The lord giveth and the lord taketh away.
There is nothing like a school for giving a practical demonstration to many of the teachings of the bible. There is an equilibrium to school life which could be taken as a pattern for life if anyone cared to look. The Old Testament “an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth” is very much the guiding principle in many of the doings of an educational institution.
For example, the day before yesterday I was absent. My classes had to be covered. When I got into school the next day after my absence the first thing that I saw was my name down to cover a colleague. Lessons (for teachers) are swift in our school!
The weather has been foul with the only bright spot being that the suicidal motor cyclists were driven to obey the basic rules of the road and to limit their death welcoming antics to a minimum. The ride to school was therefore more uplifting than soul destroying and I count that as a major plus as the tedious day begins to unfold.
Already there are changes to the timetable and I was treated to a compressed but impressively controlled rant against the powers that be that had dared take away an almost gained free period. As there is virtually no leeway to the staffing in our school and no possibility of supply staff to make good any deficiencies it does mean that any member of staff who is away causes a disproportionate amount of chaos and disorder in the efforts to insure that the classes are covered. I have now reached the stage in this school where I sincerely believe that worrying about how the school is going to deal with absence is not something that I should seriously consider!
A new teaching imperative has just been explained to me which means that there is a different set of photocopied priorities to teach to some of the classes. I have been rapidly increasing my somewhat limited repertoire of grammatical explanations and I now possess a sweepingly impressive variety of recognizable verb descriptors. Indeed in a lesson this morning I used the term ‘past perfect’ with a confidence bordering on convincingness! How time have changed - and in that instance had changed!
In spite of the Christmas tree gleaming in the corner and the tried and tested star jelly lights twinkling (in a static sort of way) along the top of the bookcases, I find it very difficult to believe that Christmas is less than ten days away. It is also a sign of how much I have changed that I instantly thought that my previous sentence gave an illustration of an acceptable use of ‘less’ even though it was linked to ‘days’ which is of course a countable noun and should take ‘fewer’. O god!
I am, of course, entirely unprepared for the festive season and am relying fairly heavily on Toni to organize the necessary purchases to ensure a pleasurable experience.
Toni has decamped to Terrassa for participation in retirement dinners and Children’s Pageants while I have been left in Castelldefels to bring some order to the library which is gradually being swamped in a drift of clothing which needs ironing.
I have spent this evening drifting from desultory forays into the pile of clothing and reading the latest school book which has come my way. Each book I have read recently has had ‘The Number One Best Seller’ emblazoned across its cover and each one has owed its published existence to the excellent spade work done by the author of the Harry Potter books. There must be a whole coven of writers who prance around Druidic stones at propitious times thanking the Old Gods for allowing Ms Rowling to pen to paper in that Scottish café.
The present volume is ‘Septimus Heap – Book One – Magyk’ by Angie Sage. It has the customary simple but effective map in the front of the book with interesting places prettily drawn.
It is, as are they all, derivative but it is engagingly written and I am thoroughly enjoying it – yet another guilty pleasure!
Meanwhile the preparations for the end of term are being voiced and I realize with unalloyed pleasure that there are only three or four teaching days left in this term!
Hallelujah!
There is nothing like a school for giving a practical demonstration to many of the teachings of the bible. There is an equilibrium to school life which could be taken as a pattern for life if anyone cared to look. The Old Testament “an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth” is very much the guiding principle in many of the doings of an educational institution.
For example, the day before yesterday I was absent. My classes had to be covered. When I got into school the next day after my absence the first thing that I saw was my name down to cover a colleague. Lessons (for teachers) are swift in our school!
The weather has been foul with the only bright spot being that the suicidal motor cyclists were driven to obey the basic rules of the road and to limit their death welcoming antics to a minimum. The ride to school was therefore more uplifting than soul destroying and I count that as a major plus as the tedious day begins to unfold.
Already there are changes to the timetable and I was treated to a compressed but impressively controlled rant against the powers that be that had dared take away an almost gained free period. As there is virtually no leeway to the staffing in our school and no possibility of supply staff to make good any deficiencies it does mean that any member of staff who is away causes a disproportionate amount of chaos and disorder in the efforts to insure that the classes are covered. I have now reached the stage in this school where I sincerely believe that worrying about how the school is going to deal with absence is not something that I should seriously consider!
A new teaching imperative has just been explained to me which means that there is a different set of photocopied priorities to teach to some of the classes. I have been rapidly increasing my somewhat limited repertoire of grammatical explanations and I now possess a sweepingly impressive variety of recognizable verb descriptors. Indeed in a lesson this morning I used the term ‘past perfect’ with a confidence bordering on convincingness! How time have changed - and in that instance had changed!
In spite of the Christmas tree gleaming in the corner and the tried and tested star jelly lights twinkling (in a static sort of way) along the top of the bookcases, I find it very difficult to believe that Christmas is less than ten days away. It is also a sign of how much I have changed that I instantly thought that my previous sentence gave an illustration of an acceptable use of ‘less’ even though it was linked to ‘days’ which is of course a countable noun and should take ‘fewer’. O god!
I am, of course, entirely unprepared for the festive season and am relying fairly heavily on Toni to organize the necessary purchases to ensure a pleasurable experience.
Toni has decamped to Terrassa for participation in retirement dinners and Children’s Pageants while I have been left in Castelldefels to bring some order to the library which is gradually being swamped in a drift of clothing which needs ironing.
I have spent this evening drifting from desultory forays into the pile of clothing and reading the latest school book which has come my way. Each book I have read recently has had ‘The Number One Best Seller’ emblazoned across its cover and each one has owed its published existence to the excellent spade work done by the author of the Harry Potter books. There must be a whole coven of writers who prance around Druidic stones at propitious times thanking the Old Gods for allowing Ms Rowling to pen to paper in that Scottish café.
The present volume is ‘Septimus Heap – Book One – Magyk’ by Angie Sage. It has the customary simple but effective map in the front of the book with interesting places prettily drawn.
It is, as are they all, derivative but it is engagingly written and I am thoroughly enjoying it – yet another guilty pleasure!
Meanwhile the preparations for the end of term are being voiced and I realize with unalloyed pleasure that there are only three or four teaching days left in this term!
Hallelujah!
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