First Week of School

Well I have successfully survived my first class, my first day and my first week of school here at AIS.  I must admit that I was filled with a certain amount of apprehension as the moment approached for me to meet my Grade 9 Core Math class.  It did not take me long though, to realize that I knew what I was doing.  Sure the curriculum and school are new but kids are kids.  You have ones that are quiet, curious, skeptical and full of life just like you do any where.  It was funny though, that as soon as I returned from my class, the other new Head of Dept teachers, who had not yet met their first class, wanted to know what it had like.  It seems that almost every teacher, new to the school, was experiencing the same emotions.  We've all had a good chuckle over that. 

The one thing that I am almost afraid to admit is my class sizes.  My  Grade 9 Core has 12, my Grade 9 Extended has 19 and my Grade 11 Math has 13.  I also have a Grade 9 advisory group of 10.  This year they are calling the advisory groups TAP, Teacher Advisory Program. I will follow this group through until they graduate.  This week the TAP groups met every day and we did many of the group building exercises that I have done with other advisory groups. One of the questions that I asked my TAP group was where their favourite place was to visit.  The answers ranged from Paris to Munich, to places in the USA and much to my surprise, Calgary.  One of the girls in my TAP has lived in Calgary.  It was nice to have a student know where I actually came from.

Speaking of where people come from - one of the newbies is from High River.  Another couple, who have been here for 7 years, are from Calgary.  I must admit that Canada is well represented on the teaching staff.

We had our Back to School Night on Wednesday.  I was fortunate enough to meet a couple of my parents.  I am told though that at our first "ES/MS/HS Three-way Conferences" on October 5th and 6th, more parents will attend.  

The over all feeling at the end of the week was that the school had gotten off to a good start - lots of work to do but we now know that we can make it.