How am I to know?

And so the first week is complete.

I went in with certain expectations, mainly because I was so desperate for things to be rather different to before.  And, thankfully, in the most important areas, they are very different.  But certain other gripes I had seem to have made the move with me.

At my previous school, things got very frustrating and confusing due to a severe lack of communication impacting on the efficiency of the staff as a whole.  It's extremely difficult to know about changes to deadlines or new deadlines or new activities that must be completed unless the information is communicated to us.  And that's when you know who's who and what's what.

Now, as a new member of staff, I'm finding myself just as frustrated as I was before.  I've arrived and been told at the last minute that there's a staff briefing that morning, or not been told at all that the location of that morning's assembly has moved to the opposite end of the (rather large) site.  It's not that I don't understand or accept that some things change at the last minute and it's impossible to get the message out to all those concerned in good time.  I get it, I really do - there have been times where I haven't been able to do that myself because of the circumstances at that precise moment.  But there's last minute changes, and complete ignorance of some people not knowing quite how things work yet.

Take duties.  The list was sent out pretty quickly.  Great, I thought, finally some efficiency.  And the rotas even looked self explanatory. Except that they weren't.  Turns out that I, along with every other new member of staff, was expected to just know that it wasn't just break time that we were on duty, but before school and at the end of the day too.  This is the first school I've known of that organises its duties this way (I must say it's much better this way - nice and streamlined) but without a single person - not even the person who put together the rotas and sent them out to us - explaining exactly what was entailed in doing these duties, how on earth were we to know?

I must have missed that lecture during my PGCE that focused on developing my psychic skills.  I wonder if I can pop back to uni when they present it again for this year's cohort and find out what I missed.  Maybe then I won't be so frustrated that I don't know what's going on.  Actually, maybe I won't be frustrated at all - those psychic powers should come in so handy that even if I haven't been explicitly told about something, I'll know about it anyway.  Because my invaluable psychic powers shall win the day.

But until I discover how to unlock the psychic within me, how on earth am I to know??