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Thursday, February 19, 2009

To put an antic disposition on!


Tomorrow staff are expected to don a costume of some sort and enter into the spirit of Carnival.

For the week so far the primary section of the school has been indulging in a variety of effects which we in secondary have been, thankfully exempt. The overall headteacher has, however been seen in a ludicrously large tie and was reputed to have had his face painted today – though I have to report that when I saw him at the end of the day he looked fairly normal!

Carnival is taken very seriously and there will be ‘events’ during the day tomorrow which will seriously incommode the normal teaching schedule. I mostly feel a sense of relief that I do not have to make another costume and crown and I can subside into the easy laziness of donning my academic gown and appurtenances peculiar to a teacher at Hogwarts!

Some sort of lurgi is working its way around the staff in the school and a regular procession of sick bow out of the schedules and leave lessons for the rest of us to fill. I have now experienced a Year 9 Spanish class, Year 11 biology class and a Year 7 art class to widen my experience of the teaching pleasure that this school affords. It would be churlish of me to complain as my timetable is liberally sprinkled with ‘study’ period and ‘free’ periods to accommodate the needs of the examinations officer’s timetable which I am following – but without the need to do the examinations bit! I try and maintain a low profile in the free period department and hope that I do not loose too many in the course of the week.

My time as a history teacher (sorry, The history teacher) is drawing to a close with less than a week left. Tomorrow will be at best a fractured experience and Monday is a day off, so there are only two clear working days left before my departure.

My present school made an interesting offer to me to stay on, but I have given my word to the next school to take up my duties from Thursday of next week.

It is an odd experience to know that I am about to leave while my colleagues are probably assuming that I am going to stay on until the final return of the normal teacher. It will also be an odd experience for my next school as my colleagues there have not been told that I am going to make a return appearance (by popular demand, obviously!) and take up my old classes again! Feel like some sort of secret envoy talking to senior staff in both institutions and wonder what the effect of my disappearance from one and my subsequent reappearance in other will have.

I am much looking forward to the experience!

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