First Day at Work

The day didn't quite start as planned. The taxi driver I had booked didn't turn up and the one who dropped myself and Bonnie to school took the long route and tried to overcharge us. I say tried because he didn't get away with it. Even the LE10 I gave him was too much.
The staff meeting started at 9am and finished at 9.45am. Nothing like a fast staff meeting! The rest of the day was spent sorting out boxes that had been left in our classes, a lengthy lunch at the local Chinese and stapling up the 2 display boards in my room.
I always knew that both Edendale and Gladstone were well-resourced schools and appreciated the abundance of equipment & resources we had available to us. At MAC it's like stepping back in time to when I first started at Edendale and resources were few but we made the most of what we found (the odd wine box for reading books and maths equipment) or shared with each other. Free ice cream containers, wine boxes and plastic containers are a rarity. I had to walk up and down the corridor in search of a stapler to put up my display boards and finally found one that worked after half an hour. Would you believe there is one gun stapler in the school? If you are heading to Egypt please put one in your luggage with multiple packs of staples. Some of you know how much I love using gun staples and changing my displays :-). That should last me 2 years.
The teachers are a great bunch, mostly American but I met a Kiwi, a Swiss and a Brit today. No Aussies or Canadians. There are only 400 kids, Kindergarten (5yrs) up to Grade 12 and the elementary school has the majority of the children. I think it's between half and 2/3 of the roll are elementary. I'm looking forward to meeting my class on the 22nd as the Reading Support teacher spent quite a bit of time giving me the rundown on them this morning. I'm sure they'll be just as lively as all the other kids I've taught over the years even though there's only 16 of them.
Tomorrow is another day of sorting and trying to decipher the curriculum and planning. I'm sure I'll get my head around it in the next week before the other Grade 3 teacher arrives and we can split the resources that are in boxes in my room, between us. Last year there was only 1 Grade 3 class. Could you imagine having to share 1 class's resources between 2? Going to be a challenge!