Ahhhh finally the holidays have arrived!! It's been a very long term, and everyone was feeling it I think, especially the kids! I'm thrilled I'm through my first sixth of my NQT year, I'm feeling a bit more settled and know more what I'm doing!! It's had its challenges, but doing what I can. We had a useful but quite melancholy Inset yesterday, on Child Protection. Followed by some adminny stuff and discussions about Christmas!!!! But didn't get round to half the stuff I needed to do, so I popped into school today for a few hours, caught up on all my marking, tidied my classroom, rearranged some stuff, did my last display, and sorted out some stuff so that I can get organised for next term! I was quite impressed!

Tomorrow I've got a bokwa class, need to do some work, hoping to get tickets for the a gig, and then we're heading out for dinner with friends! We have a busy couple of months coming up with weekends in Gower, down to Weymouth for a family christmas in November, birthdays, never mind preparing for Christmas!!!! Eeee!!

Good weekend!!

I've had a great weekend!! On Friday, we picked up Pete's parents and had a bit of a chat before heading to bed.

On Saturday morning, we got up early-ish and headed down to Weymouth to see my parents!! We had a good lunch, a wander up and down Weymouth sea-front, before eating MORE food then headed back home. It was lovely to introduce our parentals, after nearly 3 years!!

Today, Pete was supposed to run the Cardiff half marathon, but he woke up feeling a bit unwell so decided not to go. This meant we didn't have to get up before 7!!! Instead we walked into town for lunch and sat in the sunshine before I headed back to get on with schoolwork. Pete took his Dad to the cricket ground because his grandfather (Pete's great-grandfather) used to work there.

Plenty of cups of tea, Skyping some of the family, and we watched Felix Baumgartner do his unbelievable jump from 23 miles up. I am so amazed, and really glad for incredible, brave people like him pushing what we think is possible. Unbelievable!!!!

Anyway, just catching up with the X factor results and then will be off to bed shortly!!

I'm so glad it's the weekend!! Having a lovely chilled evening after a bit of a manic week at work. Highs and lows but ended well. Amazing support network and my mentor took the afternoon out of class, arranged cover for me so that we could work through some things that have been really stressing me out!

So I'm feeling much better and looking forward to next week, then only 2 days til the hoildays!! Hoping to get down to Bucks to catch up with some schoolfriends, then Mum is coming up to Bristol to watch a flamenco show for her birthday.

Busy weekend this weekend, Pete's parents are visiting from Aberdeen and we're going to head down to Weymouth tomorrow. Fingers crossed the weather looks like it's going to stay dry so we should be able to hit the beach!! (in a mid-October, blustery walk sense)

All in all though I'm feeling pretty content, time is flying, so I must be having fun!! I'm in pretty good health, finally kicking the gluten full-time and massively feeling the difference. Taking plenty of zinc and eating well, haven't touched dairy for months and allergies are almost non-existent. Amazing.

Sure there's loads of other stuff to mention but I'm pretty tired and this is already an odd-jobby blog so I'll leave it there but as always I must try to keep more up to date!

Ciao for now!!

First week.. done!

I had a great first week back at school. I was so nervous on Sunday, even though Monday was an Inset day!! Unexpectedly I had nearly the whole day to work with my TA getting the classroom sorted, so by the end of the day I was feeling much calmer and ready for the week. My colleagues are amazingly supportive, kind and insist I ask them if I need anything at all. I had a performance management meeting with my NQT mentor and feel really positive about the year (if slightly anxious). I think I'm filling myself with pretend confidence and it seemed to work on the kids last week so fingers crossed that'll work all year...?

Anyway, had a great weekend, we've finally sorted out the spare room, and Mum and Dad came up. We went over to Clifton with the intention of visiting the zoo, but the car parks were full and there was a massive queue, so we amended our plans. We went for lunch at the Avon Gorge, overlooking the Suspension Bridge. Then we found out it was the Bristol Open Doors weekend, so we got a free guided tour over the Bridge which was really interesting!! We went for a walk on the Downs, then home for a Chinese! Really nice!!

Today we finished constructing our new spare bed, bought a couple of nice rugs and I finished my maths planning for the week. I'm going to have to get in early tomorrow though to do my flipchart because I'm still waiting for a school laptop and can't get the IWB software on my personal laptop :/ Still, looking forward to Week 2 - first NQT session too!!

Summer

Well I'm finally feeling relaxed, after working until the beginning of August I was totally exhausted! We went on holiday to Tuscany for two weeks, staying in a little studio cottage outside San Gimignano. It was hot at exactly what we needed - relaxing with some sightseeing thrown in, to some of many walled Tuscan hill-towns including Volterra (home of Twilight's Volturi!!!!!), Monteriggioni, Certaldo and Siena. It was gorgeous!!

Back to England with a bump, it's quite muggy but cloudy here, and I'm worried my nice tan is going to fade far too fast!! After a chilled weekend, I've started the week organising documents, sorting out all my files from my training, and trying to get organised before going into school this afternoon/ tomorrow to start doing my planning for next term! Feeling a bit anxious about starting the term, and realising I'm going to be solely responsible for the learning and progress of 30 9-yr-olds for the whole year, garhhh...!! I'm sure it'll be fine, the school is very supportive and everyone is helpful so I know I'll have help if I need it.. but still! :/

In other news, we got a cat in July and after a panic when she escaped for nearly 2 weeks, she's settling in well, she is very playful and affectionate. I do love her very much even though she miaows all night and then wakes me up at 7.15 every morning!!

I'm going to stop faffing around online now and get on with some NQT stuff.

BFN!

A week in Bromsgrove

It's been great this week doing something completely different!

On Monday, I drove up to Bromsgrove to help set up IH Bristol's first summer school there. I'm working with my lovely friend who I've worked with a long time until I defected to state-school teaching! We also have a great team of teachers, so it all boded well! We had a couple of days of induction; setting up the teachers' room, discussing IH policies, levels and testing ready for the arrival of the teens (78) and kids (27) on Wednesday. It's all gone pretty smoothly and we've all settled into a good routine - we live just off site in a boarding house, all meals provided and access to the gym. So we're eating extremely well, but at least we have the opportunity to work it off!!

I came home on Friday evening and the plan was to spend the weekend camping (well, glamping in a nice little cabin) and visiting the Cheddar Gorge and caves before supporting my other half in the Cheddar half marathon on Sunday. However the delightful British summertime has scuppered our plans - with flood warnings for Somerset we decided against shivering in a box all weekend and stayed home instead. It's been quite productive though - we did a bit of DIY, put up a table in the kitchen, got feeding bowls and litter trays all set up for our new arrival tomorrow!! We're picking up our cat tomorrow, and very excited to help her settle in and get to know her!

Of course we've been watching lots of tennis - Serena Williams winning her 5th Wimbledon title, and now we're enjoying the Men's doubles, wooo!! Very very excited about Murray's final tomorrow, and hoping the weather is bright.

It's been lovely to be home (and warm and dry) and just relax for a bit before heading back northwards tomorrow evening.

.. and I'm done

So I thought my last blog was overdue.. It's now been 8 months since my last post!! Apologies, blogfans, if you're still out there!!

It's been a pretty busy few months, got into my GTP, had some lows and had to really pull my finger out to get it done. After a struggle with confidence, I managed to sort myself out and I was relieved to be signed off with a good report at the end of May. I finally finished my teaching block on Friday. I had the Year 3 class, and although they are a really challenging group, I was really sad to leave them as I was just starting to feel like we were building a good relationship and trust, especially with the trickier characters. We trainees had our graduation ceremony on Tuesday. Of the 15 who started, 11 of us finished, so a real achievement for us all.

I also got a job for September, but I was so stressed for a while, as I sent out 17 job applications with only 1 interview.. so I am thrilled that I'll be working at my swap school permanently after the summer. I can't wait! I really enjoyed my block there and I'll have the Year 5 class which is exactly what I'd wanted.

Tomorrow I start a 4 week contract back at my old job, it's also going to be really busy but much less pressure than the last 9 months!! I'm looking forward to meeting my new kids and doing a bit more admin instead of lots of teaching.

Away from work, all is well. We're off camping next weekend, and picking up our new adopted cat!! It's very exciting. More details will follow about her I'm sure. We'll be off up to Scotland for a few days at the end of July for a wedding and big family catch up in the Northeast, and we're off to Italy for a couple of weeks in August. Really looking forward to a massive rest before starting to look forward to my NQT year!

Oh, I just also add that I've been getting fit this year too. In January I started Crossfit, which is fab and although I can only make it once a week, I've noticed a difference already in my shape and strength. I'm starting to enjoy exercising and have also rejoined pilates, and gave Spin ago (probably for the first and last time...) I'm going to have to have a few weeks off, but luckily I'll have access to a pool and gym so hopefully I can still get some exercise ready for putting my bikini on in August...!

I'll try to post more regularly..!

Hasta luego!x