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Published: August 21st 2008
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Ok, so I started work today sadly. I had a very warm walk to work at 8am, even at that time I was soaked after a short 10minute walk! It was good to start really as I now know a little bit more about what I am going to be doing. So much information today, and more and more over the next week me feels! I met a load of new teachers (about 12) from UK, US, Canada, Denmark, China. Some have been working abroad before and some haven't. There are a couple of couples too, which is interesting. We were given the full school tour and told all about our timetables and Chinese partners. My partner teacher is also one of the Assistant Headteachers, which is good as she is really experience and can help show me the ropes! She is very friendly and called Tina. I am teaching 28 hours per week, 5 of which are providing English support to another Year 5 class, and 2 of which are Extra Curricular Activities. I am not sure what these will be yet, more info to follow. We have about 12 sessions where we team teach, and 10 sessions where I
teach English to my own Year 5 class. There is an assembly every friday afternoon and a year team meeting every monday morning during 2 of my free sessions. My frees total 3 per day, so 15, which is amazing. They are only 35 minute lessons, we come in for 8am with a briefing every day, then school starts at 8.30am until 3.30pm, with break and lunch (65mins you guys at the Priory!)
We also got the low down on the unusual tax system here, where we have to collect special tax receipts called 'Fa Paio's whenever we buy things and then we put them in (up to 10000RMB total) at the end of the month and this can mean that we only have to pay something like 5% tax on our salary! We can use anyone's receipts, and the best way is to use air tickets, so if anyone books any trip or flight online, please could you send me your e-ticket and I can use it. It is totally above board and don't worry, you won't be implicated at all. And of course, in return we can provide you with some lovely accomodation here if you fancy
it!
We had lunch in the school canteen which was a bit interesting. We weren't sure whether it was the Western style buffet of Chinese, a bit of both, but ok. We get the option I think and so do the kids. One of the big projects for this year is to make the canteen better and more healthy, clearly we need Jamie Oliver over!
In all, I think we were all feeling a bit overloaded with info and felt we could have done with more info earlier on when we arrived. Unfortunately the main contact here had to go away on urgent business and so lots of new people did the welcoming and didn't welcome so well! We have provided feedback so hopefully next year will be better! We are back again for more general overview info, then in on sunday for a full staff meeting and some meetings. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week we have formal training on the IB from IBO specialists from Australia, then Thursday and Friday morning are in grade groups. Friday afternoon the kids come in to meet us and collect their new books. On Monday evening the whole staff
is going out for dinner, about 100 people, so that will be fun! I have a feeling we are going to be pretty pooped by next weekend, but all very interesting indeed!
So, in the meantime, I need to hand over to Ian to write about their trip to the zoo in the hot hot hot Shanghai sunshine.....
Well, we started the day with a quick trip to the school for Sophie to be tested to see if she should start in Grade 2 or Grade 1. After about 35 mins, the teacher came through to tell me that Sophie was definitely Grade 2 level in her Maths and English (!), but that her Chinese level meant that she would need to start in Grade 1. They said they would review this later and then might look at putting her up a grade. On leaving the school we took the short cab ride to the zoo, only to discover that the taxi driver didn;t know where it was and so an emergency phone call to our Shanghai guide (Suzanne!) and we put him straight! The zoo itself was hot and big! I am very glad it didn't rain
as there was no cover anywhere but I think it could have done with being a little bit cooler too. The heat did mean that we didn't get to see everything there, I reckon we saw maybe half of it. The favourite parts to the zoo were: the fainting panda, tiger bathroom time, monkey dancing, the giraffe apartments, the frogs out of the cages and the 'dog zoo'. My own personal favourite was the panther but my view doesn't count! I stole the american camera for the afternoon as ours seems to be broken and when I picked up my spanking new modified E65 Nokia mobile telephone with Chinese language pack I dropped off Suzannes camera, said a quick hi and welcome back and picked up the goodies he had brought Joanna back from the States (the kids can be ill again now!). When we arrived home, Joanna quickly slid out of the bathroom window and pretended to have arrived just after us!!
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david spence
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Sleeping panda
Now I always thought that was a Hymalayan (down) Bear! David