My First Day Teaching - Ryde Academy

I woke up at 5:20am, quickly got ready, and scarfed down some food. The Southampton train station is literally right behind our flat so at 5:55 I ran out of the flat and to the train station. My train was leaving at 6:10am. When I got to the train station, I could see all these lanes or gate type things leading out to the platforms and it looked like you needed to insert your ticket to get through. I had pre purchased my ticket and tried to insert it but I couldn't get anything to happen. So I ran over to the ticket booth and waited in line to ask for help. I guess I looked super lost because the man behind me in line said "Where you going my love?" (it's very common here for men to call us 'my love'!). I told him I was trying to get to Portsmouth and he said not to worry it was easy enough. I told him I already had a ticket but I didn't know how to get through the lanes and he told me that at this hour of the morning you can just walk right on through! Silly me. I thanked him and ran through a lane and out onto the platform. It was getting close to 6:10 and I was trying to figure out what platform I should go to. The tickets don't contain any information at all. The other problem was that I had to catch a connecting train in Fareham and I couldn't find any trains going to Fareham. In the end I found a train going to Brighton that was stopping at Fareham along the way and deduced that it must be my train. I stood under a sign that said Platform 3 because that is where the Fareham train was supposed to come. At 6:08 I started to panic. The train in front of me was going to Manchester and departing at 6:15. So if it wasn't leaving till then how was it going to make room for my train to come in the next two minutes? I looked up again at the platform 3 sign and realized that it wasn't pointing to where I was standing but in fact at a staircase. Meaning platform 3 was on the other side of the train station and my train was there. Leaving in a minute. I RAN LIKE CRAZY up those stairs, over the bridge, and down to the other side. Sure enough there was the train. I ran on just in the nick of time and literally seconds later, the train pulled out of the station. It was 6:10am and already I wanted to cry.

I got off the train in Fareham which was a very small station and waited for another train to arrive that would take me to Portsmouth Harbour. I managed to figure that out ok and I was off. My next worry was that I wasn't sure how to get to the ferry terminal once I was in Portsmouth Harbour. I finally had a stroke of luck because the ferry place turned out to be attached to the train station. I had already pre purchased my ticket for that as well so I waited in line for about 20 minutes to board the ferry. The ferry ride took about twenty minutes and dropped me off at the Ryde pier. From there, I found a taxi and he brought me to the school.

If you want to do the math it cost me 9.60 for the train, 11.50 for the ferry and 6.60 for the taxi. I left my house at 5:55, got on a train at 6:10 and arrived at the school at 8:10. It was ok because in the back of my head I knew that it was just for today. My head boss had told me to quit after today.

Once there, the staff was incredibly nice. They gave me a brief induction and then took me to the English department which is its own building. There, I received some more information and learned that I had a prep period in the morning, then I would be teaching a double period of Year 8 English, have a break for lunch and then a double period of Year 7 English. The year 8's I would be co teaching for the rest of the year with another teacher but the Year 7's would be just mine. I was to teach both classes a novel (Freak the Mighty for the Year 8's and Holes for the Year 7s). The head of the English Department told me I was replacing another supply teacher who had quit after one week. Way to put on the pressure!! She then kept asking me if I was happy and begged me not to quit on Monday or never come back again. I laughed awkwardly. Like AS IF. She was so nice though and it wasn't Ryde's fault. They didnt know my agency had booked me to a job that was not part of my contract. I spent my free period in the morning reading the first five chapters of both books and making notations and questions. There were some basic lessons left for me from the teacher I'm co teaching with and for my 7's I had a powerpoint to follow along. I was pretty anxious actually as I sat in the English department staff room and started dreading teaching. I think it's just because it's been a few months since I taught but I suddenly felt like I didn't want to be teaching anymore and just got super anxious. But when I walked into the Year 8 classroom, something just took over me. It's like riding a bike. I was back in the swing of things and LOVING it. Supply teaching is not very fun because it's mostly just babysitting, but I was actually teaching teaching and I had so much fun. My double period was an hour and 40 minutes but it flew by. And I actually felt like I was teaching them and getting through to them. It was very exciting. The Year 8's were a good bunch, but pretty chatty. No terrible students though and I can handle chatty. They were all so cute in their uniforms. My Year 7's were even cuter and they were an angel class which excites me because that's the class I am to teach on my own. Again, the double period just flew by and I was having the greatest time. I allowed them to ask me questions about myself at the beginning and they were trying to guess where I'm from and the number one guess was "ARE YOU AMERICAN?!"The other class had asked me that too. When I told the student that I was Canadian he said "isn't that part of America?" and I literally squealed. I said "Ok class, thanks to Harrison over here we are going to have a brief geography lesson before English. Canada is the second largest country in the world and it is by no means PART of the United States. My country also has ten provinces and the province that I come from is bigger than all of UK. And that's just one of the ten provinces. Canada is the best country ever. Geography lesson over." And they all laughed. But then Harrison asked me why I sounded American and I put on a southern drawl and said "oh I didn't realize you thought I sounded like a hillbilly" and the class all laughed again. I had such a great time with them and such a great time at the school that I realized I had some decisions to make. Would I quit the placement after all? The lady who led my induction also told me that whenever I couldn't make a day to just call the school before 7:30am. So it seemed like I might be able to take some time off after all. I talked to some other teachers about my commute and learned some alternatives. Basically they told me that the way I took to Ryde was the easiest and most direct but also the longest and most expensive way. I learnt that there were shorter and less expensive ways so Im going to try it out on Monday. There is apparently a very short chainlink ferry thingy that goes over the river so I could take the rapid speed ferry from Southampton and then cross over the river in 2 minutes and bus from there to Ryde. If all goes according to my plan, the commute should only be around an hour, and only cost 15 pounds one way instead of forty some. That I can accept no problem. And if I can take a day off here and there (for instance we have Oktoberfest booked in Germany on a Friday so I would need that off) then I am more than happy to continue at Ryde. I loved it. On my way home, a very kind teacher I had met drove me to the Pier and then I bought a ferry ticket there. I just made it onto the 4:23 train in Portsmouth and got a direct route to Southampton central. I was walking in my front door at 5:20pm. A nice twelve hour day. Honestly though I wasn't in a bad mood when I came home and I wasn't overly exhausted. It goes to show what a nice school can do for your mentality.

And wow is it every beautiful there. It's even so fun to cross on a ferry to work. So keep your fingers crossed for me that my new method of transportation works on Monday. Because if it ends up being cheap and quick and they provide me with lesson plans, then realistically it's so nice to go back to the same school where you build a rapport with the students and staff and know what you're getting yourself into.

Below are a couple of pictures I took at Ryde.

 This is the gigantic pier that takes like 10 minutes to walk down. But it's a beautiful walk.

 This is a hovercraft ferry.