My New School – Daily Routine

I have been in school almost two weeks now and I am learning a lot.  School is similar and very different all at the same time.  Students are very polite and respectful all of the time.  At my school students have uniforms and for term one and four everyone has to wear sandals to and from school each day.  The funny thing is that once students get to school in the morning they take off their sandals, put them under their desk neatly and that is where they stay for the rest of the day.  Students don’t even wear anything on their feet for Sport of PE!! 

Our daily schedule is something like this:

8:30am students sit quietly and write in their diaries (planners)

8:35am we call roll and announcements.

8:45am block one begins.

-Block one is always maths, reading, and sometimes sport.

9:45am students return to their classroom and we have reading.  

10:30am we have morning tea.  Students take their snack outside and teachers go have a break in the lounge.  We are also told of any new announcements at this time.  The school is required to provide teachers with a hot beverage (tea, coffee, or hot chocolate) everyday.

11:00am block two begins

-Block two is writing, ALJ (Authentic Learning Journey), health, sport, or Tech.  During tech the whole syndicate (4 classes) go to either music, art, dance/drama, foods, hard materials, or graphic design.  The students are all mixed up and rotate every 5-6 weeks.  

12:30pm Lunch

1:30pm Block three begins

-Block three is ALJ, health, Sport, or writing.

2:45pm Afternoon routine.

3:00pm Home Time

We also have an assembly every week wither on Monday or Friday depending if it is a full assembly or just a year seven assembly.  The students walk in silently and sit in perfect silent rows, I experienced this for the first time last week and I was shocked!

I mentioned syndicate.  In my school there are 15 year seven classes and 15 year eight classes.  There are just under 1,000 students at my school, between 30 and 35 in each class.  Each syndicate is made up of three or four classes of either year seven or year eight.  These teachers meet several times a week and share planning, they take turns preparing units, and collaborating on whatever they are doing at the moment.  The teachers in my syndicate are a lot of fun! 

I will leave you with that for now, let me know if you have any questions.