The 411 on the UK

It occurred to me that some people may not know the whole skinny on what Genevieve and I will be doing so here's the scoop.

After years of being a professional it's back to the books!

Genevieve - my lovely, adventurous, talented and courageous wife - flew herself to London England and auditioned for some Master's acting programs in the spring. Personally I would never have dreamed of doing something so brave myself but that's my wife for you! She will be attending East 15 in Loughton which is just North West of London. I'm thinking it's like being in Markham or something. At least in terms of distance from London.

Here's a link to her school if you are interested in finding out about it.

http://east15.ac.uk/index.shtml

You can tell this place is serious by the tortured actor suffering on the front page!

The program is geared towards film and television and it's current big claim to fame is that Mike Leigh - the director of Secrets and Lies graduated from the school and is currently on the board - I think. I believe he's involved somehow but don't quote me on that.

From One Side of the Desk to the Other

Having just completed teacher's college I am about to embark on that nebulous and daunting journey called "first year teaching."

I have obtained what is called "Gauranteed Supply Work" which breaks down like this: The recruitment agency I'm involved with gaurantees me 8 working days in a two week period (which is 10 days). If I don't work that many days they'll pay me for 8 days anyway. It's supply teaching which is something that I wanted to avoid but there's also a school that is interested in me as well. They want me to teach science in the morning and drama and sports in the afternoon, which sounded ideal, until they told me it was a school for children with behavioural and emotional issues.

I thought about it and declined as I didn't feel it would be fair to myself or the children involved since I don't have enough experience dealing with children to handle kids like this. The recruiter said they were really interested in me and suggested i supply teach there the first week and if it doesn't feel right I can just move on. I agreed to this and then I talked to the principal via email and did some research on the school and I'm actually very keen to check it out. The school has very good reports from board inspectors including high praise for teacher commitment, student engagement and achievement. Class sizes are limited to 8. There's a TA in every class and there are support staff who deal with learning disabilites. It looks like it could be very challenging and very rewarding. This is what I'm hoping for. I'm actually quite gung-ho to get there and see what I can do.

Here's a map of where my school will be located:

http://www.axcis.co.uk/map/45067.html

If you zoom out a bit you can see Loughton is directly north of it which is where Genevieve will be studying. I have no idea what kind of commute this will be which leads us to...where we will be living!

The answer is...I don't know exactly. The recruitment company has placed Genevieve and I in a room in a house but we haven't got the exact address yet. We should get it tomorrow. I assume it will look something like this ----------------->

The house will be filled with other teachers who are from abroad. Genevieve and I are also looking to move in with students from her school because it'll probably end up being cheaper.

On Essex and the Chav

Genevieve and I will be living in Essex which is reknowned for something known as a "Chav". What's a chav you ask? I'd never heard of these people but every time I mentioned Essex to anyone who knows London they always do the same thing. "Oh...." (toss head back and smile) "Essex. Essex is full of Chav's." The best I could figure out was that Chav was their term for "white trash" but Chav's look far more interesting. I did some research of my own and found out that they're likely to wear a burberry baseball hat, sport bling, be into hip hop, and be white. None of this made any sense to me so I delved further. Where else to go but Wikipedia?

it seems that the Chav has singlehandedly brought down Burberry.

"The Burberry clothing brand, which quickly became synonymous with the "chav" subculture, ceased production of its branded baseball cap in 2004, in an attempt to distance itself from the stereotype."

Well if they brought down a major brand they can't be all bad!

Here's a link that gives a detailed description of the Chav:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav#Elements_of_the_stereotype

Personally I can't wait to meet these people. In fact, I'm almost certain I'll come back as one.