Lessons learnt

Wedensday 29th, viewed quite a few lessons again at PECI starting with a Maths class where they trialled the use of "clickers" to do surveys, quizes etc from  powerpoints. Kids were really cooperative and interested and the teacher had a great rapport with them.

Visited a visual arts lesson and the room was absolutely HUGE! They had Year 11 & 12 students in the one class. The syllabus for Visual Arts was about 4 pages long for each year group and doesn't have the same structure as ours by a long shot.

Saw an "Entrepreneur" class that was a really great concept where they were responsible for organising and promoting a range of school events involving charity.

A hospitality "dual credit" class was on in the afternoon where a College Teacher came into the school with a School Teacher assisting to teach.

Finally viewed an English class right at the end of the day.

At the end of the day we took a drive to Kingston for dinner. Kingston is a really lovely old fashioned town/city and had tea at the truely Canadian Lone Star!

Classroom dramas and more

Visited a range of classroom this morning from a young Geography teacher who has a lovely apporach with some learning challenged students. She took them to the Library and the Librarian went through how to make a citation on a website and the kids used the computers in the Library to do their reseach on a Province or area of Canada to finally produce a postcard for their chosen area.

Observed a History class where the teacher reviewed elements of the past lesson (this was the first lesson of the topic - World War I). She was a really strong teacher who had a nice way about her interacting with the kids.

After lunch went to a Drama class. The room was HUGE with a performing and small audience space at each side. Kids were really confident in doiung drama, they where "rehearsing" improvisational comedy.

Last lesson was a philosophy class for University parthway students. Interesting to see a class exploring was reality is and how we perceive it.

On the drive back, took the scenic route and had a bit of a look around Picton. Its a pretty little town with neat, tidy houses that reminded me of may movies that showed "Middle American" suburbs although this community is quit small and is primarily rural in nature.

Paul went out for the afternoon to play frisbee and Gayle took me out to a local winery and art gallery. Had a wine tasting and they had a few really nice wines. Had a look at the art and they also had a large garden with a number of sculptures in it ... very nice.

Back to business

First day in Canadian school - Prince Edward College Institute (PECI) - and was an interesting experience with many similarities to our own system but some distinct differences.

Kids at PECI are primarily monocultural, coming from white middle class backgrounds and therefore do not seem to have some of the challenges that come from our more mullticultural communities from areas of economic disadvantage.

Paul posts facebook and twitter comments promoting the school and disseminating information to both simultaneously using "Tweetdeck" ... Deanna I know you are typing in tweetdeck into a search engine right now!

At this school, as in our own, it is already clear that there are many talented and dedicated teachers who bend over backwards to ensure they do the best for kids learning. Their Student Success Team is very similar to our Learning Support Team, where they bring together some leaders from within the school to discuss individual students to case manage improvement. The thing I really liked is the way they used their database exclusively to refer and then to manage the information flow through the database which then led to a email to all group members so they know who is following up with whom.

The school's facilities look pretty great. School was originally built in 1953 but is maintained well and the rooms for wood Metal and Auto look industry standard. Hospitality facilities, at least in this school, don't seen to be to this standard at this stage.

In the past few years they have had a major upgrade to the office facilities and foyer. Huge foyer, very impressive. Walls throughout the school seem to be clean all the time and free of any grafitti.

Two documents: School Effectiveness Framework (SEF) and School Improvement Plan for Student Achievement (SIPSA) look interesting. Not mindblowingly different from what we do, but will be good to have a closer look to see any insights within them that may be useful to our context.

Visiting a few classrooms tomorrow so will be good to see teachers and kids in action as after all, that's what we are all about.

Settling in

Woke up today, eager to explore Niagara falls a little more and to make sure I actually got onto the Maid of the Mist.

Walking down to the falls, it because crystal clear why the shopping strip needed a dinosaur themed Putt Putt and tacky signage ... in the face of unrivalled natural beauty, man's best defense is to counterpoint this with something utterly ridiculous and unnecessary.

The power and the majesty of the falls through the day is absolutely incredible, seeing these huge sheets of water cascading into the depths. Apparently, the face of the falls moves around one metre per year due to the force of the water.



The first trip of Maid of the Mist departed at 9.45 so I really wanted to get on it to make sure I could fit everything in. I arrived at the ticket counter at 8.45 but there was no one there so I walked off to take some more photos of the falls.

I came back around 9.15 and there were a few people waiting for the ticket counter to open so I thought it best to wait there rather than get caught in a crowd.

Just as well because a couple of minutes after I lined up a lot of tourist groups arrived so second in the queue wasn't too shabby after all.

Maid of the Mist was brilliant! To see the power of the water and to be amongst it was breathtaking and exhilarating. Certainly put our small place in the universe into perspective. Everyone was given a blue poncho and just as well.

After going past the American Falls I thought that that was as wet as we'd get, but then going into the Horse-shoe or Canadian Falls it was like being in the midst of a downpour, knowing that the downpour there would never end.

Maid of the Mist ran every 15 minutes from both the Canadian and the US sides. Most of the time there were two vessels in different parts of the trip. The trip took just under 30 minutes.

Paul picked me up from the Hotel and we had a nice lunch at the Niagara School Board's district office. Good to catch up with Peter and Kerry and some of the other LEAPers.

It was a 3-4 hour trip back to Paul's place but the scenery was just superb. The trees are just starting to get their Autumn (Fall) colour and Paul reckons we'll see a significant difference in the colours in the week that I'm here.

Got back to Paul's for the night, good to catch up with Gayle and they really have a wonderful view from their backyard. Actually taked a little bit of "shop", Amazing Race then hit the pillow (after writing this) ready for "school".



The Big Trip

The fourteen hour flight from Sydney to Vancouver was kinda tiring but when the cloud broke, it really was beautiful looking down at the ocean through the clouds. Although 14 hours of "beautiful??

Coming into Vancouver it was obvious really quickly what a different type of landscape Canada is with water EVERYWHERE ... seems everyone must have a water frontage!!


In Vancouver, had to get off the plane, spend two hours going through customs, getting my baggage, then re-checking in my baggage, all to get back on the same plane!

Flyinging out of Vancouver the mountains with snow on top of them were absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.

Arrived in Toronto and had to wait an hour for the shuttle bus but finally made it to Niagara Falls after dark. Walked into the Hotel room and found mirrors on the ceiling .... maybe I booked the wrong kind of hotel room!

Niagara Falls town after dark is pretty much as tacky as I've heard, lots of night clubs, lots of tourists LOTS of neon!

The Falls were really beautiful at night, hard to take a decent photograph because of the lights and the way the mist gets reflected.

Canada Trip

Not long now! Only a few days before jetting off to Canada!!