For many Nanjing JESIE teachers, this was their first staff meeting. We met at a little later than usual at 2:00, and the attendees were on time and ready for action. Amazingly, everyone was on time!

We started off with introductions of our newest teachers, Christopher, Tim and Kris, going onto teachers sharing their feeling about the first few weeks of school, with attention especially focused on the new teachers. A big topic, both based on teacher inquiry and the staff meeting theme, was classroom management. Matt, Val, and other experienced teachers had a lot to contribute toward that question. It was a very informative discussion. When we moved on to discuss the first peer-to-peer observations of the new school year, our JESIE teachers were quite appreciative of how useful the observations were. Often it was helpful to see how more experienced teachers did their work, but occasionally experienced teachers learned something from newer teachers! This again proves the point that sharing is a good thing…  

The remainder of the staff meeting was more along the lines of housekeeping – procedures and professional behaviours regarding Open Days and other duties were reiterated. Teachers were reminded of the deadlines for introductions, testimonials, and articles. We also took some time to discuss some other possible topics for future staff meeting themes, based on the survey sent out earlier by Val. Some upcoming themes are more classroom management (particularly for different age levels), games based on grades and levels, PowerPoint design, and resource materials.

All in all, it was a very productive staff meeting! Hopefully all of our staff meetings will go so well!