I have officially lived in Bishops Stortford for 3 weeks and have been a teacher at my new school for 2 weeks and I have to say I think it was a really good move for me.
Bishops Stortford is a great city. I feel safer than I did in Luton on a regular basis and enjoy not waking up to bar fights and crying drunk girls at 3am every morning. It is close to London, about 45 minutes on the overground and this train gets me even closer to my favourite shopping area- Oxford Street! The people I live with are very kind and helpful in my settling into a new city and school and they have a cat--which I obviously enjoy!
My new school is great. There is a lot of changes in policies and procedures that I have learn because they are very different from my last school. A major difference is the lack of work they do electronically. It is a very old school- over 100 years old and many of the staff have been working there their entire lives and are close to retirement so the IT technicians have ensured me that electronic ways of doing things are coming, just being phased in gradually to ensure all staff are comfortable with new systems. Now- I'm not trying to be agist here by saying those above the age of 50 are weaker electronically---I know plenty of 50+ers who can navigate a computer better than 18 year olds today; however, if I use my mom as an example (don't hate me forever), I understand the gradual approach.
The students are amazing, as its an all girls school until their A-Level (age 16-18, Years 12+13), they can be chatty but when I start counting down from 5, I normally only get to 3 before they are all silent. At the last school I would have have to add in 1/2s and 3/4s to my countdown because they could not be quiet on time. The students are helpful and LOVE my Canadian accent! That being said there are students from my old school that I do still miss and am glad I have contacts still to keep me updated on how they are doing. It is amazing how behaviour of students can affect your entire day. I feel that even though I have overwhelming amounts of work to do to learn everything at this new school, I am less stressed than I was last year because I don't have to worry about behaviour. When I spend hours planning creative and engaging lessons, I can actually get through the whole thing and the students are willing to participate in all activities actively--definitely encourages me to plan inspiring lessons.
Outside of work hours I have had a busy week- we had a Year 8 Parents Evening on Tuesday at night, a CPD session on Child Protection on Thursday after school and then this weekend I went to London on Saturday to meet my cousin Chris for lunch at my favourite fish & chips place and then to meet an old uni friend and new expat living in London for dinner and drinks at the Maple Leaf (Canadian pub in Covent Garden).
