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Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Once more into the dark!

I now have my first examination papers to mark and will get another set tomorrow.  They have to be marked and the final marks fed into a computer system for a meeting on Tuesday and we have a holiday on Monday.  Go figure!

I tried to get the back of the marking done today during my possible ·free” periods – but they disappeared in invigilation and believe me you have to have eyes like Argus to watch a group of Spanish kids taking an examination as everyone (everyone) giving half, quarter, a Nano of a chance will cheat.  If the individual is good then their work will be on display, casually held up for contemplation or a page dropping casually at the side of a desk or a shoulder moved so that the person behind will be able to see.  They are as inventive in the ways that they cheat, as they are uninspired in their attitude to what they write!
 
Cheating is endemic, systematic and inclusive and, as I have said before, I have never in all my experience come across such extensive use of unfair practices to get a mark.  Even with poor students in the UK I have never seen such a disgraceful display from so many students.  No matter how trivial or important the examination – they cheat.

And these deeply flawed results are what we talk about in our meetings.  The first of which is but days away.

The meeting will be one of the interminable ones for which our school is justly castigated (if only by me) and which take weeks from which to recover.  Unfortunately we do not have time for that period of recuperation as we have another bloody meeting following hard upon.  It is pure, unadulterated torture.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Torture.

Still the anger and frustration add energy to get through the remaining days until the holidays!

Day Three of Chocolate Week saw a colleague produce a biscuit based chocolate flan which is made without cooking in an oven but rather.  He was a bit vague about the details, but the end result was delicious and very, very messy.  I think I will assay this particular “cake” this weekend, certainly for Monday which is Toni’s Santo or name day.

The weather continues to be far less than ideal with sullen skies and clammy temperatures.

Where is summer?


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