Off to work we (don't) go.

Hello everyone from now very sunny Brisbane.
Well, over the course of the last week or so I have managed to achieve a number of ridiculous things. I have got a tan, taught precisely nothing, won another pub quiz and been a head chef.
Things on the teaching front are looking ever more bleak, I have still only had the two days of supply work and there seems to be very little on the horizon. I have been told by my recruitment agency, who seem remarkably unhelpful,that Aussie schools seem to be shying away from employing English teachers as their knowledge of Australian subjects is not up to scratch- slightly insulting and from those people I have talked to, false. The tendency, particulary with term long cover or maternity leave is to employ one of the thousands of semi retired teachers who have moved to Queensland for the year round sun, leaving very little opportunities for younger teachers and migrant teachers in the area. This is very disappointing, although I have two applications in for jobs whihc I would deem good things, so here's hoping!

As teaching has been a sparse working field, we have had to move out of that zone into the wonderful world of catering. I have now officially catered for thousands of rev heads at the gold coast v8 supercars event. Upon application and signing up we were told we'd be manning the ice cream stalls-great times in the hot weather, steal a few maxibon, a delight I thought. Upon getting to the event (after been turned away on our 'first' day due to an almighty cock up), I was sent by myself to a burger van directly next to the main straight. I was then shouted out immediately for not realising that I should be cooking in excess of 400 burgers, chicken and bacon pieces. That was it, I was Gordon Ramsey, the 52 degree heat and 2 foot by 2 foot hot plate were mine, I was king of the kitchen.
It was horrendous.
Worst/Longest/Smelliest/Most hilariously ridiculous day ever!
To be fair, they did pay me, my friends did steal an inordinate amount of money from an ice cream van and I got to watch the races for at least half an hour and topped up the tan in the process but blimey, catering is not my calling. Made me appreciate how much better coping with 35 year 9s on a tuesday afternoon I am though!
This is just a short post as I wanted to recall our lovely day without time diminishing it glorious nature and hopefully, very hopefully, one of us may have a job by the end of the week, but then again, that does seem like a silly notion!
Hope everyone is well and for the love of God, if anyone knows anyone who could sort me out with a job, teaching or otherwise, in or around Brisbane would be my saviour!

Aussie vs British-it's a dead heat.

Good afternoon from Brisbane!A momentous week has just passed, I have achieved two firsts in my life, 1.working in an overseas school for the first time and 2.my first ever days of relief/supply teaching. My reflections on the two aspects are wide ranging and only represent what I have seen so far, in no way are these the views of any determined group or the schools I have worked in!haha.

• Firstly, there are numerous similarities between the Aussie schools and the British ones I have worked in. Namely, the eternal battle between teachers, leadership members and administrative staff. The school I supplied Art cover in for two days had had no Art rooms for 10 weeks and I taught the subject in a Science lab. I was informed that this was due to the business side of the school not letting anyone move into new buildings due to a falling out between admin and teachers over timeframes. This was slightly reassuring as this seems to happen alot!There was a huge number of snide comments or points made to staff, even when a relief teacher(me) was in the room. So the airing dirty laundry in public notion seems to curry favour out here as well!
• The resources that Australian schools have, in my experience, are not really up to the job to be honest, very little technology, no projectors, chalk boards, budgets being cut left right and centre (I have to thank the departments I was working with for being so forthcoming with information, even after I had said I was writing a blog about my experiences!) and yet money being paid out for what were dubbed meaningless meetings and cover!
• Literacy is a huge factor here, as it is at home, yet the students still have the incredibly dim view or any literacy work."we just get a sheet and half hour","pointless,just a way of the school to fill our days up" were two opinions on the literacy topic as a whole! I asked a year 11 class what they thought of the literacy lesson I had just completed and they were pretty happy-"better than usual", but this was a lesson I composed 2 minutes before the lesson when I was given the content. If literacy lessons are to fully engage the pupils, they need to be as well planned as any other lesson, to engage, help and inform the pupils' learning.
• Working in Australia brings a range of challenges, the fascination with my accent, the fact I wore a shirt and tie blew the kids away "teachers wear fishing pants and awful shirts here sir, why are you so smart?", the banter that being a 'pom' entails, and the ever glorious question of do you know......in one school's case it was "do you know Matt Smith sir?".I politely said no, but then proferred a story about how a friend met him and he was a nice chap.
• Curriculum content is similar but I have yet to see what my training would have called a truly engaging lesson, it seems to be very much, sheet, desk get it done.Which seems to work here.
• The disparity between what standardising agents want and what leadership members think they want still exist. Schools, well the leadership aspects, still seem very keen on stats and figures and how to show progress through numbers whereas I was told a story by a very senior teacher that last year a governmental group came in to check progress and refused to look at any statistics, preferring to glean qualitative data from chats with staff, pupils and looking to see how well the actual teachers knew the progress of their pupils.
• The clothes issue is an interesting one. I wore the same clothes I would have done in the UK (smart shirt, tie, business trousers, smart shoes) but this was treated with wonder and no matter of intrigue from the pupils, aussie male teachers tend to wear jeans, and an open shirt, something that I would find difficult, as I am from the mindset of 'feel the part, be the part'. Women however, seem to dress very similarly to their Uk counterparts, which brings up some interesting social points I may reflect upon in another post.
• Relief work here is a bit of an old boy's club, schools seem to have had their favourites for a while and ask for the same teacher time and time again. This means that recurring supply is difficult to come by for someone like myself. As it is, I am having to apply for full time contracts as of january (the new academic year) and go back to the wonderful world of retail for a regular wage, picking up relief work as and when I can do. A little soul destroying but should be good for getting a social group going!
• One last piece of advice for any teachers thinking of coming out here to work, think about becoming more religious, I have been unable to apply for three jobs now as I cannot provide a 'church referee' for the position.Just something to think about!

Hope everyone is well and hope to hear from you soon!

P.s

Mr Howell, I have thought of an excellent CLUEDO GIS project for key stage 3 to get into GIS which I would love your collaboration on!And any jobs going for next September?haha.