We left from home on Saturday evening. From the beginning
the trip was fun and our car full of laughter. The road was clear and easy to
drive. The team even practiced their English during the trip. Seija offered the
team a lovely chicken salad in the hotel restaurant. We spent the night at the
hotel near the airport and woke up at 3. The night was short and the breakfast
at 4 o'clock felt a bit extreme. Then to the airport.
When checking in we had a conversation with the machine
which didn't accept our passports first. Finally Markus gave the machine our
ticket numbers and the machine started co-operating with us. Then we went to
the baggage drop and communicated with another machine. Then we went to the
security control and Mirjami was chosen to be examined for explosives. Our
flight to Helsinki was successful. Markus led the team to gate 38. We almost
run through the airtport to the gate 38 - there was not too much extra time.
Finally we sat in the aircraft on the way to our Bath adventures. Seija got the
idea to have this blog in English since one aim of this week is to brush up our
English.
We took the fast Heathrow Express train to Paddington railways station. The train
was tidy and empty. Then we were hungry and went to a breakfast restaurant with
great hopes. Unfortunately the place was very crowded and it took a long long
time to get our food. Markus stated that this food postponed our hunger just
for a little moment. We regretted that we didn`t order the tasty panncaces.
Back to Paddington station to look for the train for Bath.
The station was huge and to the last minute they didn't know the right
platform. Then we sat in a crowded train heading for Bath. The train was going
through the countryside. In London the sun was shining but while riding on the
sky became cloudy. We saw lots of sheep in the hills.
In Bath we walked to our apartment Saco Bath. The house is
old and idyllic. Our receptionist was kind enough to let us go in the
apartment right when we came since we told her that we were tired after being
travelling all night. We have an apartment of two bedrooms, kitchen, living
room and a bathroom.
Seija and Markus went out shopping us food. It was quite
an experience. The shop was a small one, called Sainsbury, and everything
needed was found easily (almost). But now it happened: You had to be a consumer
and a worker in the same person: We paid our grocery in a self service desk. We
have learned a lot about communicating with machines. In the shop, there was
twice a situation: call an assistant... In the evening we had the first course
meeting and we met our colleagues sitting outside in the garden. The first days:
a drive of 200 km, two flights, two train trips and some walking. Hope the
souls will follow us soon.
Monday: Getting to know the people on the course. At the
beginning we had an icebreaking exercise with pairs we didn´t know in advance.
It was interesting to see the variety of the course attendants. -Seija is
actually a very funny person, stated the Danish Kasper who presented her.
It was a next thing to get to know the complicity of the
school system in England. The schools are maintained by government or they
public schools (private). The constant evaluation of schools, teachers and
students astonished us. In English school system there are several evaluations
in a year and an inspector could come into the class anytime. We were wondering
how often do English teachers get to update education arranged by the employer.
We are thankful as Finnish teachers that we have this great opportunity to
develop our working skills. After having lunch in a nice French restaurant we
had a change to get deeper into ICT. It was interesting to hear how
systematically the skills to be learned in ICT had been listed.
Tomorrow we have the first school visit. We had an
enlightening lesson about the etiquette needed during the school visits. We try
behave tomorrow and Markus will dig his tie from his luggage and Seija will
have her leather skirt instead of jeans. We are glad that Mirjami was so well prepared
before our journey and informed all the others about the etiquette. This blog
is to be continued tomorrow... but we have go and practice the road to
Hayesfield Academy to be there in time in the morning.
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