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Central West Photo News February 9–15, 2012
that’s my team Orange District Softball Association
‘EnjOyAblES’
SCHOOL’S IN WITH PAUL TIERNEY
Can You Remember Your First Day? What vivid memories have you got from your school days ? I can remember my first day of kindergarten like it was yesterday.
Samantha Rath
Jack Larsen
Tynu Lamb
Brittany Mason
Georgia Hannah
Madison Crossie
Ben Zeylemaker
Sam Strudwick
Olivia Cavalli
Maddison Writer
Lottie Graham
Last week tens of thousands of students across New South Wales started at a new school. Of course the kindy kids had their first day ever, but a whole pile of students began a new ‘life’ after moving schools for many varied reasons. The Year 7 students are the funniest ones to observe – they’ve been top of the tree throughout their final year of primary school, but have moved back to the bottom of the pile as they sit, nervous and bewildered in that first welcoming assembly. They forget more than they remember during those first few days, and it would be unfair to get too cross at them, as they attempt to climb the ridiculously steep learning curve as well as carry a huge pile of books and navigate a new timetable. I can remember the day before kinder started for me, (no orientation day or even pre-school back in 1971 in Umina), my dad took me to the school yard to have a look around, and to have a trial run using the urinal in the gents. There were 61 kids in my class, and Sister Leontius was smiley and warm. I built towers with Cuisenaire rods (showing my bent for maths) and chanted “Come to my party, there’s icecream and jelly and a punch in the belly” with all the boys, and one boy punched a girl in the stomach and made her cry. It was all totally brilliant. I watched in amazement on the first day last week as the kindy kids toured the school with their teachers. They were boggled-eyed as they were shown everything from the library, to the ‘big tree’ to the Principal’s office, to the cricket pitch on the oval. They were so cute in their brand new uniforms – were my kids ever that small? As for the senior kids, it was pretty much business as usual. One poor young lady I taught in Year 10 last year is in my class again in Year 11 – so by the end of Year 12, it’ll be three years in a row stuck with me … I guess if she bombs maths the finger can only be pointed in this direction. We all gossiped for about 5 minutes on welcome-back topics and the summer break, but then launched straight into work on Statistics. I mentioned the shriek-o-meter from the tennis (see last weeks’ column), and how scoring over 300 in cricket is considered an ‘outlier’ in statistics, even by Bradman’s standards. They weren’t shocked at all when I handed out homework on night one – which is the aim, I guess, to make it just a ‘normal’ day. The first day of your new school is one to remember fondly. Those fabulous teachers of Kindergarten will have done such a sterling job that I have no doubt that in 40 years’ time, those 5 year olds will remember their first day as vividly as I remember mine.
Paul Tierney is the Director of Development and a maths teacher at an Orange school
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