For Girls!
Today, I got a call for supply work at an all-girls prep school. The school and experience reminded me of Anne of Green Gables when Anne becomes a teacher at the private girls boarding school. The atmosphere at Blackheath High was very similar. The girls seemed very bright and hardworking, as well as helpful and friendly towards their teachers and their peers. The class sizes were smaller, a max of 22 girls in each class, with 2 or 3 classes for each year group.
It's different teaching to just girls. You realize the differences to how girls and boys learn. The majority of the work I gave the students today was work-sheet based and independent or partner based. The girls made sure their notebooks were neat and tidy, used their best handwriting all the times, and kept their books organized (using rulers at all times to underline!). Most boys just don't have these same tendencies, especially at Year 5, which is the age I was in most of the day.
I did get to do Art with a Year 3 class, where they were tracing Egyptian patterns that could be used to decorate pots and artefacts in their sketch books and then just colouring them with coloured pencils. It was so fun, I even joined in because the girls were working so quietly!
While I'm sure the girls have their share of drama between each other, it just seemed like a nice change to be in a classroom without any boys about to hit puberty or acting silly or having too much energy for their own good.
Sometimes I appreciate on-call supply days because you just don't know where you will end up. It could be a school in Tottenham (the lower-class, more urban area of the city) or it could be a lovely all-girls school! Just another opportunity that I wouldn't get supply teaching in Canada!
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