Change on the horizon

So far in my seven year teaching career, I have managed to not teach at the same school for longer than two years.  I have spent one year in Yr 2 at one school, two years in Pre Primary in another school, two years in Kindy at yet another school and two years teaching Kindy at my current school (although I had a big ten month break in the middle of this run so it's only really one year).

It looks like this is set to continue as I am unable to continue at my current school next year.  If you are unfamiliar with the education department politics and silly rules this may not make a lot of sense but... I am permanent to a different school than where I currently teach.  This means I own a position at that school.  I applied for the position at my current school, which is a school for children with language delays which only has Kindy, Pre Primary and Year 1 classes.  I got the position here but it was a contract, not permanent.  For next year, my current school is not advertising any positions and is selecting teachers from a pool.  I can't apply for the pool because I am permanent.  Only teachers without their permanency can apply to the pool.  Which means I have to go back to the other school.  

I am a bit sad to be leaving because being at this language school was my dream when I was at uni.  I'm so happy I achieved it, even for the short time I was there.  I've learnt a lot and really enjoyed seeing kids come in with only a small handful of words or even no words and leaving with a much bigger vocabulary and greater comprehension skills.  It's really rewarding to see and the changes are so drastic it's very easy to see them improve.

This other school that I own the position at seems like a nice school too - I haven't actually taught there yet though!  I got the transfer to this school a couple of weeks before I was offered the other school and of course I accepted that one instead.  I still own the position there though so that's where I will be next year.

Confused yet?

Anyhow, I quite enjoy a bit of change as a teacher.  I enjoy trying new things and getting new ideas from other staff.  I'm not yet ready to return to full time work so I've told the principal I'm looking at two or three days a week.  He thinks he may have a Kindy position for me and I mentioned I would also be open to Pre Primary - having taught Kindy for the past four years I'd like to head back to PP at some stage as I really do prefer that age group (4-5yr olds here in WA, Kindy is 3-4yr olds).  The principal is going to get back to me early next week he said, with a couple of options.  I'm a bit excited and a bit nervous.  What to choose?  If I taught a Kindy class I would have my own class and do 3 days/wk.  It'd be nice to have my own class again because I do miss that, but it would mean planning, lots of paperwork, assessment, reports.  Lots of afterhours work.  If I did PP I would be sharing the job with someone else or working in a couple of classes while the class teacher is out on planning time.  This would be nice also because it wouldn't be so much assessment and reports and planning.  But the downfall there is you have to work with someone else and you can't really choose who that might be and how well you will work together.  The lady I am working with this year has quite poor behaviour management skills which means the class can be pretty unruly, it's a bit hard to train them into better habits when I'm only in there once a week.  I'd like to avoid having to deal with that sort of thing next year.

I'm already daydreaming about having a Kindy class and making plans of things I can do with them.  Which makes me think I might be leaning towards doing that?  Either way, I can't make any decisions until I'm given some choices to choose from so I'm eagerly awaiting the phone call sometime next week.

Do you like change in your workplace/job or are you a creature of habit?

 

One Task a Day Calendar (for us Southern Hemispherians)

  

A little while ago I posted about my organisation/declutter/tidying calendar I was making up to try and get myself more organised (part of the neverending attempt).  There's loads of them around the traps but they all seem to be Northern Hemispherised and that just doesn't suit me!

I got all motivated and finished it off today.  Not only that but I worked out how to change it into a pdf and how to get it online and link it in my blog.  It wasn't that difficult actually so I don't feel too clever.  In fact, I actually feel a bit silly for not having worked out how to do it before.  Oh well.  Now I can share stuff all the time.  I can have my own little 'printables' label over there to the right.  How exciting!  Admittedly, the rest of my freebies will probably focus around school resources.  But I'm sure there's people out there who might like them too.

So, here it is in all its understated glory.  It is pretty basic, but we'll use phrases like 'clean lines' and 'easy to navigate' instead okay?  Sounds so much better.

Feel free to download, share, link back to this post, whatever you like.  I'd love you to keep me updated on how it's working for you (if you use it) and feedback is most welcome too :)

Thank you to those people who commented with ideas for my calendar too, they are all in there!


One Task a Day Calendar

 

Organising your life

I realllllly want MR to make me one of these door tidies for inside our linen cupboard!

So I've been wanting to organise my life for, well, pretty much my whole teenage and adult life.  It just does not come naturally to me.  My sister inherited all the genes in that area and I managed to get all of both Mum and Dad's clutterbug genes, Dad's especially. 

I've been looking at decluttering sites and organising sites, pinning ideas to my 'I need to get organised...' pinterest board (a lot of which seems to revolve around pretty ways to store my ribbon collection...) and generally just making many lists and checking them off - somewhat slowly.  But it is progress.

I've liked the idea of a declutter your home calendar which lists a task to do each day.  I could do that! But all of the ones I have found seem to aimed at the northern hemisphere and just don't suit our seasons!  So I've decided to make my own.  In fact, I started tonight while watching a dreadful movie, continued it while watching the next movie which was only slightly less dreadful and did some more after that while watching some Olympics.  I would say I have got about three quarters of 365 days filled.

Some of the tasks repeat themselves fortnightly, like 'spend twenty minutes in a room that needs attention' and 'clear off the dining room table', some appear monthly like 'sort through and file one stack of paper work' and 'catch up on some ironing or handwashing' whilst some only appear less often like 'go through a craft supply pile' (which in actual fact should probably appear a lot more regularly) and then there's a few that only make their presence known once or twice a year such as 'clean out the gutters' or 'clean the oven'.  I decided to extend my calendar to a Home and Garden organising calendar mainly because gardening is something I am still learning about and I need reminding when it is time to fertilise, prune, plant etc.

Now I must pay credit, a lot of my inspiration has come from this helpful lady and her decluttering calendar.  But now I am asking all you lovely people out there for your ideas.  Not your everyday cleaning jobs like vacuum, washing and so forth, more those things that keep on getting put off or fit more into a declutter and organise category.  Things that you look at and think, gosh when did I last do that?  Or if you are already an organised person, things that you schedule in to your Spring cleaning each year. 

Do you have any tips that work for you?  I have found that the twenty-minute-tidy works quite well for me.  I set the timer on the oven for twenty minutes and then tidy until it goes off.  Sometimes I even set it for a second lot of twenty minutes!*


I'm really looking forward to hearing your ideas!!





  
* I know, I know, even I astound myself sometimes!
 
 

Hoopla

I've been a little excited about embroidering stuff at the moment.  The stitches coming together make me feel all pleased inside.  I can do it neatly, even around my medication shakes.  It is perfect for in front of the tv, no pattern to remember (or rather, forget) when I get too distracted by whatever show I'm watching or the conversation I'm having with MR.  It doesn't feel like it's taking too long either.  And I really like that it has been turning out the way I picture it in my head.  Admittedly that is because I'm just tracing around or filling in something already on a piece of fabric but that's beside the point.  I'm loving it quite a bit.

This is the second in my clock series.  I'm actually quite seriously thinking of setting up shop and selling these.  I already have one lovely blog reader interested in one.  This one is for my best friend who recently got engaged.  She gave me Pip's first book for Christmas a while ago and we were flicking through it and she said how much she loved this clock, which is where the idea first came from.  It was pictured in the same ink and spindle birch trees fabric that I'm using and when I went online to order it to make the clock I spotted the wrens fabric and the embroidery idea just popped into my head.  So then I thought about what I might be able to embroider onto this one for my friend.  I've almost finished outlining one tree now and then I'm going to toy with a turning the bird into a little red robin and perhaps a few autumn leaves hanging onto a branch or two...

This second piece is for a red work swap I'm in.  My partner loves cats and so it was an easy decision with what design to go with!  I haven't done any red work before and I hadn't used so many different stitches either.  I've used back stitch on the basket, stem stitch on the kitten, daisy stitch on the flowers, reverse double chain stitch on the ball of wool and satin stitch on the nose and the knitting needle ends.  Of those stitches I'd only done back stitch and satin stitch before, the rest are all new to me.  Yes, I'm a major embroidery beginner!

Next on the list is to finish off my sashiko piece and then back to the clocks! I need to find some more lovely hand printed fabric two or three colour fabric to use... anyone have some designer suggestions for me?


Linking in with Things I'm Loving...

K2 P2

Yes, you guessed right, I'm finally having some success at knitting!  I've worked out the rib stitch pattern and get it right more often than not now and I have about 30cm of a loopy cowl scarf thingie on the needles.

As you can see, there are a few lumps and bumps around and it is certainly not perfect, but I don't mind.  Why? Because I've actually almost properly worked out how to unknit and pick up dropped stitches!  Finally!! I say almost properly because I still haven't got it quite right I don't think but at least I know when I've done something wrong now and what I've done.  That was the frustrating part before, not knowing how to fix up mistakes.

This is a lovely soft 100% baby alpaca wool and it smells so good.  I can't wear sheep wool around my neck - my neck goes bright red and itchy - so I thought I'd give alpaca a try.  Unfortunately, it didn't do to well either so this one is destined for a friend's birthday present.

I know it wasn't any good around my neck because a month or so ago I crocheted this scarf for myself with the same wool and a nice soft bamboo and milk proteins yarn (the light grey).  I thought making it not entirely animal fibres might make it ok around my neck but no, red and itchy it got.  Very annoying, because I liked my grey scarf.  Next time I'm at spotty I'll have to get some nice soft synthetics or bamboo or something in greys and make myself one.  This one is also for a friend's birthday now, there's a couple of birthdays at the moment so I might as well make the most of the season and make pretty scarves for everyone with my massive overabundance stash of yarns!

What's been happening in your creative world lately?