La Ville de Bavay

I left home at 7.45 to be at school at 8am to meet Helene, one of the English teachers. Classes begin at 8.20 at this College and teachers roll in from 8 - 8.15. They seem to come straight to the classroom for a coffee then meet their class lined up outside and head off to unlock their classroom door and begin! There are four computers in the staffroom but have only seen one teacher use them. They have a website to visit and record their all important assessment results, but that is done at home mainly, so I was told. The teacher I had today doesn't even bring her laptop to school as it is very old and can't take flash drives! She had to borrow someone else's so I could plug my flash drive in and show my DVDs! Two of the College classrooms have a data projector in them but there is no internet access in classrooms! She told me there was a room available to use with computers in for students' use but she doesn't bother as invariably they are not all working. I found it myself today and they certainly weren't as new looking as ours do and some were even those old cream ones we used to have years ago! There seems to be little emphasis on technology though. All written work is done by hand, apart from a poster I saw handed in today and it had to have a picture of themselves on it. They had obviously printed one off at home.

 

The classrooms have only blackboards in, and the room I was in today had a data projector but no working screen! I was told it was the teacher's responsibility to see it got fixed and she said she was too busy dealing with the class - their work, their behaviour, parents etc! Teachers are expected to be authoritarian and it is their responsibilty to deal with bad behaviour themselves. There is no backup from admin or hierachy! They have regular visits from Inspectors and if you can't manage everything, behaviour included, in your class yourself, then that affects your grade/result! As I said before, they have many problems with parents not backing up what the teachers tell them about their child's behaviour. In many cases it is a waste of time ringing the parents to say there is a problem. I can see why the teachers try to keep the kids quiet in class and not move - I've seen nothing that involves moving around the room or group work. It is easier this way to keep control I guess.

 

I finished school at 12.30 and walked into the town square. Bavay is pretty but has few shops. As in any village, town or city, there is the Hotel de Ville, or Town Council rooms and Mayor's offices. There is a Boulangerie, Charcuterie and a few eating places. There are also a few flower shops. Danielle always has vases of fresh flowers in the house, so this must be quite usual. I only found one clothing shop here so I need to venture into Valencienne, a larger town that I can access by bus. I'm also looking forward to the market at the weekend as well.

Bavay

 

Town Square

 

Beautiful flower baskets are all round the Town Square

 

It was fine today but definitely a cool morning - 8deg so Autumn is definitely on its way. Taupo's bad weather of late seems a long way away but I'm sure I'll experience some of the same here before I leave!

 

 

Le Quesnoy is not far from Bavay

 

Chooks coming to greet me when I got home this afternoon



 

This is the back of the inside of the garage. Hundreds of years ago, the little nesting boxes on this back wall were for the chooks.

 

 

The garage (no door) with original cobbled floor