Work / Some cold, hard facts about teaching in Poland for newbies [101]


was the class made up of kids actually from K4 and K5 - or did they simply have a range of ages that covered expected ages for K4 and K5 ?

in my experience - from my daughter's class -- there can be a very wide range of ages in the same class year. Right now, my daughter is 13 - not 14 until July - but some children in her class have already turned 15.

Travel / Warsaw, Wroclaw, Poznan, Gdansk and Krakow - Five Polish Cities in Google Street View [17]

"next year" is the key information for anyone intent on heading over to google right now.

Study / When will Polish schools start to recruit for September 2011? [23]

There's an American School in Gdynia

americanschool.pl/index.php?lang=us

Also some schools with some of the teaching in English

gdynia
ww2.lo3.gdynia.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=378 &Itemid=153

gdansk

gla.gfo.pl/component/content/article/128.html

Probably one in Sopot too (private) but can't remember its name just now.

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

Let's try again with added references for Gdynia (why did my last post end up in the random thread)

There are a number of native-english speaking ex-pats in the area - but most I know have families and jobs so catching up with them is difficult sometimes.

Anyway - this swimming pool in Gdynia does swimming lessons as well as 'free' swimming - so maybe your son would like to attend? It's not a leisure pool because it's marked out in lanes and everyone obediently swims up and down.

We're down there around 9am on Saturdays. Leave shortly after 11am usually - sometimes up to Swietojanska for brunch :)

/cjj

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]


Well yes -- I think I have dropped a few comments to that effect in earlier posts!
Right now I'm sitting in Gdansk, but my daughter goes to school in Gdynia and we're down at the swimming pool (think "opposite the pirate ship and beside the aquarium") every saturday morning.

c
i'm irish - but i've lived in vancouver b.c. so i can do north american too :)

Life / Are Polish roads really this bad? [237]

From what I can see on our local country roads, I would guess the problems start with poor quality materials and poor construction.
And I don't know a thing about road-building so of course this is all my opinion :)

The quality of the tarmac isn't great - cheap fixes done by Gmina on top of equally cheap original surfaces.
Very heavy traffic - lack of a decent 'A road' network with bypasses means that heavy trucks are pounding through villages continuously.
The edges aren't finished -- they run off into packed earth - so of course they get eroded very quickly especially during the cold, snowy winters.

This year whenever the snow melted the pot-holes were horrible. i've already had a 3-4 inch part of a rim bent out of shape because I bounced through something - and trust me, i'm a fuddy-duddy type of driver. Gmina came out and tried to 'address' a kilometre patch going into the local village -- i think they probably ran out of money to resurface so they just scraped off the top surface ... perhaps believing that a shallower hole can be achieved by more ways than filling it :P

On the way home I turn off a main road (going between two Gmina centres) immediately unto a dirt track which of course liquifies when the snow melts. That's the part of the road problem I have most issue with - finding my car up to its oxters in mud and nothing to do but swim off in search of a tractor.

today it's very windy - splendid for drying off the road home ...

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

Hi
I was down there on Saturday morning (pirate ship was all tied up :) )
There's a swimming pool just beside the aquarium building. it's part of the Akademia Morska but open to the public on saturday morning (at least). not a US leisure centre by any stretch of the imagination, but perfectly adequate for swimming lengths and for kids' swimming lessons.

am.gdynia.pl/html/aktualnosci/basen/

/cjj

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

In the beginning everything takes a lot of time - but routines will develop, things will get easier.
And it doesn't rain all the time :)
/cjj

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

Welcome to Gdynia :)
I'm typing this from 20 minutes away and it wasn't a bad day weather-wise ... we hit 13C today in Gdansk !
/cjj

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

You'll soon find that Polish pancakes are in no way, shape or form what you used to eat in the US.
ha ha yes, i forgot that !
ok - these are not IHOP pancakes ... not by a long shot.
The locals will probably say they're not nalesniki, either ;)
Place called Fanaberia on Swietojanska (Gdynia) down at the 10 Lutego end. Bit twee inside I must admit -- but it was a cold, cold windy day with icy rain falling sideways and we escaped into chocolately warmth for a modest cost (between 1000 and 1200 :D )

/cjj

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

This is the hardest part - clearing the house and saying goodbye ... without having left ... and without having your new home/life to focus on.

From my experience it's easier once you get going/moving.

It's been a bit chilly this weekend (we had a light dusting of snow on Friday/Saturday) but ... spring will come soon.

and there's a nice pancake place not too far from where I understand your new home is ... pancake and coffee for 10zloty between 10 and 12 on a Saturday morning :)

cjj in gdansk

Genealogy / Want to find a person [755]

"Better to Look in the Polish telephone directory?"

To be fair that's quite difficult.

Our local phone directory is ordered by City/Wies.

I'm not sure how to explain what a Wies is -- if you were Irish I could say "townland", a concept which for me fits very nicely. (It's not "village" as the common translation would suggest, as it's not a clustered settlement.)

I live out in the country so, in order to find my phone number, you need to know the townland I live in. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. And forget finding all the Smiths in the general area and eye-balling it -- you have to know the names of the surrounding townlands so you can seach each of them separately.

and then you decide to give up and just drive there instead :)

Travel / Visiting Poland in May - what should I bring? [28]

/moodily peers at the packet of chewing gum on her desk/

yup - Orbit ... produced by Wrigley Poland.

it's even "NEW! SPEARMINT"

/cjj

It's standard stuff, but from a curious little shop in the depths of Wrzeszcz that sells 'Rolo's and Terry's Chocolate Oranges from time to time .... maybe they have a little wrinkle in the space time continuum somewhere in the back behind the beer ... I wish they would bring in some creme eggs.

Travel / Visiting Poland in May - what should I bring? [28]

oh forget coffee gum oranges bananas ... we're up to our ears in them.
when i came to poland for the first time in the early 90s - sure, jars of coffee were prized enough to be placed around the lounge like ornaments.

but those days are gone.
supermarkets are large and well supplied (in the most case - sometimes there are missing things but I would say it's supply chain incompetence/indifference, rather than a real shortage)

i'd go for that nice mexican meal idea -- with a few small souvenirs on the side. don't play the "food aid" game -- it's a matter of sharing culture.

oh - and it was -7C here last night, up in the sunny north

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

hopefully the sea isn't frozen any more ;)
it was all crunchy 2 weeks ago, last time we were down at the swimming pool.

Language / Polish - Absolute Beginner Questions. Study plan. [75]

I'm using this range of books (with a teacher) and like them very much

polonia.com/HURRA-PO-POLSKU-1-STUDENTS-WORKBOOK-P11859.aspx

They seem to suit the way my mind works.
To be specific, I've noticed my memory is more visual than aural ... I learn better when I can work through exercises on paper, with a cd as a backup. (My husband, on the other hand, prefers to focus much more on listening)

Life / Some Poles have fine houses [68]


You have to pump warm air through the walls all the time - to carry the internal moisture with it. Otherwise the walls rot in place.

Living in a house that leaks heat intentionally is ok when heating costs are low (we didn't seem to suffer in Vancouver - using town gas and electricity) but european energy prices are a different kettle of fish.

Work / Polish schoolteachers are being crushed by the system [24]

My second child is in K1 and the workbooks are quite fascinating in their own way.
Does the teacher have time / need / inclination to do anything other than plod through these books ?
I guess it smoothes out the results - the trully cr8ppy teachers don't have such a bad effect - but if I were a teacher who enjoyed 'teaching' I would find it very restrictive.

My older child is in middleschool doing MYP and that seems ok. I do see some "here is the standard, meet it" attitude - leaving the children to scrabble towards the understanding as best they can - but the teachers seem to understand what they're teaching. (ok, I had a few strange teachers myself when at school). It's hard sometimes to see a path around the speed, because there is a lot of information to cover - and the programme's 2-language emphasis increases the load. A relief for me, though, as we now have GCSE textbooks in the house and the homework essays and lab-reports can be in English.


25K - for an 18 hour week ... is this for an experienced teacher?

I'm curious -- I remember a school-teacher friend in the UK spending hours marking and preparing, but to be honest I don't see a lot of that in lesson plans here. In Primary School the lessons are all laid out in detail, in Middle I see a lot of "Reuse Reduce Recycle".

/cjj

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

s2good2 - I've sent you an email if you want to make contact.
I'm an Irish ex-pat who moved from Vancouver B.C. to near Gdynia 10 years ago.
I don't do numbers (unlike some other posters) but I can give you my opinion of what it's like to move to Poland - and the Trojmiasto area in particular.

cjj

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]

Check your tax liabilities.
if you end up double taxed that would be unpleasant.

Life / Charity Shops in Poland - where are they? I've got some old clothes [13]

Oh well ... there's a plaque to Sue Ryder in Gdynia - I was surprised to walk past it a few years ago.

Law / I am married to a Polish citizen. How can I get residency? [36]

You need what the rest of us had to have -- a job and years in the country.
Being married to a Polish citizen doesn't give you citizenship - so your lack of a Polish wife isn't hindering things.
And why citizenship anyway? Surely all you need is right of permanent abode ?

Law / Last Will and Testament - should items go to a Polish or EU person? [24]


but what are "border controls" now when travelling over-land? How can free movement be expected to discover /control this sort of thing? I simply don't know.

Law / Last Will and Testament - should items go to a Polish or EU person? [24]

In pre-EU days there was always the "No Antiques Leave The Country" rule. Not sure how that could be enforced now though.

Law / Sending an air rifle to Poland [11]

If things haven't changed in the last 10 years, then it might not be worth it. We tried to import one as part of our household goods when we moved here ... gave up in the end as the time and effort with office visits, letters, psych tests etc was costing more than buying one here. Can't quite remember what the straw was in the end ... but the camel decided to abandon it as not being worth the effort.

Work / Polish Residency Cards. Is there a Permanent ID card for Foreigners? [37]


Well this is exactly the problem, isn't it -- the k.p. was wallet-sized like it was a d.o. replacement. This abomination looks like a page from a passport - the page with the photo and all the data and numbers..

Curses. I have a polish driving license though ... I really don't want to carry my passport around with me all the time -- I don't want it to get dog-eared.

Er, about the laminating ... Ms Urz. Woj. explicitly told me I shouldn't get it laminated ...

p.s. by edit. Forgot to ask - anyone else who has one of these things. Does it have a termin ? Mine is valid for 10 years ... silly me to expect something open-ended.

Work / Polish Residency Cards. Is there a Permanent ID card for Foreigners? [37]

After years of using a temporary residence card I have just received my "floppy paper of long stay"

Anyone know if I can carry this as identity? The lady in the office said "you can keep it in your passport" and I didn't think at the time to ask if she was implying I still had to carry my passport as well.

Appearance-wise, it's paper, the size of an opened passport and can't be laminated. bada-bing.

Work / CV/Resume style standards in Poland [17]

The amount of personal detail I've seen on some cvs is ridiculous. I don't want to know ages, home addresses, dates of birth ... I'd much rather have some clear idea that the skills being offered meet those called out in the job advert /sigh/

oh, and if you go for a photo, remember the Polish obsession with The Left Ear ;)

/cj

News / Weekend of carnage as 41 people lose their lives on Poland's roads [44]

>It's all due to the lack of enforcement and laughably weak punishment.

I would argue that it's due to people not taking personal responsibility. Enforcement can never be 100% and punishment has to be increasingly tough in order to turn the "don't cares" into "made to cares". I'd rather the society in general lost its "I can do it until someone watches me, catches me, stops me and punishes me" attitude.

Side-tracking to tail-gating, is the 2-second rule taught in Poland? I've noticed some "safe stopping distances" signs recently but I've always found the time indicator easier to apply.

Law / Urząd Skarbowy, I paid too little on my last PIT? [26]

We've had consistently polite and helpful behaviour from our local U.S. ... I have to say this, because we expected the exact obvious.