The Scribblings of a Primary School Teacher: Where I Teach Wednesday

So today's post is all about where I teach. I'm not going to name my specific school but I'll give a bit of a feel for whereabouts I am and then show you some of my finally finished classroom!

Originally I'd wanted to find a job away from home and move. I applied for quite a few and ended up focusing on near home and Manchester, after a couple of interviews in Manchester and a few near home, I ended up getting the job 20 minutes away from home. I had another interview for Manchester a couple of days later so ummed and ahhed about what to do but decided to go with the offer and now I can definitely see that I've made the right choice. The LA I'm working for are apparently a fantastic borough to work for, particularly for NQTs though they've not processed my start or tax paperwork yet!

The school seems like a great school but then again, how much do you really know until it's too late and you're in there? The head and my mentor have been fantastic so far, they've given me a lot of help and advice, answering about a million questions! I'm quite lucky in that I have a fair amount of freedom to do what I want in my classroom and teaching really, within reason!

Now the Ofsted type stuff that none of you probably really care about! It's a slightly larger than average school with around 300 children. It's in a slightly better position than most in that there are lower than average numbers of children with Free School Meals or on the SEN register. It'll be interesting to see the difference between a school with low FSM numbers and my middle placement that had very high numbers of children with FSM. They work to a creative curriculum, which is fantastic. Took a bit of getting used to at first but I love it! Really excited to start teaching my 'Turrets and Tiaras' topic next week.

Here's a few photos of the classroom that'll be my home for the next term (at least) though it's still a work in progress, mostly finished but it'll still need a bit of tweaking!