First Day As A Volunteer!

 On Tuesday this week, I did my first day as a volunteer at a primary school, on the Ardoch Youth Foundation program. It’s aimed at disadvantaged schools like the one where I’ve worked for the past twenty years. This school is in the same area as I have been working, so I’m quite comfortable there. Likewise with the tasks I’ve been given, even though I’m a secondary teacher. After several years with a literacy program in which I worked with kids whose reading level was well below where it should be, it felt very familiar when I was asked to read with kids who were well below Grade 4. I just did what I have done with my older students. It was nice to start with something comfortable and familiar.

The Grade 4 teachers, who work together in an open classroom, seemed very competent and caring. They were a bit frustrated when they discovered that yet again they would have to teach the kids how to look words up in the dictionary, because they have forgotten during term break. I offered to help out with that, so they could have to deal with fewer kids in that area. 

It was quite nice to see that they were excited about having an extra pair of hands, even if it is only once a week. And as I’m a teacher myself, they won’t have to excplain as much. 

The second session was their fortnightly music lesson, with a very good drumming teacher. They loved it! 

I’ve also offered to help with Breakfast Club before school, though it’s more basic than the one we had at my school - that was as much social as eating, it was indoors and there was toast and hot milk. This involves handing kids a bowl of cereal, which they take away to eat, and washing the dishes. Still, worth doing and at least the lady won’t be alone on Tuesdays. 

So far, very glad to do this. 

New Ardoch Volunteer!

This morning I answered my phone to an unfamiliar number. It was a gentleman who introduced himself merely as Nick from Ardoch. After chatting a few minutes, and his asking me what my last school was, he suddenly realised, “Hey! I know you! You know me!” And I did. He came to my school last year during the Literacy Buddies program. We both laughed and chatted some more.

I’m in. I’ve been allocated a primary school in the same suburb where I used to work. He did offer to contact my old school in case they wanted a volunteer, but I had a think about it and decided it wouldn’t be a good idea. I only said to him that people might think I was breathing down their necks so soon after leaving, but there was more. I know the politics of that school. I have been in touch with a friend there and I know some of what has been going on this year, enough to know I’d open my mouth and give some opinions. Not a good idea when you are just there to help.

So, it’s a primary school for me. I will be learning something new. I’ve never worked with younger kids before, except for a single session at the primary school down the road from my own school, when the teacher running the school’s Writers Festival wanted us to do workshops. This is my chance!

And even better than this is a special reason why it will be good to learn about younger children. Nick knows I’m a children’s writer. He asked me if I’d be interested in another program they do, a writer in residence thing, where you go to a primary school and run workshops for the kids, ending in a book, for which Ardoch will pay the printing costs. Not paid, of course, just another volunteer thing, but fun - and again, I’d learn something I can use later.

Wish me luck, that this school gig will work out! For now, I’m delighted!  

Post Teaching Day

So, this morning I woke up, having slept through a month’s worth of rain - something I wasn’t allowed to do till this year. I’m now on my way into the city to buy a warm dressing gown, with a broken umbrella that I only got to use once!

I spent the morning fiddling around with my application for volunteer work for the Ardoch Youth Foundation. I thought I’d at least be spared a police check, as I already had one for my VIT registration, but no.

It’s a complex application process that involves:

- an online PD that is mostly about stuff that as a teacher, I already knew(but some things you also need to do as a volunteer that you don’t as a teacher)
-a police check
-a Working With Children check that involves filling in a long long form plus check of your ID(actually, not too bad, because all you have to do is give them permission to check your passport and your Medicare card.

However, you then have to take your passport or driver’s licence(I have the first, not the second) to the post office to get your card registered. The, presumably, they post it to you.

Then you have to do a telephone interview(done yesterday)and a full day PD, to which you STILL have to bring the paperwork you’ve already done in the other processes. Signed by a chemist or whoever, just like for access to your superannuation money. I actually have a signed photocopy of my passport from last time, because the lady wasn’t satisfied with the first one, but I also have to go and get them to sign a photocopy of my Medicare card, and bring both originals with me to the PD.

And still no guarantee I’m going to be accepted as a volunteer!

Fact: I miss the kids. I still feel weird not going to work. And I want to help.

Still... after I get my Working With Children card, I’ll finally have a photo ID so I won’t have to carry around my passport. I hate doing that, I’m terrified I will lose it.

Wish me luck in getting back to work once a week!

Some Catching Up On The Last Part Of My Teaching Career

I don’t have many followers here(most on my book blog The Great Raven), but those of you who are following here have been great about commenting when I post.  And I haven’t been posting much on this site and not at all this year. 

There’s a reason. Last year it was because I was flat out over school stuff and just stopped now and again to report a problem or a triumph with my kids. This year it’s because I finally decided I’d had enough and took my departure from the school system. When I have had something general to say, I’ve said it on Dreamwidth. But this started as a general blog, and no reason why I can’t post between here and Dreamwidth where, let’s face it, I am only read by fellow Dreamwidth members! 

So, let’s talk about the last part of my teacher librarian career and the first part of the rest of my life, which still involves kids to some extent. 

Towards the end of last year, I added a student to my list of Western Chances scholars. I had been kicking myself for not realising she was eligible till too late to apply, when I got an email from someone at WC asking me if I’d mind applying for a student they though deserved one, who was at my school. I had never heard of him and, as teacher librarian, I knew EVERYBODY on my campus, at least by name. I said so and suggested they contact someone on the campus where he probably was. But I thought, if they can sneak in another application this late, why can’t I? I asked and they gave me a few days, once I had emailed the young lady’s reports. Fortunately, this student is highly competent and organised and we got the application done in no time flat! I finished the on line form and invited her to press the “submit” button. She is very good at everything except maths and her maths teacher told me she was fine, just not top of the class. Nevertheless, she asked for money to help with maths tutoring. 

Western Chances, in case I hadn’t explained, is a special scholarship for kids in Melbourne’s Western suburbs(there is also an Eastern Chances, which does it slightly differently). The kids concerned have to be very good at something, whether it’s academic, arts or even leadership. And they have to be from a family without much money. The whole point is that these kids often have to drop subjects they love because they can’t afford textbooks, elective fees, etc. That’s unfair. So a few hundred dollars a year can make a huge difference. One of my students last year, for example, is a maths genius. He was about to be invited to do Year 11 maths in Year 8. But that involves a horribly expensive textbook and an even more expensive calculator which his parents just couldn’t afford. So I applied and he got all that PLUS a computer! We didn’t apply for one, but we were told it was a strong application. 

The young lady I mentioned before has a professional mother who can’t get work in her area. The girl is a lover of books who also writes. And one day I heard her humming Mozart! The Queen of the Night aria. Which she knew and explained what it was about to me. She deserved a scholarship all right. 

The third student is very good at multimedia, and his music teacher tells me he will be excellent at keyboard if he can get some individual lessons. His sister was another of my students and became dux of the school in 2016. She is at university now. I nominated her when she was in Year 9.

At the end of last year, knowing I wasn’t returning, I arranged for a friend at work to take over the renewals. We got together to work in this year’s, at the pub, over breakfast, as it was her first time.  And on March 21, we went to the Edge theatre in Federation Square in Melbourne’s CBD to cheer them in as they went up on stage to collect their awards. We were so very proud of them! 

But the way things are going at my school I’m kind of glad to have escaped. And the library... Well, more of this tomorrow.