2016 - new beginnings

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens (1859)

Last year was a year of real highs and lows.  I struggled with two big Year 11 classes (31 in both, averaged over the year), and the subsequent marking load was pretty hideous. If ever I needed proof in my own reflections that class size matters, 2015 was the year that I got to experience it first hand. (I would add here that my school was really supportive and made allowances for me being over the PPTA average class size. However, it was still challenging and I personally found it hard). It reminded me of this excellent campaign run by the PPTA in 2008:

On the other hand, I was awarded a 'Spelling Bee Teacher Award' and travelled to Wellington to receive this in September.  I also applied for and was granted a Study Grant from the Ministry of Education to start a Masters of Creative Writing.  Well, I WANTED to start a Masters of Creative Writing (through Massey) but was rejected.  Ho hum.  Oh well.  As I said, it was a year of highs and lows.

It was also the end of an era at our school as our Head of Department was finally made Assistant Principal 'for reals'. This meant goodbye old times; hello new times.  This was a bittersweet time for all of us.  Additionally, as I said in my last post, our whole department was being restructured with a fresh new space.  'End of an era' felt like the right way to describe it all round.  Our fresh new HOD very wisely started at the end of the year, but the poor man was therefore in charge of deconstructing the Resource Room - 50 years of resources and 'I'll-just-save-that-because-someone-might-need-it-in-2019' folders.  Teachers are indeed magpies at heart. Luckily, he has a fabulous ability to mix captaining and colleagu-ing. All is well.

And so we started 2016 with a Lucas-ian 'New Hope' (Star Wars reference, if I'm being to obscure).  Except ... the building continued.  But, oh, how we were experts by this stage!

After some kerfuffles around classes, these settled nicely.  And by nicely I mean the school invested in the English department and made several smaller Year 12 classes.  I was so relieved for the students (more than anything.  Well, of course, I was relieved for myself, too.  Last year ... eek.) as it was the same cohort in big classes last year.

Therefore it was, indeed, the best of times and the worst of times.  To use a cliched metaphor (which is, sadly, also literal) the dust is starting to settle, and new classes are starting to feel like 'mine', after the grieving period that always occurs Term 1 for the previous year's teachers.

We made it through the danger zone!