First Week of Teaching

My first experience of teaching in London went surprisingly well. I was posted to a school in Northern London for three half-days to start off the first week back from the mid-term school break. I was in a Year 2 (Grade 2) class at a Jewish primary school. My first morning there was like something out of a dream or a movie. I was introduced to the class by the Head Teacher (Principal) and the whole class (all 13 of them!) replied in unison, “Good morning, Miss Stock”. There was an assembly for the first hour on Monday morning, which I didn’t have to attend, so I didn’t actually start teaching until around 10am. The class I had were very well behaved. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, and we did have a few characters who liked to test the boundaries with a supply teacher (Teacher On-call). While I was teaching, I couldn’t get over how cute the kids here are with their British accents. And despite the fact that we were all speaking English, we had a few humorous miscommunications while I was teaching. First off, one of the other Canadian teachers living in Warwickshire House is named Leah and is always complaining that people pronounce her name wrong. On my second day at the Jewish primary school, one of the handwriting words for the day happened to be Leah. While we were going over the handwriting words, I said with my Canadian accent that the final word was Leah (Lee-ah) and suddenly there were little hands flying in the air. One of the children looked at me very puzzled and said, “Miss, don’t you mean Lay-ah?” To this I replied, “In Canada we pronounce this name ‘Lee-ah’”. One of the girls frantically put up her hand and quickly informed me that I was incorrect; “It’s Lay-ah, Miss. That’s my sister’s name, and her name is Lay-ah!” Obviously I couldn’t argue with this evidence, so I conceded that it was indeed Lay-ah. Thinking that the moment had passed, and having gotten most of the students on track with their handwriting practice, I noticed that one of the boys was sitting and staring at me quizzically. I asked him if he needed any help with his work. He replied, “Miss, could you say that again in Canadian?” Needless to say, this is not something I have encountered whilst teaching in Canada.
Another miscommunication I encountered was to do with bathroom breaks. As in every Canadian primary classroom, students will ask frequently to use the washroom. On my first day teaching I had a student ask, “Miss, can I go to the toilet? I’m bursting!” Without thinking, I replied, “Yes, you may go to the bathroom,” to which I got a puzzled look from the student. He then said, “But Miss, I don’t need to have a bath, I just need to use the toilet!” In London, most buildings have separate rooms for each part of the average Canadian bathroom. A bathroom here is a room with a bathtub. A toilet here is a room with toilets and a sink. And a shower is a room with showers.
Overall, my first days of teaching in London went really well. The only downside to this particular school was that I had to travel thirteen stops on the tube (the underground), which took about 45 minutes each way and cost £7 round trip.
As promised, I will share a little about this interesting building that I live in. Technically there are two buildings that makeup the accommodations provided to us here; Bonham Carter House and Warwickshire House. Two of the newly arrived Classroom teachers live in Bonham Carter and the other four of us live in Warwickshire. One of the tricky things is that Warwickshire only connects to Bonham Carter on even numbered floors. So finding making your way from Warwickshire floor one to Bonham Carter floor one is not as simple as you’d think it should be; involving trips upstairs and down and all around. Further, the room numbers are duplicated in each building, so at first it was sometimes difficult to tell if you were looking at Warwickshire Room 218 or Bonham Carter Room 218. Oh, and not all of the staircases go to each of the floors. Leah and I had an adventure a little while ago, taking a new staircase. We got thoroughly lost and ended up coming out onto Gower Street four addresses down from our front door! We live at 52 Gower and we came out the front door of 58 Gower without ever having left the building! Bizarre! I also inadvertently found the laundry room in the dungeons of our building by taking a staircase that I thought would take me to Leah’s room on the first floor of Warwickshire! I think we’re getting more used to the building now, though, I haven’t gotten lost lately!
Here are some pictures of what I’ve seen lately:

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

Westminster Abbey
For all the Harry Potter fans: Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross rail station