POST COVID UPDATE - October 2023

 Kia ora and greetings from South Island

I'm a very intermittent blogger for sure but things took a decided U-turn once Covid hit these good shores of New Zealand. 

I did get to work full-time in 2020 teaching a delightful class of year 3&4s, but for reasons only understood by my mentor, I did not achieve full rego for this exceptional year - keeping students and their whānau sane during the different levels of lockdown as well as running some excellent and entertaining online meetings - and then not getting my contract renewed.

However, in early 2022 I moved away from relieving to working part-time (yay!) and permanently (double yay!) as a Reading Teacher in the Junior years of my local Secondary School. A few interesting months later I then obtained full rego status and $580 later I am good to go for the next 3 years at least. 

I am amazed that the transition took place and I am astounded dare I say it, that my Primary School training (UK) is ideally suited to working with my year 9&10 classes. I would also go as far as saying, my expectations and standards could see me working in the Senior age range with no real issues.

I have also gained level 1 te reo Māori but don't feel any more fluent in the language as before, mainly due to confidence and CRS* poor memory.

I endeavour to apply my Mind Lab Collaborative and Digital learning skills to my practice, a but it is quite tricky when I am a visitor to most of my classes. It's good to have these skills at the back of my mind and is a useful tool for flipped learning and allowing students to access materials in their own time.

So, if anyone out there is still reading my comments, I'd love to hear from you!

Good luck with the final term of this year. 

Adios

* Can't Remember Sh#t