Super teacher

The big news is that Sarah started her first position as a High School teacher last week!

After working very hard and performing extremely well in her Diploma of Education program last year, she ended up being listed as a “targeted graduate” by the NSW Department of Education so was right in line for the plum jobs. Incredibly, she managed to score a full time permanent position at an academically selective public school in the Sydney metropolitan area! Those jobs are very difficult to get for any teacher and for a graduate to be offered a position at one is almost unheard of.

She soon found out why – they said “We don’t normally take on graduates, but the Department said we could have the number one ranked graduate in the state… so we took you”. How amazing is that? Go Sarah!

So she's working at Girraween High School in Western Sydney, which is a long way from where we live, but luckily there's a very direct route along motorways which makes it a 35-40minute drive commute with no traffic as it's the opposite direction to peak hour. Fantastic.



The only issue is that she's teaching HSC (final year) year 12 Advanced English which is pretty full-on and again something they don't normally let graduates do. Plus she's teaching years 8 through 11 as well which means a damn full schedule. Plus her role call group, playground and sports supervision, she's the school Debating Co-ordinator AND she happens to be replacing a woman who had been teaching for 40 years and was head of english when she left. Big shoes to fill.

Of course, as everyone who knows her would expect, Sarah's already done so well in the first two weeks. The kids all love her and other teachers have reported hearing things like one student saying to another "You should move into the new teacher's class... I hear she's really good!"

Anyway I'm extremely proud of my wife and she seems to be doing an amazing job! It's not without hard work though, she spent 6 hours on Sunday planning lessons (while I was napping and then out running...) and had put in 2 or 3 hours every night this week as well. Teaching is one tough gig, I certainly don't think I could do it.