The First Three Weeks..

My last posting left you all waiting for news of my class as my classroom was set up ready for the children to start on the Sunday.
I started to write this blog at the end of the first week, however, I was finding it rather difficult to find positive things to write as I really struggled. It is now the end of the third week with the children and while the journey to now has been as far from rosy as you may expect it to have been, it is getting better. So, starting from the beginning of the first week, it had been decided that the children would come in through a staggered intake. So, in theory, the first 6 children on the register would come into school on the Sunday which was the first day at school, then the next 6 children and so on until I had all of the children in my class in on the Thursday. However, I was told to expect any child and every child because they 'just turn up when they want'. I went into school on the Sunday with the rest of the staff full of anticipation, fear, excitement and I suppose, just every emotion imaginable!!
The first child to come through my door was a little girl (obviously I cant disclose names or anything on here) She came straight into the classroom without a backward glance and headed for the play dough. It quickly transpired that she spoke English pretty well, so I was rather pleased about that. The next child was a little boy who hid behind his mum and wouldn't even look at me (clearly I was making a good first impression!) I tried every trick in the book to get him to come away from his mum and come and join in, but he was having none of it. Mum stayed for a little while to get him settled and he eventually told her to go. The next two children, a girl and a boy (not related), were both screaming. Before they even got through the door. I was like.. oh, my, word!! The nanny stayed with the little girl and the mum with the boy. Here in Qatar, it is very common that in the rich families, each child has a nanny that looks after them. You very rarely see the parents and it is the nanny that you build the rapport with and feed back any concerns and messages too. I then got two more boys, and two more girls. One of the little boys came in with a very bemused expression on his face and just sort of stood in the corner for the first hour looking at everything and the other one was tearful, but not screaming like the other children had been. The two girls, one came in and settled herself in like she had always been there and the other one clung to the nanny for dear life! It was like I was about to kidnap her or something!!! Thank GOD for my TA - she was an absolute star and she speaks Arabic, so she was able to talk to the children and help me with words to talk to the children and enable me to learn some basic words so that the children could tell me things that they wanted. On the first day, I learned 'La' which means 'No' which comes in VERY handy! 'Hammam' which means toilet - we spent a lot of time in the 'hammam' in the first couple of days!! 'Kaka' which I think, needs no explanation, as 'Peepee' doesn't. I also learned 'Mama' - Mum, 'Baba' - Dad and 'Mama eji baden' which means 'Mum is coming soon!!' That was used to death in the first week too!! HAHA!!
By the end of the first week, I had met 21 children out of the 22 children that I had on my register. It had been a week of ups and downs, me learning about the children and the parents, the children and parents learning more and more about me.
The second week was extremely eventful out of the three weeks that I have spent with the children, I think that this one was the most challenging. I really struggled with the managing of the behaviour and actually keeping the children entertained with the few resources that we have (the order still hasn't come). The rest of the staff were also feeling frustrated, but me being a new teacher and being used to what I had back in the UK, it wasn't so easy. I have to admit that a lot of my evenings and after school time was spent in floods of tears and feeling sick about actually having to go back to school the next day or after the weekend. One particular day I had had such a horrendous time with the children that I actually contemplated throwing in the towel and going home. Its not easy working in an International school and if I am honest, I don't know what I expected to come to from the UK, but it wasn't what I was experiencing. I know that some people might be reading this and thinking - for God's sake, the children that you are working with are 3 and 4. But working with these children is a whole other experience. The problem is, that the children get what they want. And if they don't get what they want, the thing to do is retaliate and either hit or throw a tantrum. I've been kicked, punched, pinched, a child try to rip my bracelet from my wrist, shouted at in Arabic (by a child not a parent!)  just to name a few things. They refuse to do things, not because they don't understand, just because the culture is that if you don't want to, you don't have to.
Also, I have to say that by the end of the morning, the children are exhausted. The day for the children here is 7am to 12.30. So that is 5 and a half hours in school for the children in Foundation stage One and Two. Its a VERY long day especially when some of those 3 year olds are getting on a bus at 5.30 in the morning to come to school and then are not getting picked up for the bus until 1.40 when the Primary finish then they have the journey home. So that's 9 hours away from their family more than 10 hours that they have probably been up for... it makes you think - is it any wonder that the children are as badly behaved, tearful and distressed as they are?!
Don't get me wrong, all of the children are lovely in their own way and when you get them, you have them, if that makes sense. Some of them are so loving and after 3 weeks of having the children some of them now run to me in the morning and give me a big hug and kisses. Its so lovely. That's the side of the job that makes it worthwhile. But when you have a bad day, you know about it!!
Its now the last day of the weekend and I think I am actually looking forward to going to school tomorrow for the first time since I started, knowing that the children will be there to greet me and that we will hopefully have a really good week.

Prep week at School!

So! Its the one that you have all been waiting for!! The blog about School!!!
After a week of doing lots of things that the school had put on for us, finding our way around the city and spending lots of money, the day finally came for us to head into school! If you don't already know, the Qatari week runs Sunday to Thursday, with Friday being the day of rest and prayer and Saturday the 'other' day off.
It was very weird to say the least getting up on a Sunday morning and heading into school, knowing that everyone at home was in bed. Unimpressed wasn't the word!! I wasn't too sure how I was supposed to dress on my first day and the email that we had hadn't specified so everyone played it safe and went in school clothes. We boarded the bus about 6.30am, to get to school for 6.45ish (Urgh!!), so that everything could start at 7am. We travelled to school, a journey that takes about 15 minutes, depending on the traffic and which way the driver decides to take you!! When arriving at school, we went through to the Secondary Lecture theatre where we met all the new staff from all the Schools and all the old staff. The Vice Principal introduced himself and the Senior Management Team and explained that, as yet, our school didn't have a Principal but they would be arriving soon. After all the introductions and everything else, we split into Schools, the Primary going over to their building and the Secondary to theirs for a briefing for all staff, then a tour around the school for new staff. Just to give you a brief idea of the size of the school, there are at least 6 classes in each Year Group in EYFS and Primary (More in some years) - each with an average of 25 children per class. So in Primary alone, you have about 1200 children. Yeh, the school is huge! The Primary School is set out in levels. The basement of the School houses the staff car park, the first level has the Year One and Two Classrooms, The Second Floor Years Three and Four and the Third Floor Year Five and Six.
After a briefing with the rest of the Primary and Early Years Staff, we went on a quick tour of the building. As I didn't really need to know where anything was in Primary, I headed over to the EYFS Building to have a look around. There didn't seem to be many people around so we (Rebecca, Charlene and I) just had a quick glance around. To be honest, first impressions took me by surprise. The EYFS building is purpose built, set out on 2 levels, with a Fountain in the middle of the downstairs! There didn't seem to be anything anywhere, all the furniture not there, cupboards covered up with black bin bags and not a toy or anything in sight. This made me worry a lot.
So after the shock of finding my building and thinking.. Oh, My, Word... we had a meeting with the CEO of the School - who talked about what the school is about and her back ground. There are four schools in the group of schools that I work for, dotted about all over Doha. The school I work at is the biggest of the four and the only one that is housed in a purpose built school, the rest all housed in a number of Villas on a particular site. Its an interesting concept - housing a school in a Villa, but that's what they seem to do over here and its the 'norm'.
We spent some time after the meeting talking to the CEO and just chatting to one another in the entrance hall before I finally got to go over to Early Years again and meet the team. There are 12 classes in Foundation Stage in total, 6 in Foundation One and 6 in Foundation 2. Upon taking my job, I was told I would be teaching Foundation Stage Two, however, it turns out that I am Foundation Stage One. The classes are also called after colours, so, I am Yellow Class!! Wasn't quite the red or purple class that I wanted, but I can work with Yellow!! :) I met the team and it quickly transpired that everyone was lovely, so that made me feel a little bit more at ease. However, I was told that the resources that had been ordered still hadn't arrived and it was looking increasingly likely that they were not going to arrive in time for the start of term. Nightmare. Sara, the Foundation Stage Manager worked so hard bless her to try and get the resources, but it was a nightmare and she had spent the majority of her time when back in Doha phoning around and chasing things. Not an easy task when you're missing thousands of pounds worth of resources!! 
She showed me my classroom and my worst nightmares were realised. There was NOTHING in terms of resources in my room. 3 tables and a set of chairs for each, a bookshelf, 4 cupboards and a carpet. No interactive whiteboard, computer or anything. I was so gutted. This is what my classroom looked like when I left on the Sunday Night....

It would be fair to day that I was pretty gutted. It wasn't anyone's fault in Foundation, it was just one of those things. I am a new teacher there, I hadn't been able to bring resources over from England because of weight and luggage restrictions so it was a really hard thing to take. I really didn't know what I was going to do in terms of sorting the classroom and resourcing it effectively to have a class of 22 three and four year olds in this room the following weekend!! I have to admit, I cried a lot during the prep week, not just for myself, but for the children as well. I kept saying to myself, its just different, its just different, but if I'm honest - part of me thought, what the hell have I done. Leaving my job in the UK to come to this? My old classroom was fabulous and I think now, that I may have underestimated how lucky I was to have all the resources to hand, when there is so little here at my new school. It takes months for things to arrive here in Qatar from England and its not just frustrating for me, but for all involved in the Foundation Stage.

The following day I went into school not knowing what to expect or where I was going to be able to go with the room. I think I must have spent an hour or so just moving tables and chairs around, much to the annoyance of my TA Miss Donna!! I just didn't know what else to do. All the other teachers seemed to have everything that they needed and although they weren't, their classrooms seemed to be taking shape and I was just getting more and more fraught. That's when I spoke to Emma, who works up in Green Class in Foundation 2. She told me about a shop called Al Rawnaq, which is basically, a teachers dream. It is packed to the rafters with different stationary, toys, books, posters, household items and all kinds bric a brac that you can think of!! I made it my mission to make sure that I got there by the end of the week!! It then transpired that the new teachers had been given some money by the school to help them to resource their rooms with basic things! I was over the moon with that - at least I would definitely get to get some stuff!! That night, I went over to City Mall and went and raided the Home Centre. I bought cushions and different things to put out, sorting trays e.t.c and felt a bit better. However, it did cost me QR369, which is about £65 (of my own money) but I had come to the conclusion that I needed to do it to make myself feel better about the classroom. I also bought two hanging nets and some separating curtains just to colour up the room. All the while, the voice in the back of my mind was shouting at me as I don't actually LIKE over colouring my classroom... Im more for the Communication Friendly Spaces approach!! However, here, there isn't really much choice. Its colour, or just nothing.
The next day (which was Tuesday) I took the things I'd bought into school and set about trying to at least get sorted. I felt a little bit better when things started to go up and even better when Emma told Rebecca, Charlene and I that she was taking us to Al Rawnaq. I was so made up to go there and wasted no time in piling my trolley high with everything that I could think of to put in my classroom. By the time I got to the till I was convinced I was going to have spent well over my budget. But I was shocked when it only came to QR206!! (£36) You should have seen what I got!! Was just amazing!! :-D That night, I went back with a couple of girls from my building and spent another QR236 (£41) and began to feel more and more relaxed about the room as a whole. My TA was amazing too, she printed, laminated and stuck stuff up without me even asking her bless her. So by the end of the week I was feeling a little more prepared but still not 100% about everything. However, it was all in the hands of God now as I left on Saturday afternoon (having gone in on my day off to finish everything and was joined by a number of other members of the EYFS and Primary team) and it was just a wait to see what the children and my first week would be like!! Everything would be alright... Inshallah!!

The Door to my classroom

What you can see when you look out of my classroom door... and yes.. it is a fountain!! 

My classroom, as I left it on Saturday afternoon 

Another view 

another view 

Dune Bashing and Sand Surfing

The day after we went on the city tour, school had arranged for all the new staff to go 'Dune Bashing'. We were all very excited about this and loaded up the buses outside the apartment block and headed to Al Mana. When we got there there was about 12 4x4 cars waiting. We all went into the apartment block where we were addressed by the group leader. He told us that we were going to travel in convoy, about 45 minutes to outside of the city. There, we would stop so the drivers could let air out of the tyres and then we would carry on onto the dunes. After a while we would stop to take some photos and then travel to the beach where we could have a rest, go swimming in the sea etc. Then we would be driven back.

Everyone was really excited so we split into groups of 4 and headed out towards the cars. I joined up with Yasar, Sofia and Katherine. We got into a Silver 4x4 with our driver Abdullah. He was a really nice guy and he chatted away to us asking us where we were from e.t.c. As the journey went on, we discovered that he really liked playing his music really loud. Although, it wasn't just Arabic music that he liked to play. He had a real variety of music on the USB and we were all well impressed! It was proper nostalgic early 00's dance and 90's music - with some 70's and 80's thrown in for good measure! 

We drove out of the city and stopped just outside the sand dunes. We parked in a big long line and we all got out! I know this might sound daft, but I knew we were in the desert, but I didn't expect to see camels!! And there they were. Three camels, all there ready to have rides on them!! I was so surprised! Part of me wanted to actually have a ride on the camel, but I was too much of a wimp to have a go!! It was only 20QR - so about £4 for a 5 minute ride - but I wasn't too keen!! So this time I watched. I've got plenty of time to go Camel riding - I'm here for 2 years!! 

After the tyres were all suitably deflated, we all climbed back into the cars and off we went over the sand dunes. It was pretty exciting and it was really really high!! As we climbed up the dunes, the driver was really putting the car close to the edge of the dune and we could see all the way down. Its quite disconcerting actually - looking down a dune knowing that the car could go off the edge at any time!! However the driver was good and obviously had done this a number of times - so I wasn't too concerned... honest!!

 As we picked up speed we really started surfing the dunes, Katherine, Sofia and I were squealing all over the place!! It was worse watching the cars in front as we knew that was what we were about to do!! We sand surfed for about 15 minutes, going up and down the dunes, being thrown this way and that and squealing all the way!! We then got to a huge dune were it was easily 100ft high! All of the cars lined up in a big long line, ready to race each other down it - and our driver decided to go backwards!! I was like... ARGH!!!!!!

So down we went! The adrenaline was flowing so much and it was so good! Poor Sofia was sat right at the very back in the car and when we were going down literally vertical it was so scary!! 

When we got to the bottom, we waited for the other cars to join us and then we set off again in convoy. We travelled a bit further to the top of a dune were we stopped to admire the view. We could see right across the ocean, the water was so blue and the sun was shining - just an amazing. Awesome picture opportunity - so we took advantage of that!! :) 

After we had had a bit of time on top of the dune, we continued on to our last stop - a camp on the beach. The camp had everything - showers, toilets, tents, sofa's, volleyball court, soft drinks bar... it was ace!! Here, we all got out of the cars and went to explore. We had about an hour to chill and relax. Some people spent time in the tents just having a drink, some went swimming and some went to play volleyball! It was great fun just chatting to people and getting to know them, as it was only our 3rd day in Doha. 

We could have definitely stayed there all day, but unfortunately, an hour was all we had, so we had to load back up into the cars and head home. It was a long journey back - after we'd had such an amazing day, it was quite deflating to be back on the road and heading back into the city back to reality.  

All in all, an awesome day. We're even thinking of doing a trip during half term back to the dunes to go on the Quad bikes and do a bit of camping! Now anyone that knows me knows that I don't do camping... but you only live once right?! :) 

Doha City Tour

I have been in Doha now for 4 days and its beginning to feel like I have always been here. Life is easy and laid back, the Qatari people are nice, even if they do drive erratically and you feel like your putting your life in your hands when you get on a bus or in a taxi but its all good.

The school have kept us busy by providing different things to do each day and today (Saturday) is actually our first 'free' day.

The first thing that we did on Wednesday was a city tour. We were picked up by the buses and taken to Al Mana, which is another place where they house staff. When there, we all got on to 2 coaches and were taken off around the city with a guy at the front speaking broken English, so we didn't quite understand what he was saying. Now, I hadn't actually been anywhere apart from the City Centre Mall until this point, so it was actually quite good to see Doha from the confines of an air conditioned bus. The one thing that I did observe though is that Doha is, quite literally a building site. It is still very up and coming and wherever you look there are cranes and scaffolding. So don't be deceived when you look at the pictures on Google and think WOW.. because its not all what its made out to be. However, the buildings that are up and are complete are absolutely incredible. The high rise buildings dominate the skyline and are just amazing. On our way to the first stop, which was the Museum of Islamic Art, we passed through what can only be described as shanty towns! Everyone was sort of looking at each other thinking, oh my word! But when you see the Museum from the outside it was just amazing. (The picture doesn't really do it justice)

We were dropped off here and given time to wander around and look at the place. Inside it was amazing and we all sort of wandered around together, looking at the artefacts and different things on display. However, it was the first time that many of us had seen each other since the flight and meeting on the first day, so a lot of people spent the time talking about their accommodation e.t.c. I ended up sitting in the cafe with Jason, Adam, Heather and a couple of others as they had been placed miles away from everyone else and there only seemed to be 6 of them in their building. We all compared stories about getting here and our apartments it seemed like we had all had similar experiences. But we all agreed it was onwards and upwards from now on! 

Leaving the Museum, we got back on the buses and headed to the Souq. The Souq is a market place in Doha and it is just a crazy place. They sell all kinds in this place from food, to clothes, to shoes to even animals!! There is a fun fair, places to eat, and a place to have a 'shisha' which is the favourite pastime here, as the Muslims can't drink. A shisha is a tobacco based water pipe which is smoked. It is also called a 'Hookah' which I think would probably cause some problems if you said that at home... 'I'm just going for a Hookah..' WHAT?! :) 

We were taken right through the Souq and then given 20 minutes to have a look around. It was pretty insane, and I had to keep reminding myself to close my mouth as I was just like a fish!! A group of us just wandered around together looking at all the different things and making a mental note of where everything was! However, when I do get a chance to get back down there I really don't think that I'm going to remember where everything is!! 

After the Souq, it was beginning to get dark. We all piled back on the bus and headed to our final destination, which was to be The Pearl. The Pearl is the only place in Doha that Foreign Nationals can own a property, so lets just say that this place has serious money. When we pulled up in our coaches, on one side of the road was a Ferrari Showroom and on the other a Bugatti Showroom. So obviously this isn't a place where we are going to go shopping every week! We walked through the Mall part and there was all the shops that you could only shop in if you were a millionaire. There was even a pool in the middle of the mall! It was crazy! We then headed out to the harbour and had a lot of fun picking out the boats that we would like if we were living the life! Some of the boats were totally insane, so huge and totally blinged out. At this point it was going dark, so we all headed back to the buses to go back to the apartments. We didn't see a lot on the way back - but the city skyline looked pretty impressive. When we went through the city to get back, the guide told us that the city is only 30% completed. They aim to have 300 skyscrapers up in the next 10 years and he also said to prepare ourselves as one day we might be walking or travelling down a road, and the following day the road might not be there because they have closed it to make way for a building. I find that really crazy how they can just shut a road because they want to build something on it and no one has any say in it. Can you imagine that in England?! Not a chance!!