The Bell Has Rung; Time for School

After two months of really doing absolutely nothing school is finally back in session.  To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to it.  Last year was frustrating and tough partly because I learned that teaching is just not what I want to do in life and partly because I was frustrated with how my students were performing in my class.  School's been open for a week now and I have to admit it feels good to be back in the classroom.
There are a lot of things that make this year very different both for myself and for the school.  For myself I am much more confident as my abilities as a teacher.  For the most part I am teaching the same classes I was teaching last year so I know the curriculum and know where the students struggle and where they get it.  I know the students in my Form B and Form C class since they are almost all the same from last year.  And they know me.  That makes me a lot more comfortable in my class.  So I just have to get to know my Form As.  Last year I put together a library for my school.  It has less than 500 books but if my school makes use of it then I'm willing to expand it.  Already my principal has announced to the students (with out me pushing her) that the library is open and that students can use it during their free periods.  And today I saw her encouraging some of the Form B students to read in class.
Other than the library my school is also working on getting a computer lab.  My principal seems very confident that it will happen this year and has a teacher lined up to teach the classes.  But this being Lesotho we'll see what happens.  This is also the first year my school has Form E (12th grade).  Originally my school only had Forms A-C; last year they added a Form D and now they are in Form E.  It's only 8 students but it's a start.
On a negative note though my school did very badly in the national exams last year.  We had about 50 Form Cs take the exam in October last year.  About 20 passed, and none of them passed with a very high score.  This is unusual for my school and we have a lot of Form Cs repeating this year.  This means that the school is going to have to work hard this year to make sure the same doesn't happen next year.  Bad exam stats means that less students will come to our school so it's important for us to make sure our students do well.
Overall I'm excited for this school year.  It's nice not being "the new girl" anymore and feeling good at what I do.  This time next year I'm going to be back in the US and I have no idea after that.  So I'm going enjoy this last year in Africa with my students.