What a way to make a living

This gave me a giggle – maybe it’s just a teacher thing… 

After a year of a little nagging  (ok sometimes big, overwhelming) thought in the back of my mind that I’ll need to return to work in January 2011…. the time has almost come. As most of you know I’m a junior primary teacher, and next year I’ll be returning to share a class half time with another teacher. We’re teaching a composite class of year 1s and 2s, that’s 6 & 7 year olds. 16 boys. 9 girls. I have a sheet of paper with their names on it, and yesterday I got to meet them for the first time.

The meeting was….. a little chaotic. Firstly it was an unexpected opportunity. I only found out about it sometime mid-morning yesterday. Without child care arranged for Pebble, she tagged along for the ride. Luckily (or unluckily!) my co-teacher (from here on referred to as Mrs Oz) also had her 16 month old son and 4 year old daughter with her.

So there we were, two frazzled mummies/returning to the workforce teachers, three kids under five and twenty-three* 6 & 7 year olds. All in a classroom that belonged to someone else on the third to last day of school (in school land that = crazy time). Given all of that, it actually went quite well. Mrs Oz had prepared letters to go out to each child from both of us, introducing us and our teaching plans for the year. We took photos of each child ready for different displays in the classroom and got a teeny, tiny glimpse of the personalities that we’ll be enjoying in the year to come. Best of all, they got to meet us, which I think is a huge relief to most students. It takes away the unknown before the summer holidays.

It’s quite odd sharing a classroom, especially when we’re both there at the same time. I think it’s going to be a challenge, but overall it’s going to be a blessing. We each have someone to share the load with and the students get two for one. They have two motivated and passionate teachers, each with their own strengths, and twice the observation and support in their learning journey.

Mrs Oz and I have been emailing each other nearly every day with ideas and plans for the future, and are busy organising ourselves to be both super-mums and super-teachers next year. After a year of small and not-so-small worries, I can finally say I’m really looking forward to returning to work. I can also say goodbye to good sleep! Thoughts of work have kept me awake since about 4am – oh well, at least I have a spare moment to blog!

*two students absent