Z..........b

Hi we are somewhere in Croatia and it starts with Z and ends with B. We had to take 5 trains to get here coming from Riomaggiore, to Bolonga, Venice and then Villach to here and got to our hotel at midnight ' it was a long day. We were worried as our most important train was 30 mins late but believe it or not they held the train for us!! Which country is Villach in? The keyboards are different here and they were in Italy too. We had wonderful walk along the Cinque Terre - it is a beautiful walk some bits tougher than others, one art of the track was closed due to slips from rain. We also went out on a boat so I some photos just like Mrs Vincent.

Today we fly to S.........o in Bosnia Herzgovenia which I am excited about as I studied their history at school. There have been so many highlights I think Bumble has been overwhelmed with things. we will start our tour tonight meeting asll the other people. I think the Euro is great but now we ahver to deal with kuna and other things..... Can you guess what I am talking about?

Have taken photos with Bumble but so far been unable to put them on the blog, but be assured he is well looked after!!

Hope your first week gone well and that the LT3 camps were a hit.

Bumble's Big Adventure

Well our bags are packed and we are ready to go........ I think Bumble is a little nervous about the plane flight but I love flying so I will reassure him. I have never travelled with Bumble before and so far Pauline, my travelling companion, may soon be ex-friend, has been rather rude about him coming a long - I think she is jealous. I have the best of intentions to ensure Bumble regularly appears on my blog or through the email to school providing an update of our journey but I guess we will see what the reality is. Past experience tells me that finding access to the Internet when no one else wants to hog it in a hotel or an Internet cafe is easier said than done especially when you have more exciting things to explore.

We leave from the "Garden City" on Monday morning to head to the "City of Sails" where we fly out and have a stop over for a few hours in a very large city called H......g K......g. We then head to our first real destination -in a country shaped like a boot and with a lot of very famous buildings and once was the centre of a famous powerful empire. I hope to see a very well known man, even if from a distance, maybe he will give me a wave. Think that is enough clues for now.....

Term 2 2009

Term 2 2009 will be a different one for me. Not sure how I will cope actually. I guess we will find out. I am off on a sabbatical for a term , this means I am given leave to go and investigate an area of interest and refresh my self professionally and personally. So I get to be away from school for a whole term. I will find this hard as I struggle with being away a couple of days. This is part of me being a control freak I guess. Anyway I will be forced into keeping away as I will be travelling for 7 weeks beginning with a bit of refreshment in Italy and Croatia and then onto the UK where I will be visiting and meeting with people who have Nurture Groups in their schools. I heard about the concept of Nurture groups in 2006 and have continued to try and find out more since, not easy and they are generally an unknown phenomenon in NZ and I suspect because of the resourcing constraints they are not a concept that will be actively promoted. A nurture group is a group set up within the school environment to support children with social, emotional or behavioural difficulties to allow them and others to learn new skills to develop successfully in the school environment and society in general. They have been in place in the UK since the 1960's and have had huge success in supporting children to become actively and positively engaged in school overcoming many disadvantages in doing so. I look forward to seeing whether there is anyway the concept can be extended into our schools in New Zealand. I will return and write up what I have discovered in the last few weeks of the term and hopefully manage to stay away from school and let them get on with things in my absence. That might be the biggest challenge of all.