First weeks!

I'm in week 5 of teaching in an English school!  I started this post back in week 1 but didn't get around to publishing it.  I have 31 energetic kids in my class!  The school is a junior school, so it's my Year 3 students' first year at this school.  It's considered a large school, with 3 classes per year group (grade) with Year 3-Year 6 students.

1. There's a school-wide assembly every day where the whole school joins together.  It happens straight away in the morning for 15 minutes and is called "Collective Worship" because the school is a Church of England school.  Assemblies are part of the school culture in England.  In my previous school in California, we had an awards assembly about once a month and did not have enough space to do it as a whole school so there were multiple assemblies. 
2. England primary schools typically have Teaching Assistants, and at my school we have one who supports in every class.  That is not the norm in California, though I've subbed in some schools who use extra funding for TAs that are shared among multiple classrooms.  In my previous school in California, we had no TAs in classrooms, but did have one or two who either were one-to-one with certain special education students, or supported in the special education pull-out services.  It was nice to start the year with someone who knows what is going on with routines and schedules I'm not used to.  Though I'm finding that the TAs are kept incredibly busy with intervention groups.
3. The kids at this school have indoor shoes and outdoor shoes that they have to continually change in and out of when they come to school in the morning, go out for recess, go home, etc. I guess because it rains so much so having different shoes helps keep it cleaner inside?  The three Year 3 classrooms have a shared cloakroom where the kids keep their backpacks and shoes. 
4. Most schools in England require the kids to wear uniforms, where most schools in the US do not.  The kids at my school wear black shoes, red sweatshirts or sweaters, red or white shirts, and grey skirts or pants.  They also have P.E. uniforms which they change into inside the classroom!  They had a Free Dress day last Friday where they brought in £1 to come dressed in what they wanted. They were crazy that day! 
5. School lunches are called dinners and they are made onsite by lunchroom staff every day!  They are also served on real plates with real utensils.  They have desserts too!  In California, it's the norm for food to be prepared offsite, then wrapped in plastic, and served on and eaten with throw-away things.  I see much less lunch waste here.
6. I've entered a world of kids writing Learning Objectives in journals for every single lesson, and daily marking/grading of everything the kids do in their books.  There's a huge emphasis on visible "evidence of learning."

Those are just a few quick take-aways from my first weeks, and I'm sure I'll dive more into detail with some of them as the weeks go on.  Thanks for reading!