allsorts

Here I am sitting in the car in Edinburgh outside my younger son’s cello lesson, (wonder how much time I’ve spent here over the years?) and lo and behold! I can log onto the internet because I’m in a wi-fi hotspot! Perhaps that’s just old hat to some of you seasoned technocrats, but to me it’s amazing! It’s like the adverts where they’re msn-ing at the top of mountains. And I’m doing it!
And I’d like you to know that this week I was called a “geek” by a young colleague. Although I objected to the negative connotations of this word, I was assured it was meant as a compliment when applied to someone of my antiquity.Indeed when I look up wikipedia it tells me that according to my colleague, I am ” an individual who is fascinated by knowledge and imagination”

Yep, that’s me!

The end of term service today, and au revoir to our beloved Head Teacher. She’s been taken away from us to manage another school by those whose organisational understanding is far greater than ours. Apparently. The other school is getting not only a superb leader, with vision and drive, but also someone who can be an extremely empathic and supportive friend. We hope they appreciate their good fortune.

She has the option to come back in a year’s time for her pre-retirement year. Will she? Won’t she? We’ll have to wait and see.

And what will happen to us in the meantime? We have been a very strong team, not without heated discussions and professional debate, but always tremendously supportive of each other, especially during the personal crises and difficulties that have affected individuals at various times. We are not just teachers, but whole people whose lives outside school enhance what we can offer to the children and each other. This ethos has come from our Head Teacher.
It was touching to see how the children expressed their love for her as they left the hall. All of nearly 220 children wanted and got a hug and an individual comment ( I was standing behind her) many in tears and even big P7 boys coorying in for their cuddle.

With a new Depute who only started this year, and who is still getting the hang of the school, it will be interesting to see what changes and what remains the same when her replacement arrives some time next term.

My class have added to a Vikings wiki I set up. It’s their first foray into wikis and it will be interesting to see if any of them add more from home.

They were very keen to do it. We just ran into a slight problem when more than one person was editing the same page on different workstations. Some information seemed to be lost. However, they were quite impressed when I “found” it again, using the history. I wouldn’t have thought of showing them this, at this stage, but followed their usual enthusiasm for problem solving.

I wonder if any of them will access it from home?

Two parents nights, all dress rehearsals and one concert done. One concert and HT leaving do to go. Phew!

I’ve just re-read my post from yesterday. A day out?

The only thing I took time out from was getting dressed and a bit of housework. Who am I fooling? And look at the sunshine…

I’m abandoning my pupil profiles and this laptop until the sun goes away. Plenty of time then.

Today I’ve taken a day out - I had a pyjama day. I’ve worked so hard this week, not been feeling well and have an incredibly busy week to come AND I’ll lose an hour of sleep into the bargain. I did no shopping, cleaning or laundry - my usual Saturday activity list. The sun outside looked absolutely gorgeous and I would love to have gone out for walk, but energy levels and the fact of still being in my pyjamas counted strongly in favour of spectator rather than experiential involvement.

So instead I’ve spent some of today looking at stuff on the internet that I’ve not had time for recently: LTS Stuff, Glow stuff, ACE stuff, and briefly some other non-teaching stuff. I’ve also written a few profiles (7 actually) for parents’ consultations next week and thought about some things in relation to the 2 shows we’re putting on next week. I’ve registered with delicious (can’t remember where the dots go) after seeing Andrew Brown’s great quicktorial on bookmarks (thanks Andrew) and also got myself a netvibes page. All that in between coughing my lungs up.

I’m struck by the contrast between the meta stuff I’ve been taking in and the bread and butter stuff like “Jamie’s dyslexia is not an excuse for him to spend his time staring into space unless an adult tells him not to.” (My notes, not a document for the parent, though I may actually write something similar on his PLP (spit))

I want to have time to consider the former, the meta stuff, the thinking about the how and why of what I’m doing, but next week consists of

Monday Final rehearsals for 2 shows and Parents consulations

Tuesday Dress rehearsal of Hoodwinked and parents consultations.

Wednesday Dress rehearsal of Rainbow Spectacular and evening performance of Hoodwinked

Thursday Viking Day in my class and evening performance of Rainbow Spectacular

Friday  End of term service including consideration of the reluctant departure of our esteemed Head for pastures new, so a special song to be written, not to mention severe emotional trauma.

Such is the life of the practising teacher at the end of a busy term. A bit different from the calm virtual world of my surfing today. Did somebody mention the need for a corkscrew?