As summer is coming to an end, teachers are once again starting the process of preparing for the new school year and many have their own practised processes.
Carolyn Cushing, a Grade 4 teacher at 100 Mile House Elementary says, “I am looking forward to having one grade, just one grade. I have never had that before.” She says in the 15 years she’s been teaching she’s always had two grades or more.
“I looked at the classroom and I did some organizing on the shelves and I put some books back in their place because we had taken everything off the shelves so that it could get cleaned, and the desks are all just stacked up along with the chairs, and so I started planning on how I want to set up the actual physical classroom,” Cushing says, adding that she needed to find another desk, because she is expecting more students than last year, 26 in total. Cushing mentioned many new parts being added to the curriculum.
“Last year, we started our school as a Wild school, so we tried to get the students to get outside more for their education and do more hands on nature kind of curriculum, but the problem was our winter was really hard in order to do that. It was doable but it was very challenging.”
She says it is a lot when you think of adding things to the curriculum and not taking anything away.
“It keeps you really busy.”
Lynn McArthur, a teacher and librarian at 108 Mile Elementary school, says she hasn’t been able to enter the school to prepare due to the maintenance company for the school having their work in the school delayed by the fires. McArthur says usually teachers would already be in the school preparing their classrooms, and wrapping their heads around everything.
She says she has been keeping busy searching for books for her library and she has been reading books all summer to make sure she approves of them for her Red Cedar Book Club which she volunteers to run during lunch throughout the school year.
“I check out what is new for kids’ fiction and picture books so that I can compile a list, so when the budget comes through I am ready to spend on what’s new.”
She is looking forward to seeing her students again, and she is especially excited to get to know the new kindergarten students starting at the school.
“Just seeing the kids and how much they’ve grown and changed over the summer, that’s pretty neat and always exciting.”
Jasmine Kreschuck, the band and music teacher at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School (PSO), says that she hasn’t been able to access the school either due to the fires and evacuations, but usually she would be in the school selecting and photocopying music for her band class, guitar class, and music class and setting up the room for her students.
“There is not a lot of time to prepare this year.”
Kreschuck also says she is looking forward to being back at work, with her students, and learning new pieces for her Tour Bands’ trip to Whistler in the spring.
This year for band, she says she is expecting 100 students in total.