Pomaria Primary School

The day that grandma and grandpa left to go work was our first day of teaching. Grandma insisted on getting a picture of us at the school. We have been at Pomaria Primary school for two weeks now, only four days a week though. We love it! My teachers name is Whaea Janet, she has the reputation of being the mean teacher in the school but she is really a softy and I can tell how much she loves her students. There are a lot of things that are different in schools here than in the states. First, hats are required whenever students are outside, and shoes are not worn indoors out of respect. I love walking everywhere barefoot, the first day I walked the 20 minutes home the ground was super hot and I got heat blisters on my heels, but they are fine now. We also say Maori prayers when we arrive, before lunch and morning tea, and before we go home. Morning tea is at 10:30 every day, the students are required to eat at least a piece of fruit and then have time to play outside like a recess break and the teachers all go to the lounge for 20 minutes. Every second Tuesday a group is assigned to provide a big feed for everyone, last week it was soooo good! Our school has PLGs (professional Learning Groups) made up of a class of each age. Within those PLGs there are house captains and deputy house captains and the whole school has a head boy and head girl. We just missed the assembly where they announced who all those children were this past Friday, but I was there to hear all the speeches the students wrote and to vote on our house captains. I’m in a year 5-6 class, the oldest, so all of our candidates are in my class, I voted for Steven because he had the funniest speech, everyone vetoed it though because they would have to deal with him the rest of the year. I understand now, that kid is a handful! I really do love all of my students though, they are so cool. A lot of them have been through more than I can even imagine. I have students form Tonga, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Solomon Islands, Fiji, India, China, the Congo, and South Africa at least. Most of them speak at least 2 languages, some 3 or 4. They are all surprised that I only speak English. Almost every student has asked me if I know Justin Bieber or any number of famous people, they don’t seem to grasp hos big America is. The school is really cool because they focus first and foremost on the values of the school, everything they teach somehow connects back to Respect, identity, or something else that helps the community of the school. It has really worked too, everyone at the school is conscious of everyone else and there is a feeling of family. The principal, Kevin Coromanski is from is really cool. He is from South Africa and has been at Pomaria for 7 years now. Apparently, before he got there the school really struggled, no one wanted their kids to go there, but now it is a really good school. I am really excited for the next 4 weeks that we have in the schools, hopefully I will get some pictures so you can fall in love with my kids too!