Hulloooo from Canada, eh? Heeheehee, I love Canada, it is just my place I think. Apart from Sri Lanka of course. But I feel more at home here than anywhere (apart from London, duh) and I love it.
So I'm at my uncle's house in Brampton, which is a small town North of Toronto, bordering on proper countryside. I went running yesterday and within 10 minutes of running through the neighbourhood I hit a wood, excellent. All around things are still being built. Canada's population is 32 million, just over half that of the UK. Toronto has 5 million people compared to London's 10 million. Sure it looks and feels like a city, but then when you think how empty Canada is, well, it's exciting. I'm sure I could find a house here where nobody could look into my windows when I'm dancing round the room.
Everyone is out at work/school, so I'm meant to be planning lessons. Sadly I had to bring work along, but I'm ignoring it. More important than lesson planning is preparing for an upcoming interview at TF, working on their Higher Education Access Programme. I have a lot of exciting stuff to say about that, but I'm still keeping it close to my chest since I'm strangely under-confident about actually getting this job. I can't figure out if this bodes well for me or not.
I've just read through the TF OFSTED report, finally. Interesting reading, very positive, but also some constructive criticism that needed to be said. Hopefully this will help TF reach even higher standards.
What else did I want to say? Oh yeah, I wanted to write about my cousin's timetable at school over here. It's so strange! She has two semesters a year instead of three terms, and in each semester she studies only four subjects, and she does these subjects every day! Even stranger, she has a four day timetable, and this timetable just rotates as the weeks go by. For example, if she has maths period 1 on day 1, then on day 2 she will have it period 2 etc. Then when you get to day 5, the timetable goes back to whatever you would do on day 1. Lessons are 75 mins long or 45 mins long, and the day ends at 2:15pm. Lunch is scheduled during periods 2, 3 or 4, depending on your timetable. It's bizarre, I can't imagine teaching the same four classes every day for a whole term. Oh wait, I do that actually, I teach the same 5 classes maths almost every day for a whole year. Weird.
Stranger than her timetable though, is her brother's old timetable (he's now at university). His school also had a 5 period day ending at 2:15pm, but because of the size of the student population and the limited capacity of the lunchroom, well, lunch was scheduled all through the day. This meant that students who had 1st period lunch just didn't have to come into school until lesson 2. He had 5th period lunch, which meant essentially he did four lessons without a break and then just came home at lunchtime. How crazy is that?! Especially when you compare it to my schooling, 5.5 days of school, 8:35 am registration, 4pm end of school day, 8/9 lessons of class a day, and 14 subjects studied in my first year.
Another thing that strikes me as controversially different is the lack of national assessment. They have no exams such as GCSEs etc. only school provided diplomas, which seem to be highly subjective and thus make it difficult to compare students progress and performance. You know I'm not a big fan of continual assessment and the emphasis on exams rather than learning, but I do believe in the national curriculum, and I wonder how Canada checks its students are learning the prescribed material if they don't test them in standard manner? Hmm, something to think about.
Ok, I best get to work so that later I can play with my cousins. Aaah, play, a long lost joy, seemingly only revived in Canada. Between playing and waffles I could almost just stay here.
So I'm at my uncle's house in Brampton, which is a small town North of Toronto, bordering on proper countryside. I went running yesterday and within 10 minutes of running through the neighbourhood I hit a wood, excellent. All around things are still being built. Canada's population is 32 million, just over half that of the UK. Toronto has 5 million people compared to London's 10 million. Sure it looks and feels like a city, but then when you think how empty Canada is, well, it's exciting. I'm sure I could find a house here where nobody could look into my windows when I'm dancing round the room.
Everyone is out at work/school, so I'm meant to be planning lessons. Sadly I had to bring work along, but I'm ignoring it. More important than lesson planning is preparing for an upcoming interview at TF, working on their Higher Education Access Programme. I have a lot of exciting stuff to say about that, but I'm still keeping it close to my chest since I'm strangely under-confident about actually getting this job. I can't figure out if this bodes well for me or not.
I've just read through the TF OFSTED report, finally. Interesting reading, very positive, but also some constructive criticism that needed to be said. Hopefully this will help TF reach even higher standards.
What else did I want to say? Oh yeah, I wanted to write about my cousin's timetable at school over here. It's so strange! She has two semesters a year instead of three terms, and in each semester she studies only four subjects, and she does these subjects every day! Even stranger, she has a four day timetable, and this timetable just rotates as the weeks go by. For example, if she has maths period 1 on day 1, then on day 2 she will have it period 2 etc. Then when you get to day 5, the timetable goes back to whatever you would do on day 1. Lessons are 75 mins long or 45 mins long, and the day ends at 2:15pm. Lunch is scheduled during periods 2, 3 or 4, depending on your timetable. It's bizarre, I can't imagine teaching the same four classes every day for a whole term. Oh wait, I do that actually, I teach the same 5 classes maths almost every day for a whole year. Weird.
Stranger than her timetable though, is her brother's old timetable (he's now at university). His school also had a 5 period day ending at 2:15pm, but because of the size of the student population and the limited capacity of the lunchroom, well, lunch was scheduled all through the day. This meant that students who had 1st period lunch just didn't have to come into school until lesson 2. He had 5th period lunch, which meant essentially he did four lessons without a break and then just came home at lunchtime. How crazy is that?! Especially when you compare it to my schooling, 5.5 days of school, 8:35 am registration, 4pm end of school day, 8/9 lessons of class a day, and 14 subjects studied in my first year.
Another thing that strikes me as controversially different is the lack of national assessment. They have no exams such as GCSEs etc. only school provided diplomas, which seem to be highly subjective and thus make it difficult to compare students progress and performance. You know I'm not a big fan of continual assessment and the emphasis on exams rather than learning, but I do believe in the national curriculum, and I wonder how Canada checks its students are learning the prescribed material if they don't test them in standard manner? Hmm, something to think about.
Ok, I best get to work so that later I can play with my cousins. Aaah, play, a long lost joy, seemingly only revived in Canada. Between playing and waffles I could almost just stay here.
