Fave Friday

School broke up yesterday. I went out straight from school to celebrate with the rest of the staff, fully intending to last the distance, but I was so tired I was home by 9pm - and then when I sat down I realised how tired I actually was and had to retire without making my FF post.

In honour of the end of the school year...

Five Favourite Things of This School Year

1. SKI TRIP! It was absolutely awesome this year. Best ever. Great staff, great kids, great snow, really quiet, amazing skiing. And we all had matching hoodies, which made it just that little bit more special.

2. Prague trip, in November. Another amazing visit, even if we did do so much walking my ankles swelled up. I bought some beautiful garnet jewellery and took about a million pictures. We saw a concentration camp, a glass blowing factory (with the men in shorts and sandals smoking and drinking beer at 10am whilst plucking balls of molten glass out of the vat), the massive Skoda factory and traditional Czech dancing, among other things. I really hope we get enough takers for the proposed Berlin trip this autumn.

3. Crystal Maze weekend. This was the first year I had planned and run it - it was in answer to the older clever kids demanding an enrichment weekend for them like the Murder Mystery. 17 students and 10 staff (how I swung that is anybody's guess), the weekend before Christmas; it rained most of the time; we hunkered down inside the centre and played games and had a talent show, and ate everything we were given. It's so nice at that time of year to be away with nice kids who take very little looking after, and not have to worry about cooking or cleaning.

4. My year 11 class. They were really fun. For the first time ever we set the History groups last year and I had a middle ability set. In year 10 they were much quieter and took a lot more chivvying up and encouragement than a mixed ability group - but by year 11 they had their confidence and I really looked forward to, and enjoyed, their lessons. They would work in silence without prompting, but they had plenty to say in discussion. I am crossing my fingers they all get some nice results.

5. Teaching the Totalitarian Ideologies course to year 12. It was exhilirating to go back to teaching something I was so familiar with and I really enjoyed it, even though we massively overran and didn't finish the course properly. It was also interesting teaching a class of 15 boys and 3 girls - I had to do a lot more hands-on stuff with them.


Unfortunately for me, my excitement about teaching an International Relations unit next year has had to be put on hold, because the exam board gave us the wrong information at their launch meeting (a YEAR ago) and so we've had to hastily change the program of study for the A-level. Now I'm teaching a coursework unit on American Foreign Policy 1898-present day. It's a bit Cold War-y, but none of the stuff on Yugoslavia that I was so looking forward to - and I will have to mark coursework. BOO.

Oh well. It's the first day of the holidays - I really should not be whinging about next year already!

3 days until we fly away!

Fave Fridays is all Kelli's idea. This week she's been blogging about her favourite web haunts and she seems as addicted as me! She also has some good giveaways over there.