People's behaviour away from Belgravia will make you aghast
As you may know if you've been paying attention to me on Facebook (or even if you've looked at my user info), I've been working at Williams College for the past one-and-a-half-months. I'm teaching two classes a day, and although that amounts to six hours in total, I have a split shift, which means that although I have three-and-a-half-hours in the middle of the day, it's not worth going home and (if I'm going to remain being thrifty) there's not much point in going to a coffee shop, especially for three hours. Essentially, I'm stuck in Holborn from 8:30 until 6:30 - which, although I can think of much worse places to be, is essentially ten hours at work.
I do realise that, as a nurse, I was doing twelve-hour shifts, but (with the exception of my first placement on Stephen Ward) I wasn't spending three hours doing nothing. I wouldn't mind so much, but I'm not actually getting paid for these hours. I'm using them effectively - checking/replying to e-mail, planning, making phonecalls and so on - but it's still a bit of a drag. Sometimes it goes by quickly enough.
Anyway, so yes. Changes are coming, apparently. A couple of weeks ago we were told to move out of our main campus at Thavies Inn House, Holborn, and move our classes to Morley House... Holborn. The reason for this? They're redesigning Thavies Inn House, apparently (although it looks more like "destroying" to me) and then they're letting all the staff back in. At least... that was the original plan. What ahsn't changed is that the college is certainly moving out of Morley House, which - although it actually looks and feels a lot more like a college than TIH did - is inescapably an office buiding, and I still can't find my way 'round, even after being here for a week and a half. I'd be glad to go back to TIH...
...except it doesn't look like we're going back.
Williams College isn't large, by comparison, but it's still large enough to warrant more than one building to house all the students and subjects. The buzz is (although nobody's confirmed this) that TIH will now become, in addition to the centre of admin, the place where all our degree students (and HNDers) will go. This leaves English out. So where are they putting us?
Well.
The guy who owns this college (the owner, not the principal [no, I don't know who either]) also apparently owns a place in Oxford Street, directly opposite Tottenham Court Road, called Belgravia College. This is just a college of EFL and, although it looks quite dodgy from the outside, inside apparently it's quite resplendent. Apparently - I haven't seen the classrooms. But I'm hoping so.
If we merge - and by merge I mean "take over", since Belgravia College isn't in Belgravia and it's going to become the second campus of Williams College - then obviously this means that we'll have a much larger English department, as we'll have all their teachers too. Originally my colleague Max was convinced 100% that we were all going to lose our jobs, but as it turns out, none of us are going to lose our jobs. I also assumed that some of the classes will be amalgamated... and by "some," I mean "mine". My IELTS class is shrinking so rapidly that today I had one student (and even she turned up late). I'd be better off (well, I'd be paid a lot less, but in terms of job satisfaction and achievement, I'd be better off) just teaching my Advanced English class - which, although it's in the evening and that is bothersome, is going quite well. To be honest, with an IELTS class of two, it would be a lot easier to merge that with a pre-existing IELTS class from Belgravia, and either work in a job-share or defer entirely to another teacher.
But who knows? I even asked our DoS if we could have a meeting with all the teachers together and decide who's teaching what, and his response was something like, "mhrrmrhmrhhrmrhmrrhhh." I do have to wonder.
Well, we shall have to see. All things going as planned, I'll be working in Oxford Street by this time next week.
If there are any actual plans. They don't appear to have materialised yet.
If.
I do realise that, as a nurse, I was doing twelve-hour shifts, but (with the exception of my first placement on Stephen Ward) I wasn't spending three hours doing nothing. I wouldn't mind so much, but I'm not actually getting paid for these hours. I'm using them effectively - checking/replying to e-mail, planning, making phonecalls and so on - but it's still a bit of a drag. Sometimes it goes by quickly enough.
Anyway, so yes. Changes are coming, apparently. A couple of weeks ago we were told to move out of our main campus at Thavies Inn House, Holborn, and move our classes to Morley House... Holborn. The reason for this? They're redesigning Thavies Inn House, apparently (although it looks more like "destroying" to me) and then they're letting all the staff back in. At least... that was the original plan. What ahsn't changed is that the college is certainly moving out of Morley House, which - although it actually looks and feels a lot more like a college than TIH did - is inescapably an office buiding, and I still can't find my way 'round, even after being here for a week and a half. I'd be glad to go back to TIH...
...except it doesn't look like we're going back.
Williams College isn't large, by comparison, but it's still large enough to warrant more than one building to house all the students and subjects. The buzz is (although nobody's confirmed this) that TIH will now become, in addition to the centre of admin, the place where all our degree students (and HNDers) will go. This leaves English out. So where are they putting us?
Well.
The guy who owns this college (the owner, not the principal [no, I don't know who either]) also apparently owns a place in Oxford Street, directly opposite Tottenham Court Road, called Belgravia College. This is just a college of EFL and, although it looks quite dodgy from the outside, inside apparently it's quite resplendent. Apparently - I haven't seen the classrooms. But I'm hoping so.
If we merge - and by merge I mean "take over", since Belgravia College isn't in Belgravia and it's going to become the second campus of Williams College - then obviously this means that we'll have a much larger English department, as we'll have all their teachers too. Originally my colleague Max was convinced 100% that we were all going to lose our jobs, but as it turns out, none of us are going to lose our jobs. I also assumed that some of the classes will be amalgamated... and by "some," I mean "mine". My IELTS class is shrinking so rapidly that today I had one student (and even she turned up late). I'd be better off (well, I'd be paid a lot less, but in terms of job satisfaction and achievement, I'd be better off) just teaching my Advanced English class - which, although it's in the evening and that is bothersome, is going quite well. To be honest, with an IELTS class of two, it would be a lot easier to merge that with a pre-existing IELTS class from Belgravia, and either work in a job-share or defer entirely to another teacher.
But who knows? I even asked our DoS if we could have a meeting with all the teachers together and decide who's teaching what, and his response was something like, "mhrrmrhmrhhrmrhmrrhhh." I do have to wonder.
Well, we shall have to see. All things going as planned, I'll be working in Oxford Street by this time next week.
If there are any actual plans. They don't appear to have materialised yet.
If.