Musselburgh Grammer School

Except for two of the field trips that I have been on I have not really talked about life at the Grammer as they refer to it around here. MGS is just like an American high school except that they incorporate the last two years of middle school along with the high school pupils. There are also high schools in Scotland, but they also have all six grades. They are referred to as S1,S2,S3,S4,S5 and S6. I am teaching students in S2-S6, so my S2 pupils (that is their name for students) are younger than any students I have taught before. Also the average age of a student, say an S5 which would be like a junior in the states is generally a little younger. Most students graduate when they are 17 even if they go the full 6 years. Many also leave school after the fourth year, which is the year of mandatory nationwide tests. Those that do not go to University tend to leave at this time. Students can also leave after their S5 year if they already qualify for "Uni". Many of these students take a GAP year (along with alot after S6) A GAP year, which I think we should get in the states, is when the students either travel, donate their time to a good cause, or get work experience. A number come to the states for camp America. They have a more prescribed curriculum than we have (mike woolley would not like it) and many high pressure tests from S4-S6. For that reason there are three different grading scales that I had to learn this year and none of them are like ours. I just finished grading S4 prelims before break which is their practice for their main exams in May. There are alot of other differences. Please leave questions in the comments section and I will answer them in later blogs. The picture at the top is the school and the one at the bottom is my Higher class (S5 and S6) with the electoral map of the 2008 election.

Cheers

Christmas in Edinburgh

I am now heading backward over the past month of activities. We are on our way to London to go on the trip in my previous post. I am going backward a week to my birthday. We went into Edinburgh to see the city at Christmas and it was brilliant. The main area of activity in Edinburgh is the Princes street gardens, where we will be for New Year's or Hogemany as they call it here. During the month of December the gardens have a huge ice rink and tons of what we would call carnival rides, but they all have a winter flair. (something you could not do in Chicago, especially with all of the snow you guys have had) In addition to the rides and decorations there is the German market which is hundreds of shops set up along the street with all sorts of intriguing items from across Europe, but with a German focus. There is mulled wine, sausages, crepes and great arts and crafts, although some of it is of lesser quality. When you stand in certain places the city looks absolutely spectacular. After spending a number of hours in the area, we walked across to high street (the royal mile) and down to the grassmarket area looking for a restaurant called Blue. The reason we went to the restaurant is that the Kelly's got us a gift certificate to this place online before we left last summer. We found the place and had an amazing lunch, of course taking pictures for the Kellys. We then wound our way back along Princes street where all of the shops are with Beth and Monique stopping in many places looking for bargains. I of course spent most of my time in the local book store looking at guide books for Cyprus. All in all it was a tremendous birthday, my first in a foreign country.

Cheers

Failing miserably to keep up to date

It is the Thursday night before the last day of term. I know that I have been horrible keeping the site up to date, much to Ms. Corrigans chagrin and Mr. Kelly's happiness. A lot has happened since my last blog and I did not even finish talking about my October break. Much of what has been going on is at school, where my focus has been of late. However, tomorrow at 12:00 we are leaving from Waverly station in Edinburgh to go to King's Cross in London, from there we have to get a train to Gatewick airport where we have a hotel for the evening. We are then getting a plan to Paphos airport in Cyprus and driving to the Royal Coral Bay Resort where I plan on collapsing for at least 36 hours before I begin to explore. We will be in Cyprus until the 27th, yes Christmas on the beach, never done that before. We return to London for three days after Christmas shopping in Notting Hill before returning to Musselburgh and going to the Princes Street Gardens for Hogemany on New Year's Eve. Other than that we are not doing much over the holidays :) So I should have lots of photos for everybody over the next two weeks. In the meantime here are some of the final pictures from our October break. We left London and went to a little town on the south coast called Combepyne which is where my cousin Debbie and her husband Robert live. They took us to Lyme Regis which is well known from the movie the French Lieutenant's Women. We had some perfect days of weather and the English channel was delightful.

All our best to EVERYONE over the holidays and may all your travels be safe.

Cheers