A bit of background for those of you who don’t know.
When I booked my sabbatical five years ago, I had little idea what I might be doing in it. 2007 seemed a very long way off. Over the last few years, I have been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to travel around, both with school and the exam board. With school I have had the chance to go walking and climbing in Snowdonia and Arran with Duke of Edinburgh Gold expeditions, and most memorable, the school and the Duke took a number of us up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in 2000. With Cambridge, I have been to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and several times to Auckland to carry out training events. While I have been hither and thither, Deborah has been at home, looking after the children, and it was a natural suggestion of hers, therefore, that my sabbatical ought to benefit the whole family rather than just me.
I first went to New Zealand in 2002, and although I went twice that year, I had no idea that my relationship with the country would continue. However, because of the increasing numbers of New Zealand candidates entering the Cambridge International A level Literature in English course, I have been back on training trips every year since. As luck would have it, when we moved house three years ago, we found ourselves living next to a couple of Aucklanders and their children, so there was another connection. With such a number of contacts in Auckland, then, and New Zealand being such an attractive country, it made sense to try to fix up a sabbatical term there.
In consultation with Kathy Parker of Senior College of New Zealand, where our recent training events have been held, we have hatched a scheme where I will cover part of the maternity leave of one of the English staff, which will leave me free time to do some freelance consultancy work with staff and students in other schools. Although it’s not ideal to spend a sabbatical from teaching doing teaching, there are other considerations. I will be doing a part time timetable, rather than full time, and I will be going back to doing some Drama, and teaching A level English Language, neither of which I do in the UK. But the crucial thing is, this will give some financial basis to the stay, which I hope might make it affordable. When I’m not teaching or consulting, I hope to do some writing and some travelling and some relaxing to recharge the stale batteries.
The children will be attending Auckland schools (Rosanna at Senior with me), so they will be getting the full NZ experience, and we are hoping that Deborah will be able to do some observation in the Steiner kindergartens in Auckland, which will help her with her training course dissertation.
After our five and a half month building nightmare, it will be a great relief to put some distance between us and breezeblock, dust and, well, builders! I think we’re going to enjoy it, once we have some accommodation sorted out.
