Gunbalanya - End of Week 1

The school at Gunbalanya has 3 distinct sections.

This is the Preschool:

This is the Primary Section:

This is the front of the secondary section (where I work):

This is the back of the secondary section:

On Monday I spent the day meeting my teachers and talking to them and the Principal about the changes that we will be making with one of the teachers going on maternity leave, my arriving and an overhaul of the way we teach our homeland centres.

I'm in Darwin for a First Steps literacy course next week so we were planning to wait for the start of the new term to change things. Given that I hadn't expected to have much of a teaching load this week but one of the teachers was off sick on Tuesday so I took her class for the day. They're a really nice group and it felt great to get back to real teaching.

We had some guys from the Trinity Gramar School in Melbourne visiting us for a few days to do some practical science with our students. The students made an elastic band powered balsa wood glider and then measured how far they flew and how long the stayed aloft. Then they used the speed and distance to calculate the speed their planes flew at.

Tuesday night I took a drive back towards the river crossing. About 15km from Gunbalanya there is a lagoon with water lillies around the edge where I stopped to watch the sunset.

Having got my feet wet I decided to keep going so for the rest of the week I took the class anytime the teachers would normally have their planning time. I took the middle years students for PE on Wednesday afternoon and played a game of hockey with them, which was great fun but also persuaded me that the new timetable was not going to have sport at 1pm!

Thursday I took the other class for a session. This is made up of all the young men who are going through ceremony. The local customs don't allow them to be taught by or to mix with women during this time which means they need to be in a separate class and limits who I can use to teach it. The Trinity boys were back with their gliders and the guys had great fun.

Friday was spent planning with the outstations teachers and doing some cleaning and furniture moving in preparation for a third teacher joining the team next term. Then it was time to jump in the car and race back to Darwin for my hockey presentation night.

(I picked up the coaches award which recognises the player who the coach feels has made a particular contribution to the team which was great.)