Jobshadowing – Jacqueline van Soest

On Saturday the 10th of September we arrived in Bad Radkersburg. Thijs was warmly welcomed by Thomas and his family and Evy received a lot of love when she arrived in Slovenia to stay at Alma’s place.

For me, it thus felt good to leave “my kids” at their host families.

Thijs and Evy got the chance to study abroad for a few weeks and I got the chance to be a ‘job shadower’ for a few days. All is possible because of the Erasmus + project and their funding.

On Monday the 12th of September I was able to witness the first school day! It was really nice to see there was a small ceremony at the schoolyard for the new students, which parents also could attend. Because we were already in our third week in the Netherlands it felt a bit odd to have a ‘second’ start of the schoolyear.

For the Dutch students and me some things in the Austrian school system are completely different. For example: our first lesson starts at 8.40am, so 7.50am is really early for us! Also, it is common that the teachers have their own classrooms and the students change classrooms. And because we don’t get a lot of snow in the Netherlands, we can wear our ‘outside’ shoes inside the school.

I really love the sound of your school bell. Our school bell is so traumatizing because of it’s like a alarm going off. Yours sounds more like an elevator bell.

Thank you so much for having Thijs, Evy and me. The teachers in Bad Radkersburg made me feel welcome and part of the team/family immediately. Special thanks to Nina because I got to ‘job shadow’ her and see her live in action. And also special thanks to Elena for being the mentor of Thijs and Evy after I left. Hope we will be able to meet again in the near future!

Grüss Gott,
Jacqueline van Soest

Met vriendelijke groet,
J.C. van Soest