One More Early Morning.

Yet again another rainy morning and overcast afternoon. I had my last PPA afternoon which I spent working quietly at the photocopier in the staffroom copying my PE lessons for next year.

After school the parents were invited in to look at all the art work we have been doing recently and to take home all this year's books. Most of the parents had been and gone by 4.00 but we had to stay 'open' until 6.00 so I was able to get on with taking down work from the walls ready for all the art work to be taken home tomorrow. In theory that should leave Friday, the final day of the term, clear for fun stuff but there will probably still be lots to do. I also have to go into school on the Monday to spend a day clearing up and helping the new teacher settle into her new classroom.
I still call these ponies 'the foals' even though Ben and Doris were born last year and Persey was born the year before. They are still very much babies and can often be seen having a little nap.

This is one part of the kitchen walls I shan't be painting. Not until we are actually leaving. I well remember those measuring sessions with books being tilted one way and another and breath held to achieve maximum height. Now all 3 of my little boys are over 6ft tall and tower above me. It doesn't help that I am getting shorter, what a sign of age that is.

As I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow I've only got one more early alarm call left until ........ someone books me to work in the morning. Next term my contract is for 3 afternoons only, big pay drop but lots more time to work at home.

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End Of Year Treat.

Only a little rain at the start and end of the day but still cold and grey.

I spotted this bracket fungus growing in the hedge when I stopped to pick up the recycling box. I knew we were into autumn.

It was quite a fun day in school as today we took our Year 2s to the local bowling alley for their end of year treat. We are lucky in that we can walk there along a pleasant foot/cycle path that runs behind the secondary school playing fields. There were a couple of groups of youngsters down at the furthest ends who were having a quick cigarette (stupid kids), but they had the decency to hide them from our children. The children had a great time bowling apart from 1 boy who became quite ill with a headache and a temperature. He hadn't been well at the start of the day but was so keen to get to school his mum had given him some medication which of course wore off by the afternoon. Another of my class didn't even make it to lunchtime, he had come into school not feeling well and by playtime had thrown up and had to be sent home, poor thing.

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Brr !

At 9C (48F) with constant showers it does not feel at all like summer. I came into the classroom this morning to find Medusa still safely on the wall and now that his beard is firmly attached Poseidon joined her. Even though we are only a few days away from the holiday we can't start clearing the classrooms as we have an open evening on Wednesday where parents are invited to come in and see their children's art work (and talk to us if they have any issues with their children's reports.)

This evening I have only had time to paint half of the kitchen ceiling as I had to go to Tesco's first to get fuel and cheap vinegar which I use in the rinse water when I wash the carpets (just the vinegar not the fuel). And no the place doesn't smell like a chip shop afterwards.

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An Early Start.

It was a little darker than this but the camera compensated & I couldn't be bothered to use manual settings.

I started my day nice and early this morning, if you can call 2.30 morning. I'd woken up (as usual) but there were so many thoughts spinning around in my head, not stress but things like the day's art activities and the best way to organise the final week of the term, that I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. Running a class of 30 kids so that we can all have fun requires lots of preparation. That way minor problems are foreseen and planned for and bigger problems can be dealt with in a calm way.

By 3.30 I decided to get up and was even contemplating a night walk. I opted to aim for sunrise instead but although the official sunrise was 5.00, by 4.45 when I set out it was already light. It was completely overcast so I didn't miss anything spectacular anyway. As I was going to head up onto the road I changed my long fluffy dressing gown for an anorak in case anyone drove past and thought I was an utter fruit cake but maybe the grey zebra pyjama bottoms would have given the game away. My only other items of day wear were my Ugg boots, sans socks, and Peter's gig club beanie. Usually on a walk I can hear cars or farm machinery in the distance but today it was only the sounds of nature. Speedy started off walking with me but got a little scared when the ponies came rushing over to say good morning. Their noses were all wet from the morning dew. I'm very much a morning person so I was in my element at that early hour.
I was gazed at by a field of heifers but when I quietly said hello on the return journey they all stampeded across the field. I was out for nearly an hour which was a great way to start the day. Then it was back to the normal routine of school and our fun art activities. For most of the activities I let the children decide which ones they will do but I try and have one activity each day that everyone does. Sometimes children are reluctant to start out of a fear they will 'fail' (art has no concept of failure) but if encouraged/forced to give something a try they then find they enjoy it. Today I had everyone drawing on small whiteboards as I described a complicated picture of Poseidon's head which involved fishes, seaweed, eels, crab claws, octopus legs etc. They drew an amazing variety of pictures and later those that wanted to repeated the activity using fine pens on cartridge paper and coloured in some or all of their drawings with coloured pencils. I also photocopied all their whiteboard pictures and some children went over them with watercolours. We have done so much work from that one illustration. Our Poseidon sculpture is also based on that illustration and was finished today. It is currently lying flat as twice I suggested hanging it on the wall and twice the wool/ribbon/feather/spangled beard has slid right off. I gave it a good dollop of pva which should be firmly dry by Monday.

Medusa on the other hand is finished and looks pretty good/scary. Today the children worked with a mum to add extra details to their individual snakes (plaster bandage over wire and newspaper) and I put the whole thing together after school. The face mask is life sized and the snakes are hooked into a polystyrene plant box that I Incorporated into the top of the mask. I even remembered to include a strong wire loop into the structure so that it is secure but just in case something fails over the weekend I have placed 2 cushions on the table below and moved Poseidon out of the way.

Some excellent news. I rang the hospital after work to check that they had the right address for me and was told that I have an appointment next Thursday. What a shame, I'll have to have a day off work as I prefer to take the train rather than look for a non-existent space in the hospital car park. Might possibly have some time to do a little shopping in Exeter. Life is so hard!

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Misty Morning.

The early morning mist soon lifted leaving the garden in a golden glow but with all the cobwebs highlighted by the remaining dew.

A mile along the road I was back in the mist then at Shirwell the mist was just above the hedges on either side of the road. More ground level mist on the way to town and by the time I got to school it had all cleared. Lots of fun art activities going on in my classroom today. I can't wait until Medusa and Poseidon's heads are assembled. Hope the snakes don't keep falling off.

We had a long staff meeting after school but there was still enough time for me to spend an hour weeding in the garden before the sun left our valley.

Only 6 more early mornings before the school holidays start although I still have to go in for a non-pupil day on the first Monday of the holiday.

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A Bit Of A Moan!

Life has been a pile of poo recently and today just got worse. At school the visiting artist who was supposed to be working in my class was rescheduled and I didn't find out till half way through the morning, I was left without any help in the class as the previously cancelled plan to have my teaching assistant work in another class got reinstated and the promised student for the week is also working in another class. Luckily it's arts week and my class are very creative. I was able to guide them towards a few ideas and then supervise the children painting their Greek temples including the 3ft high model made by a group of enthusiastic boys. My role was mainly to supply paint and wipe paint from the floor, carpet! and faces.

At lunchtime I finally phoned the hospital to ask oh so politely when my appointment was as it had been 6 months since I saw the spinal consultant only to be told that I had been discharged because I had failed to turn up for an appointment that I never received! I made an official complaint straight away and hopefully I won't have to wait so long to start the whole process again. I had an appointment with my GP after work because all the stress I've been under has made me ill and he promised to get onto the hospital. As if I would have missed such a vital appointment. On the good side this GP unlike my last one does not stick rigidly to the rule that 1 appointment means one ailment only and not only did he deal with the hospital problem and my digestive woes but he has put me down to be seen by the physiotherapist because my shoulder problem is starting up again. (That's another trapped nerve problem).

I was feeling so sorry for myself that when I went into Lidyls and saw some lovely orchids I bought 2 to cheer myself up. That's instead of going for a staff meal which I wouldn't be able to eat anyway. The white one on the right is the one I bought in September which flowered for 3 months in my class and has now started flowering again. The conservatory is looking a bit like a jungle as it is full of tomato plants and a cucumber plant all reaching for the roof. Outside it looks as if the slugs have got the better of my courgette plants and the butternut squash. I resorted to some slug pellets but I fear it is too late.
It was also nice to arrive home and find that Fred had made a good start on removing the blown plaster and had left the place quite tidy. There was a thin film of dust over the kitchen and I washed the floor so that we wouldn't walk dust all over the house. When it is all done I can wash everything as I put it back, a sort of spring clean.

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Little Boxes Everywhere.

We had heavy rain in the night which continued on and off through the day. Driving up the hill in the morning there was steam coming off the road and the low clouds were reaching down in tendril towards the valleys.

During the day it dried up enough to so that the children could go out to play though we did have some heavy downpours. My afternoon was spent on PPA time glued to my lap top working on a million entries for the on-line tracker. I think I've ticked all the necessary boxes but I shall put off starting checking each of the end of term reports until tomorrow. There are apparently 51 boxes I have to check on each one!! Right now all my stress is directed towards tomorrow morning when I shall be having a lesson observation followed by an hour's performance management meeting. I've chosen to teach a literacy lesson continuing the work we have been doing based on the story of Perseus and Medusa. Once that is over and I've checked all the reports I can focus on planning a fun Arts' Week with the children spending all our time on art projects big and small.

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Sports Day At Last.

We finally had our Sports Day today after 2 cancellations due to the wet weather. Because a parent complained that we cancelled the last time in the morning (even though the weatherman accurately predicted that it would pour with rain at lunchtime) we held off making a decision until lunchtime. We had light showers and sunshine but we went ahead anyway. We have a mixture of flat races for each class and team activities where each team is made up of children of all ages and the activities graded for the different age groups so everyone has a go until the whistle blows and you move onto the next activity with points being totalled to find out the winning team. 

On the way home I always enjoy watching the changing palette of the wildflowers. Right now the Rosebay-willow-herb (fire weed) is blazing in great swathes alongside the roads while many of the other flowers have set seed and are more muted browns and golds. The broken telegraph pole has been repaired and more and more wind turbines are sprouting from the next hill top. Now it's back to those reports as I've been told that I have to fill in everything on the pupil tracker asap. Just as I'm beginning to get to grips with the Tracker I'll stop using it as I return to part-time teaching.

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Sun!

It has been an fantastically beautiful day. The advantage of being in a hut at school is that we have windows on 2 sides and with doors at either end we were able to let the cooling breeze blow through the room. Uunfortunately it also set many papers flapping and clattering but it was worth it. As it was so warm and the weather is set to change soon, possibly tomorrow I rearranged my timetable so that we spent most of the day outside. A game of T-ball (simplified rounders/baseball), a story in the Secret Garden and time to explore the mini beasts there too.

All evening this magnificent grey horse has been making silly noises as it his first time in this field. I went up to see what was going on and he looked positively gigantic beside the little Exmoor ponies. He came over and said hello to me making me miss my days of regular riding and teaching but even if my back wasn't dodgy it is very expensive to ride these days. I think it is about £40 for an hour's lesson now. I can remember paying 7/6 when I was a youngster!

Back home, after running Speedy back to the vets for his brief post-op check (all satisfactory), I would have loved to spend the whole evening outdoors but there were those reports to work on. For once the Tracker has made things easier and it has been relatively easy to set the new targets which then appear on the reports. One more evening should do it. I still have to do some school work before I can rest, no peace for the wicked.

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School Summer Fayre.

Only 1 photo tonight as Blogger seems to be playing up. It has been a nice sunny day, perfect for our school Summer Fayre. We went along and I did my turn at manning the coconut shy stall. Everyone went away happy as they paid £1 and threw balls until a coconut fell (or was assisted) down. There weren't so many stalls this year but there were plenty of people around and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. I treated myself to an ice cream form the Hockins' van. They make real ice cream with cream and natural ingredients, not the fluffed up artificial stuff you normally get from an ice cream van. Before we went into town I did some proof reading and spell checking of reports as well as adding grades for effort, attainment and progress and managed to get half of them done. My next stressful event is being 'performance managed' on Thursday which includes a full lesson observation and an hour's discussion afterwards. It will be a big sigh of relief when that is over.

Rain or possibly thunderstorms keeps threatening so I have cut all the grass even though I'm feeling quite tired. At least that job is now out of the way.

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Strike Day.

My whole blog just disappeared into the ether so here's a precis: sunny, teachers on strike, not me - can't afford to loose the pay. Rich privately educated government with personal fortunes, untouched generous pensions and fat consultancy fees to look forward to have decided to recoup some of the money lost by their banker pals by making public servants work until they are 68, pay more into their pensions and loose up to half the expected pension. Spent 5 hours sat at a PC in my classroom working on my reports. Nearly but not quite finished. Small cat spent day at vets being castrated. Happily playing at my feet now.

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Settling In.

Lots of bright sunny spells today, warm in the sun but rather chilly when the clouds took over. The children were fairly quiet today after such an active time at the beach yesterday. In the afternoon it was the second of our shuffle-up days when my class went over to the junior school and I had next year's class for a relaxed afternoon of choosing activities and a bit of painting with watercolours. I will be teaching those children 1 or 2 afternoons each week (depending if it is week 1 or week 2), so it was good to have a chance to get to know them.

The new cat is still very scared of the other cats who keep looking at him through the windows which sets him off into a panic. At the moment I am only letting Squeaky, who is the lowest ranking of our cats, stay in the house with him. There has been some growling and tail lashing and a few slashes with the claws as they approach each other but that is to be expected. I am now typing one-handed because one small loudly purring cat is curled up in my lap.

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Beach Day.

Although yesterday was the hottest day of the year (33C) in the south-east it was cooler here with rain in the afternoon and a little thunder in the evening. (Hence no Internet as everything was unplugged.) There were reports of strange tidal surges all around the south west including up some rivers. This is being put down to a mini tsunami caused not by an earthquake but by an undersea landslide off the continental shelf.

Today we were back to sunny weather, perfect for our whole school trip to the beach. It was sunny but with a cooling breeze and we had a wonderful time. All except for a very unpleasant couple who own/rent the line of beach huts. We had put all our stuff down not close to but in front of these huts. First the man and then his partner came and very rudely demanded that we move away from the huts as we were costing them business. I tried to explain that we hadn't wanted to go much further down the beach as we had to walk back to the car park for the toilets, which children always need, we couldn't have gone in the other direction because the cliffs and rocks were a safety hazard and that we would be going down onto the wet sand for all sorts of activities anyway. They were rude to the parents, to me and then to the head teacher while only having 2 beach huts occupied as there were very few other people on the beach and it is a public beach over which they had no juristriction. We did move along so that we weren't directly in front of the huts but I think that some of the parents will be writing to the local paper about how local school children were rudely ordered off that part of the beach. We took plenty of activities for the children to do but they had the most fun simply building sandcastles and jumping off sand dunes. This time we even went into the water, only to paddle but it was still fun.

And this is from yesterday, the latest addition to our menagerie. As yet unnamed cat, was taken in as a stray by a work mate of Pete's but needed a new home. Peter overcame his usual (or supposed) aversion to cats and asked me if I wanted him as an early birthday present. Ever the softie I sad yes and he arrived here yesterday. He's young, very friendly with people but scared of cats (& hens). He's booked in at the vets on Thursday that is if he is old enough so my 'present' is going to cost me money but I don't mind.

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Festival Time.

Typical Glastonbury weather - pouring with rain, so for once I'm glad that I'm at home watching it on tv with the sound turned right up, and not trying to set up a tent on the mud. One day I'll get there. This year there are over 15,000 people there who are over 50 so it isn't just for the young. I was watching some interviews and one of the people interviewed was there for the first time .... and in her 70s. It's not on next year so maybe the year after. I won't even be going to the LLAMA festival this year. Last year there was an illegal rave and illegal camping at the same time as the festival. The local council tried to make the festival organisers responsible for this (it's a mainly free festival run by volunteers) even though the festival is estimated to bring in £9 million to the area with the result that the festival is off for this year.
It was all fun and games in class today. As we are learning about Greece I thought I would be very up to date and call one of my lessons 'citizenship' which is one of the latest educational buzz words. I decided to do a 'hot seating' activity where, after having to leave the class because of a spurious message from another teacher, I did a quick change and banged on the back door dressed as King Bossus. The children are used to hot-seating where we or they take on the persona of a character and answer questions from the rest of the children. Usually the costume is only token or might even just be a label but today I dressed in a full length cloak, put on a wild black wig and a quickly made beard and moustache and weilded a decorated staff. I told them I was going to pull down the school to build myself a palace and they would all be my slaves and generally acted in a dictatorial manner. When I returned as myself the children were quite indignant about the 'Greece king' which led to a good discussion about democracy, being fair and misuse of power. Most of them thought it was me but weren't quite sure and for the rest of the day they kept trying to get me to admit that it was me. At one point in the day as we decorated Hoplite shields one of my boys said with great feeling "I didn't know maths could be so much fun," but hey symmetry and repeating patterns are part of maths too.

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Cif Orcs ?

Great fun today in school as we spent the day marking the children's long writing task about Night and Day. Who would have thought that  'cif  orcs' was the latest way to spell Guy Fawkes ? or that firemen need to work at night to stop houses being blown up by 'torists' ? Plenty of laughter as sometimes even with 3 of us it was hard to interpret our children's spelling. Overall the levelling corresponded with our teacher assessment and the children have made good progress.

It has been a dry day ending in sunshine so I had a pleasant stroll around the garden when I got home and then walked up to say hello to the ponies. I climbed up into the loft to bring down an amphora, possibly ancient but probably a modern repro to take into school for our Greek display. Just time for a bit of school work before I bottle the latest elderflower champagne and then off to bed.

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The First Day Of Summer.

I find it hard to equate the longest day of the year with the first day of summer but that is what it officially is here. Maybe we'll get some better weather now.We had a lot of rain in the morning but it cleared up the afternoon which was wonderful for me as I spent most of the time out of doors. It was the first of our shuffle up afternoons today and my class went off to spend the afternoon in their new classes in the junior school. The new teacher who will be teaching Year 2 next year came into my class to work with her future class for the afternoon. I then volunteered to work in the Year 1 class that I will be teaching several afternoons a week next year so that I could get to know them. My job was to mingle with the children doing 'outdoor learning activities' and make sure that they were able to take turns on the 4 colourful scooters. That meant a lot of cheery "Shall we let some one else have a go now because you've had a lovely long turn?" and similar phrases. By that time it was lovely and sunny so I was more than happy to stay outside for my playground duty. And when that playtime was over the Year 2 children returned from the junior school and I let them have their playtime. It was such a hard afternoon!

On the way home I stopped to take in the view. There are now at least 14 wind turbines striding across the skyline.

The position of the veg plot means that I have a great view when I drive into the garden and even when the weather is not good I can check out the progress of my produce every day. I picked a first bowl of blackcurrants and put them in the freezer and then when they are all picked I'll have a jam making session.

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More Rain.

It has been a wet, wet day. There were some dry spells as well and we managed to get the kids outside but now it is raining and looks set for the weekend. I got the PCs back working in my classroom, hooray! The remote IT people did something to the server to adjust the log-in details and now there isn't even a password, you just press enter to get in. And then in the afternoon, Sue, our school secretary (actually she's the school administrator) came and fiddled with my reluctant printer. She opened lids, shook anything that was loose and generally had an intuitive poke around and bingo! the machine now works. Mine was the 3rd one she fixed today. She doesn't claim to know about printers but she must have the magic touch. Half the class did their long writing task in the morning so we had Golden Time in the afternoon. It was quite pleasing to see that some of them chose to do more Greek based art from this week's topic work. Half of the children went out to do some gardening with our Gardening Club parents and they returned a little muddy clutching mint, garlic and spinach to take home.

At home it was too wet to do anything outside so I shall make a start on next week's planning. We are hoping to have our sports day on Monday but not if the field is too wet. We are now entering the time of year when the diary is filling up with special events, days out, visits to their new classrooms etc. I'm looking forward to Arts' Week (or in my case weeks) when we can immerse ourselves in art activities. Each class has been asked to base their art work on a familiar book so I've opted for Greek Myths and Legends because they contain a wealth of inspiration.

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*&%$ !

At school the PC situation has worsened to the point where I can only laugh. The solution to my dead main PC is simply to replace it with a new one, fair enough by me. I got my interactive whiteboard up and running by plugging in my (work) laptop so at least I can access the Internet with the children though I don't have the interactive software on my laptop. My classroom printer was no better after a night's rest, (that sometimes works), the printer in another classroom wouldn't work and I even tried emailing my document to myself but that wouldn't open on the staffroom PC. I resorted to retyping my document in word and still the staffroom PC wouldn't print on either our super duper absolutely useless printer or through the photocopier. The school secretary got onto the company that looks after our server and the rest of the IT and they did something with the server. First all the icons on the children's PCs disappeared and now they can't be turned on at all as the man on the phone says we have to log in with unknown names and passwords. My laptop was linked to the system at the time so I haven't tried turning it back on to see if that has been affected. It's a good thing that I have hung onto my (old fashioned ) whiteboard. You can't go wrong with that and a marker.

I'm not going to get to eat many of the redcurrants. The birds are stripping them off before they even have a chance to ripen.

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IT Irritations.

I thought I was having a good day at school. Half my class had done their maths SATs in the morning and I was happily marking their papers when I was called back to my classroom. The main PC which runs the interactive white board was blank. Despite flicking of switches, twiddling and even replacement of cables it remains as dead as a dodo. The power supply has probably blown up. Then after school I was attempting to print some photos of my class dressed in a sheet and wearing the Grecian victor's wreaths that they had made. We have had trouble with all the printers recently. Sometimes they take up to 3 hours to churn out a print and I have to watch my printer like a hawk because if you do not remove the sheet of paper immediately it emerges it sometimes gets snatched back into the bowels of the beast and then jams the workings. I made the mistake of putting more paper in the tray and that stopped everything. I tried taking out the paper and putting less in, then just one sheet, then a few more but no, all it will do is grind and make other horrible noises. Even at home the Internet seems to be on a go-slow. Oh and the 100% cloud cover means that there is no chance of seeing the lunar eclipse that is happening right now. I think I had better just have an early night.

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No Sports Day.

The fact that yesterday we had 1/3 of the average June rainfall for Devon in just 1 day had left the playing field too wet to use so our Sports Day had to be postponed. That was a shame as the sun was shining brightly this afternoon. If the weather stays fine we will attempt to have our Sports Day next Monday. Instead we had a day of normal lessons though some of my class felt they should have had choosing time instead. It was a little hard to teach today with my croaky voice, it's at times like these that you realise how much of a tool a teacher's voice is. I don't shout very much but a sharp tone can stop silly behaviour in an instant and a directed question can refocus wandering attention. I gave up by the end of the day and asked my teaching assistant to read the story, something I love doing, while I listened to children read.

Back home those potato plants are coming on a treat. I've got too much school work to do to spend time working in the garden but I managed to fit in a quick walk around to take a few pictures.

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