going to the meeting and learning more about it has got me VERY excited about going! 4 weeks left. 

In addition, if all things play out I have the opportunity to go to Poland for three days the week before India for free. The school I work at is going for a trip and I have been asked to chaperone. So much travelling, I love it! 

Christmas Across the Pond

Two weeks goes by fast! I have been so fortunate in the past two weeks to be able to return home to Canada for the  holidays and see all my family and friends.

The journey from Luton to Canada was an interesting one. The train we took from Luton to Gatwick was a late night train where most people were making  their way into London for a night of partying. One man was sick on the plane, so that sucked afterwards. The plane ride was a long one....they added an extra hour on because of the bad weather in Canada. I'm very restless on flights and couldn't wait to stand up and walk around! However I god get a plane with individual tvs on the seats do i watched a lot of movies including World War Z, The Heat and the ever disappointing Man of Steel. The flight was filled with Canadian teachers, which was fun.

While at home I managed to go plenty of lesson planning and spend great times with family and friends! Thank you to everyone who took the time to come visit me, especially if I dragged you to Jack Astors (which I frequented several times these past weeks). I loved every visit and miss everyone already---I haven't even left yet!

Returning to England is bittersweet. On one hand, I love my job and have developed a life there with great friends and routine but I will miss everyone in Canada greatly and wish they could all come to England with me!