Advertisement
Published: June 26th 2009
Edit Blog Post
This week is the final week of term and today was the last "teaching day" as we have parent-teacher meetings tomorrow, then we are in on Saturday morning clearing our classrooms. As I teach Grade 5, this week has been more hectic than the other grades and us Grade 5 teachers have been thoroughly jealous of the rest of staff winding down, while we have been preparing final assembly, graduation party and graduation ceremony.
Yesterday was also my birthday and I had the most wonderful day. I was woken with a cup of tea and my sleepy family gave me a gorgeous string of black pearls and matching earrings and a very non-fake purse! Sophie and I met Ms Maddi for our daily taxi ride to school and I was met with birthday wishes at school from my colleagues and friends. In my classroom, my students were so lovely and many of them (mostly girls!!) had made me cards. At break time, one of my students's mothers brought me a huge bunch of flowers and some presents from a group of students parents who had all joined together. I went into the staff room for my morning cup of tea
and was greetd by Ian, Sophie and William, along with the rest of the staff singing Happy Birthday and with a cake, complete with candles and everything! Ian has secretly kept William home from school and it was a lovely surprise! I was also given a beautiful red agate necklace by another student and I was serenaded by the whole of Grade 5 with another rendition of Happy Birthday in English and Chinese as we started our last rehearsal for the final assembly.
The assembly was excellent and all the students had a great time. The rest of the school was a little shocked I am sure by the energy and singing and screaming! There was a group of students singing a Chinese song, then a group of dancers dancing to 'We're all in this together' from HSM and then a group of Korean students singing a cool song called 'Oh my friend'. This created a teen sensation of screaming and moshing and was just fabulous. After a ppt which showed the whole grade as babies then in current day with a sentence about their wishes for the future, the whole grade came together to sing 'Hasta la vista'
from Camp Rock. It was so cool, I had been really nervous and was on an adrenalin rush by the end of it, I don't know about the students!
After school, we had to go straight into decorating school for the Graduation Party. I have to say at this point that the temperature was up to about 34 degrees and it was a sweaty time hanging streamers outside and my fellow Grade 5 teachers Ms Sophie, Ms Fran and I decided we had to have a shower before the party began at 5pm. The only option was to go to the school swimming pool and shower there. I have to say it was not the best shower I have ever had....I will just say they were very much communal and we had no towels, so the hairdryers were useful! At first we were even hotter than before, but it was a long term gain in the end!!
We were all dressed to impress by the time the students started arriving at 5pm looking all lovely and they seemed to have a great time. One of the other teachers was DJ for the evening and we had several others
joining us for dancing and mingling and help with drinks. We had hired a restaurant company called Wagas to cater for us and the food was brilliant. Mini burgers, yummy pasta salad and cupcakes went down very well indeed with all. After substantial food and E numbers, the students had great fun running around, dancing, playing football and generally having a great time. By 7.30pm us teachers were pooped and we were pleased for the students to be collected by their parents so that we could carry onto a bar called Mesa and Manifesto for some birthday drinks. Ian joined me and some teachers from school and we had a lovely time relaxing and winding down. Ian and I arrived home at 4 seconds to midnight, just in time for the ayi to go home as promised!
Today we have had the Graduation Ceremony which was the formal part of the proceedings. It was really nice though and amazing to see all the parents arriving with flowers for their children and so proud of their children. Graduation is a big thing here, quite bizarre for me to understand. It was a touching day and I have to admit to
shedding a tear as the ppt was shown again and the parents came and spoke to me. I have had such a great class this year, I will honestly miss them. Many of them wanted their picture taking with me and were lovely before they left, it was so lovely. I wil see most of them tomorrow but some are not going to our Middle School so it is unlikely I will see them again. I am sure they are a promising bunch and I look forward to seeing how they progress. I am nearly at the summer holidays and I just can't wait to relax.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.156s; Tpl: 0.025s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.066s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb