One week done!

Well I have now finished my first week in my new job! It's been pretty good and everyone is very nice, although lots of people have been away on holidays or working from home. I've just been doing a lot of reading and learning about the English Education system. It's so weird - they only have 3 terms of the school year which they call Autumn term (which is about to start), Spring term and Summer term. When people have been talking about them I have to actually stop and mentally work out when they mean. Also, I got an academic diary the other day and on opening it, I saw it started at the end of July! Weird. :)

I think that working as an Educational Psychologist (EP) over here will be quite different to what I've experienced. It seems to be a lot more 'higher-level' managing and going to panels and meetings and discussing children's needs and what support or special school they need or could go to and consulting schools, rather than more actual individual intervention and assessment. There is some, but it sounds like you just don't have time to do much. I have been allocated 10 schools to look after, plus there are more independent schools and preschoolers too so I will be very busy!
Here's a picture of our office where the EPs spend only a short amount of time in (but where I was all week).

The desks at the front are our 'hot' desks (usually for EPs) but we use our laptops! Although I haven't got mine yet. I'm also due to get a Blackberry for work too! 

Anyway, I also went to Guilford today to a sports centre to talk to a girl about joining a netball club, which I may do soon. It was a bit of a drive and I accidentally missed a few turns, but it was nice all the same driving through the cloudy and green Surrey hills, rain pelting the windscreen!

I hope you all are well! Love Kim xo