Term Two: The End of the Beginning

I can hardly believe that it is Friday the 18th. Today is my last "official" day of holidays before I return to work on Monday to start Term Three. This post will be about my Term Two, and I’ll post a little later about my two week holiday period.

Term Two was a lot smoother than Term One. For starters, I already knew my kids, their personalities, their quirks and their preferred method of learning which lent itself well to experiment with a few different learning and teaching techniques and to get a bit more into the "hands on" approach I like to use. My kids are more used to my “quirky” sense of humour, my accent, the strange words I use for things (e.g. eraser instead of their word rubber) and we have a good time in class. Discipline *knock on wood* has slowed down and the learning has picked up.

We spent all of Term Two – all 9 weeks - working on "Measurement", here in New Zealand that means perimeter, area, surface area, volume, surface area to volume ratio, angles and measurement conversions (think how many millimeters in a meter). The kids did some great projects and activities and lots and lots (and lots!) of practice on these concepts.

My favorite activity was a newspaper one where we looked at the space on a page given to news articles and at advertisements. We calculated and compared areas, and then compared between different sections of newspapers and different newspapers. Some of the kids got really caught up in the news articles, which although was not part of the lesson, was exciting to see. The literacy rates at the school are on the lower end, and it is hard to find print that appeals to the students and is at their reading level.

The term was really busy for me as I took on a coordinating role within the junior school - basically deciding what parts of the curriculum will be taught to the Y9's and Y10's, in what order we will teach, laying out learning intentions for each week, putting together tests, answer keys and sourcing the resources that will be used. I loved the role, and the planning that goes with it. I’m looking forward to Term Three in that aspect.

I also took on coaching the junior (Y9 and Y10) soccer team. This team has kept me so busy! We have games every Wednesday, and practices on Thursday. So far, the girls I am coaching are ranked 3^rd in their division. They are playing really well together and are great at picking themselves up after a loss, which we experienced the last two weeks of play before the holidays. We have 3 more weeks of games and practices once the new term starts.

We also had Junior Exams at the end of the term - this lead to a stack of marking for me as I teach 5 different maths classes. Luckily, most of my students did well on the exams and had some really good homereports going home during the break.  We had the exams this year for the juniors (Y9 and Y10 students) as the Year 11, 12 and 13 students write external exams at the end of each year – pretty much standardized test, that are the same for all students in the country. 

The goal of these junior exams was to have students sit, and write a 2 hour exam to help prepare them for the exams in the coming years/reduce anxiety/mentally prepare them. For me, the exams were a great way to gauge how students were really responding to my teaching, what was working and what I need to work on for Term Three.

Some of my Junior Exams to be marked 

My favorite part of the term was watching the hall of fame grow. I continued to post names of those students who were successful beyond the basic "passing" on the back wall and some new students join the list of names and some from Term One repeat their appearance.

I also enjoyed working with the kids a lot more as they are much more “themselves” now than they were in Term One. Their sense of humour and their exploration of their own personalities has started to show and I really like who a lot of these kids are becoming as they grow up from “newbies” who are scared and nervous of most things related to college life to a bit more adult as they get comfortable with timetables, switching classes and workloads as well as navigating the bathrooms, canteen and free time.

I have not done too much more to the classroom in terms of decoration or changes, although I did acquire a filing cabinet which I am putting to good use housing worksheets, lesson and such teacher-related paper work. It's not the prettiest thing, but it is really functional and very handy. Who knows, maybe I will be inspired to paint it next holiday break to go with the decor of the room.

View out one of my windows towards the back half of the school grounds 

Looking to Term Three I see a lot more planning, some soccer and lots of tea (and coffee!) in my future. We are going to tackle statistics and probability for the next 10 weeks with a flashback at the end of term to some geometry concepts (Cartesian Plane, Lines) if there is time.