Well, once again, it appears to be almost 2 whole months since I blogged. It has been a v busy 2 months - since last time, I have moved house, and have been teaching for almost 5 whole weeks. It is only 8 more school days until half term, which is quite a big landmark for me!

School has generally been good, but I think that with some of my classes, it will take them a while longer to realise that I AM a permanent fixture! Hopefully, they will start to settle down a bit soon.

Sometimes, school is a bit difficult - in some ways, I think it's because I care a lot more about my classes than I did last year; that might sound really bad, but while I was doing my PGCE, I was only ever temporarily teaching someone else's classes, & knew that I'd be giving them back at the end of my placement. But now, my classes are mine, & there's no one to give them back to, and I am essentially responsible for how well they perform in their GCSE (in the case of Years 10 & 11).

I'm finding that there are plenty of challenges - both in terms of behaviour, and pupils who don't speak much English - I'm getting to be good at using on-line Polish-English / English-Polish translators, as one of my pupils is in the early stages of learning English, and sometimes needs a bit of help with some vocabulary!

Thankfully, there are people in the staffroom who really help me get through the tough days, and people who also struggle with some of my more difficult classes...

Outside school, life is getting easier - I'm finding that I can stay up until after 10 now that I'm getting used to getting up at 6 to go to school! For a while, I was in bed by 10 every night, just to make sure that I could get up the next day!!

In a couple of weeks, I have a hospital appointment in Oxford, to discuss whether my eye can be operated on (to straighten it; it won't really do anything for my sight); and I also have to have some kidney x-rays (not related to my eyes) as I've been having really nasty pains in my kidney region.

Other than that, I'm fairly healthy, and things are going well. Looking forward to half term, but enjoying my job too!