First day at school- Isurugi Elementary, Oyabe

I've realised I've not really written much about school so far. Jeez, where do I start! my first day at Isurugi honestly took me back to my first day at school. The big gates, bigger kids, clueless to know where I was going.


I was ushered into the freezing cold office of Kancho Sensei (Headteacher). We had some green tea which warmed me up a bit and sat on his big leather sofas. I gave him the present (Abacus tea towel with some choccies wrapped in it) and he loved it, phew. Currently my Japanese is sooo bad that I had to gesture washing & drying up to him otherwise I think he would have left it pinned to his office wall.
Anyway, I was taken to the staff room and showed my teeny weeny desk, shit I thought I can't even get my legs under that! I managed with some effort.
So my schedule for the day was 2 x 6th grade classes. Two students came and collected me from the staff room. God my heart was in my mouth, I was sooo nervous! It was all fine though. In hindsight that very first class is actually the worst class of all my classes, 40 kids in one cramped room including some disabled and autistic kids. A proper challenge to get 100% attention! I'll try and write up some of my lessons in a separate blog (and when I gain some confidence ask the teachers to record parts of them)