Flat-mates and School

Alright, well...where to start. Pete and Cam showed up at our doorstep with all of their stuff and moved in, which was monday the 30th of August. Kelly and i painted all day and also arranged for the couches and chairs to be cleaned, which they desperately needed. We all went out to the White Horse that night, which is our local pub and got food and commiserated with Pete and Cam about what a horrible situation that they had just gone through. A good time was had by all and the Pub also had some pretty epic lasagna for only 2 pounds.
The following morning Pete and I woke up and made the trip to Langley to check out our new teaching post. Let me say this, The place is pretty freaking cool. 3 stories and absolutely beautiful. We managed to talk to one of our Lab Techs for about 2 hrs about everything and found out what we were teaching. Both of us had 5 preps which was daunting to say the least. All of the kids at our school are ability banded and stay with each other for most of their classes throughout the years. In the states you teach specific subjects, say Bio in 10th grade, Physics in 8th grade, and so forth. Over here they learn a bit of each of the 3 disciplines in each year so you don't teach anything specific you just teach your year group. The year groups are also one ahead of what we would stay in the states, so year 7's are equivalent to 6th graders. Im teaching year 7 (2 blocks/double lessons per week),2 bands of year 8's (4 lessons per week), year 9's (2 double blocks and 1 single lesson, so 5 times per week), year 10's (same amount as year 9's), and i split one 6th form class called BTECH which is science in the working world (i see them for 2 lessons per week and there is only 6 people in the class and they are mostly year 12's and one year 13), i also have a Home Tutor Group (HTG)that i see every day for a half an hour and also one lesson on mondays. The HTG is a pastoral care class where i act as a guidance counsellor, we do team building activities, and i also check planners/uniforms/equipment, so its kind of like a homeroom. I am also responsible for talking to the kids about problems in their classes and call home if a teacher wants me to for any problems.
 I was scared about doing lesson plans for all of these classes but soon found out that what i am to teach is set by a Scheme of Work (SOW) for each class so i know exactly what is to be done during each lesson and what practical/Lab/demo is associated with each lesson. The facilities of this school are amazing and the budget for science since it is a science specialized school are absolutely off the charts. Theres literally hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of science equipment from Microscopes, to Live animals, to an honest to god thermal image video recorder (2500 quid for that). Its crazy. We got really excited for our classes and what we were going to do. We talked to HR, made sure everything was in order, and headed home.
The following day (Wed.)we had our first day of school, but it was an INSET day (as would be the following 2 days) where we just did teacher training and met our colleagues. Very quickly we had a strong group of friends made up of Pete and I, Peter Brozny whom i will now refer to as Brozny for the sake of confusion, and Chris the new English teacher. We also have Tom who is British teaches History and is new as well. Also Roger who is in his second year and teaches science and his fiancée Romina works there as permanent Cover/Substitute. And there is also Hayley who is Cover/Sub as well. Thats pretty much our crew that we met the first few days. We also had some pub time with everyone after each of the INSET days, which was a fun way to get to know everyone.
Alright, the science dept as well is awesome. Our dept. chair Andy Morgan is a really really inspiring fun teacher to work under. In the following weeks he has given me so much advice and listened to all of my problems patiently and has been a tremendous support. Laura is also amazing and she is the assistant chair and has really helped me and the new teachers as well.
The INSET days were fun but my only complaint was that we talked a lot about the academy Ethos, but all of the new teachers could have used some training on how to use the schools new computer systems, and how to fill out the litany of paperwork that we are required to do on a daily basis for assigning house points, recording behavior incidents, and what forms to fill out if we call home. But we have kind of been figuring out all of that as we go along. We also got our laptops, which have had a variety of issues but are now working okay, and we got a few scant minutes to set up our classrooms.
Over the weekend Kelly and i continued to make home improvements and got out to London on Sunday to go to the Hillsong church again and walk around the city. Super fun.
Alright sorry for the disjointed nature of this but theres been a lot to keep straight in my mind. Next edition will be the first week of school, and my worst day in recent memory where Roger and Thom literally talked me out of quitting (spoiler alert, things have gotten better since then). I'll post it up tonight or tomorrow depending on when i get the time. Love you all, and i miss everyone. Kelly says hi and her blog will be up and running this weekend as well. Later.