A Letter to Adam

Dear Adam,

It was good to hear that you have finally arrived in Shenzhen. I am assuming that all of the hassles of the medicals and the work visa have finally been worth it! If you have been reading my blog, then you will be prepared for the delays and the frustrations of China Merchant Bank.

I left behind quite a lot of my own teaching resources in my classroom. Please feel free to use them, as they are now yours. I also gave a lot of bits and pieces to Francis, as he was teaching Year 5 last year. He might lend you one or two useful things, if you were to ask him. During the holidays, the cleaners invade the GOS classrooms and move everything, so that you can never find anything at the beginning of the new semester and your computer will probably not work for the first couple of weeks.

The curriculum for Year 5 (you are teaching Year 5, aren’t you?) is pretty much sorted out and the planning should all be there, in considerable detail. However, one of the annoying things about Green Oasis is that that when something is done and dusted, along comes someone who thinks that it ought to be changed.

Rachel Dillon is a kind and sensible lady. I usually went to have a chat with her if I had any sort of problem or issue.

Information overload is not much fun, as it makes you feel guilty (although you have not actually done anything wrong). Even after five years, I often did not understand what was being said at staff meetings, as it mostly consisted of acronyms (SLT, ECA, CIS, et cetera, ad infinitum). I pointed out to the principal that most of the Mandarin-speaking staff did not understand a lot of what was being said, but she did not seem to appreciate this piece of information.

Yes, it does indeed take a while to find out where everything is and who everyone is. The different floors of the school look much alike and it took me about three weeks to realize that there really was more than one gents’ bathroom in the whole building. Another weird thing is the cameras. They are everywhere and they take a bit of getting used to.

Last year, Moodle arrived and I never understood it, as I do not have a PhD in ICT. Class Dojo is a lot simpler and easier to use. I changed the students’ avatars (the silly monsters) and instead I put their photographs. This is a bit of extra work, but it helped me to learn their names. (Moodle is also supposed to have photos of the children, but often they do not look anything like their photos!) Rui, the Portuguese ICT chap, is a nice guy and he helped me with computer-related things. Another good and helpful person is the lady in the photocopying room, but her name escapes me.

Well, very best of British (or Bulgarian) luck to you! Retirement is pretty good. You should try it, sometime soon.

Simon