The times they are a changing...

This year, my school has gone through some radical changes. In the past, we have been a school of only 5th and 6th grade classrooms. There were 11 to 12 teachers for each grade. It was great because if we had a question or we needed an idea, there were always so many other people to go to about it.


Things will be a little (who am I kidding, a lot) different this year. All of our elementary schools are going K-6 which means the 5th and 6th grade teachers need to be divided up into the other three buildings and new teachers for K-4 would be coming in.


As a result of all of these changes, the 7 man team I had been working on has been reduced to 4 and some of my best friends have been sent to other buildings. I think the fall will be especially hard when I don't have them to talk to while eating my breakfast in the morning.


Another big change this year is going to a cluster model. I have taught social studies, math, and language arts the entire time I've been teaching. I've never taught science. With the cluster model, all of my homeroom students will be my students all day long. This means I have to teach them everything, and I'm a little nervous about that. The clustering will mean a lot of differentiation, but it will also mean that I get to really get to know the students in my room. In previous years, I had students in my homeroom, but didn't see them at all the rest of the day for any classes.


I'm spending this summer getting ready for the changes. I'll be blogging about what I'm doing and hoping that some of you will have some suggestions to pass on to me! I feel almost like a 1st year teacher again, but I think and hope everything will go just fine.


Thanks for listening!
Rebecca