May was also a month of many shows and fun school experiences.
All up I saw a total of 5 shows in May. A Musical called “Teddy” about the period just after the blitz where teens rebelled and referred to themselves at ’Teddies’. Next was “Ruthless” a spectacular and funny musical about stage mom’s and the drive to be a performer. It had a lot of moments that hit home - especially one about an ex-performer becoming a Grade 3 teacher and eating large meals late at night. This was followed by Mood Music at the Old Vic Theatre. A beautiful theatre celebrating it’s 200th year. The show deals with the question of who owns music, the producer or the artist. Then the circus at the Aeronaught Pub, a place specifically designed for performances. I saw contortionists, hula hoopers, hoop and silk swingers. It was pretty good, but the seating arrangement meant that it was difficult to see most of what was happening. And my last show for the month was “Blueberry Toast”, this show was essentially what happens when you resent someone for years and finally unleash it, with increasingly violent results. It’s exactly what I needed that day to distract me from reality (which I will discuss in part 3).
As for school, well I had been feeling not so happy and enthusiastic when it comes to work. Supply work is exhausting because more often then not I don’t know where i’m going that day, and I hardly ever have time to bond with any students (which is one of my favourite parts of teaching). It is also very aggravating as I am often given work in Early Years, which I generally dislike. But it does have some positives. I was placed in one school where I got to help assemble a cardboard T-Rex that was the same height as me and at another school I could use the dress up to be a princess, in honour of the upcoming Royal Wedding.
May was also a month where I became more proactive about finding myself a full time position. My agent was supposedly trying to find me a full time classroom position for the new school year, but after having not heard from him about anything on this front, I decided to look up the Vision Portal that advertised vacant positions (although very vaguely, with only the only given information being the year level, borough, start date and agent in charge) and applied for every position that was year 3 or higher. This got me a trial day at a Southwark school that I had been to before which was 45mins door to door. However, this trial happened during SATs week, so no one was able to come and observe me and I never heard anything back from that school. Luckily though, I had applied for a position at another school in Southwark that had a year 4 and year 2 position going. I arrived on the last day of term and had a chat with the head teacher. She explained that because there were 2 positions going, she would put me with the year 3s for the day (also because the year 3 team were the closest to my age in the school and were Aus and NZ teachers as well). I had a lovely day going from class to class and seemed to make a positive impression on the students, I had one student hand me a bracelet he had made during his craft time (this school has an ASD program where students are allowed to cool off or spend time doing craft activities). I swear I hadn’t actually taught that student during the day though. This school was slightly further than the first school, 1 hour in good traffic, but it was nice and seemed very friendly. I was then told during the holidays that they had been very impressed with me and would like me back on the first day of term to teach a lesson of my own planning. My instructions for planning the lesson were simply “30 to 40 minutes English lesson on a book. Read the book and then complete a follow on activity”. So I went to the local library and scoured the children’s story book section for any books I could think would be useful. I settled on “Kevin” by Rob Biddulph. More on this when I recap the first half of June.
