On breaking too early

[katiefoolery]

I'm not ready for holidays.

It sounds like a silly thing to say, but I'm not.  If you work in a school, then you become accustomed to rhythms and the rhythm that dictates everything is that of the four terms.  Ten weeks, then two weeks' holiday.  Rinse and repeat until Summer.  Ten weeks is as much as you can take when you're surrounded by kids who are either a delight or a challenge.  After ten weeks, it grows old and a two week break is just what you need.

But not this year.  Thanks to the upcoming Melbourne Commonwealth Games, the school term in Victoria has been completely skewed.  Instead of our ten weeks for first term, we've only had six.  It sounds good, until you take into consideration the fact that the following three terms will be extended to compensate for this.  So we can look forward to one twelve week term and two eleven week ones after that.

I'm simply not ready for this holiday.  Nobody's prepared for it.  The weather is all wrong.  It doesn't feel right.  We should have re-set our clocks at the end of daylight saving and started waking up on colder and darker mornings.  Autumn should have begun.

Instead, I said goodbye to Glenys, the teacher librarian at work, and both of us felt odd.

"It feels weird," I said and she agreed.

It's not as though I won't appreciate the break.  I'm just - you guessed it - not ready for it.

Comments

[maskedconfessor.livejournal.com]

I agree. It's wrong. It really stuffs the timetable of study for the year too, and that's not such a great thing in year 12. I'm really very tired and holidays are very welcome just now, but I hate thinking about how long the other terms are going to be.
Urgh.
Enjoy your holidays, anyway.

[tim-of-oz.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the break, but I know how bad it's going to be around week 9 or 10 next term. Plus we have mid year exams in MAY, which is stupid.

I'm glad I'm year 11 this year.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

It's the people studying VCE that I feel really sorry for. It totally screws up the entire system. Why couldn't they have planned the Games around school holidays, instead of the other way around?

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I think that's why I'm not ready for the break - because I know the long terms are going to be the absolute opposite of fun.

[maskedconfessor.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It particularly stuffs up English, actually. Because we had to get the first section of study done before the end of term.. but that meant we had be ready for the SAC in less than 5 weeks. That wasn't so great.

[naelany.livejournal.com]

ewwwww, that doesn't sound like fun at all! Well, the 6 week part and then vaca does, but not the 12 and 11-11 terms. Enjoy the break anyway?

[emerald85.livejournal.com]

Yes, silly Commonwealth Games!

They have messed up my teaching rounds this year. I have to do 8 weeks almost all in one go, rather then 2 weeks before our holidays, and then 6 weeks during the middle of second semester. And those 8 weeks merge right in with our 9 week semester making it a rather long semester with only one week off... :S

All your talk of getting into routines around school holidays is making me nervous! That will be me next year!

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I'll give it a shot. You can bet I'll be complaining later, though. :)

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

It really stuffs up anybody doing anything to do with education, doesn't it? And to top it all off, I'm not experiencing any enthusiasm whatsoever for the games themselves. Bah.

It will be you! You'll be getting into rhythms and everything. And looking forward to school holidays. :)

[naelany.livejournal.com]

lol oh yes, of course ^_~

[cat-eyes-el.livejournal.com]

I know! Mid-year exams are going to suck, because everyone will have completley crashed about a week before them! I feel really sorry for the year 12s, but not too much cause I need to spare some helpful sympathy for myself when I feel like crap but need to study. However, I do like having holidays now in that I can completely catch up on my homework and get some good study in and be mega-organised (here's hoping) for second term. Especially since no one really exaplained to us what it was we were supposed to do for homestudy until like halfway through this term and we were all like "Great, and now we're behind" so in that way it is rather helpful.

Cat

[tim-of-oz.livejournal.com]

Especially when 6 weeks has felt like about 10...

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I think the reason no-one told you what was going on was because nobody actually knew. Everyone was wandering around, looking shell-shocked, wondering how the hell they were going to get any proper teaching done this year.

Also, the introduction of a new curriculum didn't exactly help. Maybe they should have arranged that for the year we weren't hosting the Commonwealth Games...

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

There's another good point. At least Easter will break up the next term a little...

[emmaketurah.livejournal.com]

It's not as though I won't appreciate the break. I'm just - you guessed it - not ready for it.

Amen to that.

When you work in Out of School Hours Care you dread the holidays. Holidays mean Vacation Care. It seems like just yesterday we finished off our six week Vacation Care program and now we have to do it again. I very much prefer Before & After School Care!

All this because they wanted our school buses to ferry athletes around in...

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

It's also really crummy if you happen to be a teacher in a border town like Albury Wodonga. I recently heard from a friend in that situation who's doing casual teaching in both states at the moment. Thanks to the mis-aligned holidays, she won't actually get any holidays at all.

Why couldn't they buy some new buses?

[emmaketurah.livejournal.com]

Because the government is stupid. And that would cost money.

That sucks about not getting holidays!!