It's been far too long since my last post. So long, in fact, that my line manager at work has told me that one of my performance management targets for this coming academic year is to start blogging again! So, here we go. I thought I'd give you a rough idea of what's been happening in my life over the past few months.
Things which are the same
1. My husband and I have survived to celebrate another wedding anniversary.
2. I am proud that I have managed to keep son, cat and hedgehog alive for another year, not necessarily in that order ...
3. Aforementioned son still knows more than I do about everything.
4. The mechanic at our local garage continues to hide when he sees me pull onto the forecourt.
5. I am still doing the same job and still threatening to go and stack shelves in Lidl instead.
6. I have not won Euromillions.
Things which are different
1. Michael Gove is no longer Secretary of State for Education.
2. We have a goldfish called Neymar. Ronnie is showing him a lot of love. He is currently under the protective force of the Baptist Hymn Book which is securing the lid of his tank against almost certain attack.
3. I no longer drink alcohol. This means I save money, don't get headaches and don't find myself, late at night, agreeing to take ownership, via Facebook, of random kittens.
4. Michael Gove is no longer Secretary of State for Education.
5. Did I mention that Michael Gove is no longer Secretary of State for Education?
Showing posts with label alcohol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alcohol. Show all posts
Tuesday, 22 July 2014
Thursday, 22 August 2013
GCSE Results
I have been a nervous wreck for the past few days waiting for GCSE results. Not my own, you understand, or even a nephew or niece this year. No, I have been waiting, as a teacher, for my Spanish class' results. You teenagers and parents have it easy you see. You may get this terrifying, stomach churning, nail biting wait two or three times in a lifetime. I have had it just about every August for the last 17 years, and the experience only gets worse as the responsibility for results gets placed more and more on teachers, and less on less on pupils.
On the whole I am pleased with the results my pupils have achieved this year. They range from a grade B to F. This time around I had a middle ability group, all lovely kids, all received the same teaching, encouragement, support, feedback over the two year course. How then can the results vary so much? In Mr Gove's world, they should all have achieved a B/C grade. I'll tell you how. The pupil with the F grade did the minimum of work. He did not submit a single piece of coursework of any consequence. The same applies to the E and D grades. I can teach to the very best of my ability but I cannot do the work for them That would be illegal and disciplinary action for fraud is something I could do without to be honest.
So now I wait to see what my 'residuals' are. This I how much I am deemed to have improved or not on the grades the pupils SHOULD have achieved. This is worked out by some ridiculous system called the FFT - Fisher Family Trust, or Fisher Price as most of my colleagues prefer to call it. From what I can tell this is an entirely random calculation based on where you live, what you ate for breakfast and what newspaper your parents read. For example Lowestoft/Quavers and Red Bull/The Mirror = E
Burnham Market/Homemade Muesli and Fresh Orange Juice/The Guardian = A*. OK, it is based loosely around how a child is doing at Key Stage 2, when they are aged 8-11. Now, I could be going out on a pedagogical limb here, but I would guess that at this age most children are a) fairly amenable to doing what their teachers and parents say b) not full of hormones and interested only in their social life and the opposite sex c) not experimenting with alcohol and recreational drugs. How a child is performing at 9 can surely not determine how they should do at 16 and yet this is what we are all judged on.
I have my own system for working out what grade they should get called the Sian Harrison Indicator Test. It goes like this. Take the average grade the pupil achieves aged 13. Divide by the number of piercings they have. Take away the amount of time they spend on a games console. Add the amount of time they spend doing homework. Take away the number of units of alcohol they consumed the night before the exam. Divide by the number of times they say 'Why do we have to learn Spanish anyway'. Based on the above system I would say I am outstanding and deserve a pay rise!
On the whole I am pleased with the results my pupils have achieved this year. They range from a grade B to F. This time around I had a middle ability group, all lovely kids, all received the same teaching, encouragement, support, feedback over the two year course. How then can the results vary so much? In Mr Gove's world, they should all have achieved a B/C grade. I'll tell you how. The pupil with the F grade did the minimum of work. He did not submit a single piece of coursework of any consequence. The same applies to the E and D grades. I can teach to the very best of my ability but I cannot do the work for them That would be illegal and disciplinary action for fraud is something I could do without to be honest.
So now I wait to see what my 'residuals' are. This I how much I am deemed to have improved or not on the grades the pupils SHOULD have achieved. This is worked out by some ridiculous system called the FFT - Fisher Family Trust, or Fisher Price as most of my colleagues prefer to call it. From what I can tell this is an entirely random calculation based on where you live, what you ate for breakfast and what newspaper your parents read. For example Lowestoft/Quavers and Red Bull/The Mirror = E
Burnham Market/Homemade Muesli and Fresh Orange Juice/The Guardian = A*. OK, it is based loosely around how a child is doing at Key Stage 2, when they are aged 8-11. Now, I could be going out on a pedagogical limb here, but I would guess that at this age most children are a) fairly amenable to doing what their teachers and parents say b) not full of hormones and interested only in their social life and the opposite sex c) not experimenting with alcohol and recreational drugs. How a child is performing at 9 can surely not determine how they should do at 16 and yet this is what we are all judged on.
I have my own system for working out what grade they should get called the Sian Harrison Indicator Test. It goes like this. Take the average grade the pupil achieves aged 13. Divide by the number of piercings they have. Take away the amount of time they spend on a games console. Add the amount of time they spend doing homework. Take away the number of units of alcohol they consumed the night before the exam. Divide by the number of times they say 'Why do we have to learn Spanish anyway'. Based on the above system I would say I am outstanding and deserve a pay rise!
Sunday, 14 July 2013
5:2
So, today is a fast day and by that I do not mean that I am rushing around like the proverbial blue-bottomed winged insect. Neither does it mean, more's the pity, that the traffic on the country roads where I live in North Norfolk will be going at a reasonable speed. No, what it means is that in the next 24 hours I shall consume no more than 500 calories. If I was a man it would be 600. Thinking about it, perhaps it would be worth having some hormone therapy and 'the operation' just to get those extra 100 calories, I mean that's a whole chocolate biscuit for goodness' sake!
This madness is all part of the 5:2 diet where you eat normally 5 days a week and restrict your calorie intake to 500 on the other 2. I won't bore you with the details or the science, those are readily available from people much better qualified than I. All I know is that since I started this way of eating back in November I have felt better, lost/maintained my weight and started changing my general attitude to food.
It hasn't all been easy. The first couple of times I did a fast it was tough. By the time I got home after work I was grumpy (or grumpier than usual) and could quite happily have eaten my own hand. I remember looking longingly at the food in the cat's bowl and even my son's Turkey Twizzlers. Now, that was a low point.
There is always temptation around too. At the school where I work there is invariably a pile of biscuits in our staff room and people often bring in cakes and other treats. We definitely march on our stomachs and apparently one of the interview questions when applying for a job in our department used to be 'Can you make a decent meringue?'
Home isn't much better either. Having watched my husband munch his way through a packet of biscuits one evening I found myself wondering whether I would be able to enter a plea of 'diminished responsibility' if I smacked him round the head an extra large carrot baton.
I tend to do my 'fast days' during the week, but I know people who have gone hard-core and tried a weekend fast. I refer to this as 'extreme fasting'. Personally, after a tough week teaching teenagers I need a good glass of wine on a Friday and Saturday evening. As one of my favourite quotations goes 'I only work in order to afford the alcohol necessary to keep on working!'
Anyway, I must go now. Just off to munch on a few goji berries.
This madness is all part of the 5:2 diet where you eat normally 5 days a week and restrict your calorie intake to 500 on the other 2. I won't bore you with the details or the science, those are readily available from people much better qualified than I. All I know is that since I started this way of eating back in November I have felt better, lost/maintained my weight and started changing my general attitude to food.
It hasn't all been easy. The first couple of times I did a fast it was tough. By the time I got home after work I was grumpy (or grumpier than usual) and could quite happily have eaten my own hand. I remember looking longingly at the food in the cat's bowl and even my son's Turkey Twizzlers. Now, that was a low point.
There is always temptation around too. At the school where I work there is invariably a pile of biscuits in our staff room and people often bring in cakes and other treats. We definitely march on our stomachs and apparently one of the interview questions when applying for a job in our department used to be 'Can you make a decent meringue?'
Home isn't much better either. Having watched my husband munch his way through a packet of biscuits one evening I found myself wondering whether I would be able to enter a plea of 'diminished responsibility' if I smacked him round the head an extra large carrot baton.
I tend to do my 'fast days' during the week, but I know people who have gone hard-core and tried a weekend fast. I refer to this as 'extreme fasting'. Personally, after a tough week teaching teenagers I need a good glass of wine on a Friday and Saturday evening. As one of my favourite quotations goes 'I only work in order to afford the alcohol necessary to keep on working!'Anyway, I must go now. Just off to munch on a few goji berries.
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