School Stuff.

I am reduced to snatching evening photos as I scurry across the playground between my classroom and the staff room. By the time I get home it is just too dark.

On the top of the main building can be seen the domes of our sun lights which are very good at catching the light and directing it down into the corridor below which has no natural light. One of the nice things about being in a hut is that with windows down both long sides there is lots of light. My classroom overlooks the junior school playing field and several very large trees. An excellent resource when as today I was trying to steer my children away from drawing 'lollipop' trees. No matter how many times we go out and sketch living trees when the children are asked to draw a tree they produce a lollipop or at best something like a palm tree.

We had another play rehearsal this morning, improving - though it didn't help when I got lost with my own choreography because I forgot which verse we were on! There was a bit of messing about from my class and I even marched one rather naughty child off the stage area before the dance started. At the same time I had another child going greener and greener with a tummy bug so I had to phone home for her mum to come and collect her. It will be rehearsals every day until the dress rehearsal next Friday. Hopefully I'll be able to remember our star dance by then.

We had a long staff meeting about APP (assessing pupil progress) mainly to co-ordinate how we are all doing it. I can see the validity but it will take more time and need a lot more organising especially at the start. We noticed that the guidelines recommend working with groups of 3 - 6 children, ha-ha very workable when you have a class of 30 and groups of 8 children. Maybe the government would like to throw a little more money our way to provide for more teaching assistants or smaller class sizes. I think not.