What day is it?
Dec. 17th, 2008 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mistletoeStrewth! Yesterday was a day to conjure with and today only slightly improved but is trying to go downhill. By dinnertime yesterday I was ready for bed. It was.... surreal.
Over the course of the morning I pointed out in briefing (8.45 am) that when a data input deadline is Wednesday it does not mean 9am on Wednesday because that would mean technically the data would have to be input on Tuesday, making Tuesday the deadline and some of us hadn't had any free time yet to input said data. or even a copy of said data because said data was the year 11 mock exam results. which my Head of Department hadn't been able to mark through illness and the Chair of Governors (an English specialist) who'd volunteered to mark them hadn't bothered to contact us with the state of his progress yet .... breathe.... so could there be a rethink. The Head looked shifty eyed and said that the end of school would be OK. As it turned out the point was moot as he hadn't finished marking yet.
Lesson 1: Year 7 are watching The Wizard of Oz while I am marking poetry papers and inputting my own data (what? I'm not perfect) when the office monitor turns up with a missive from admin. (9.35) I read it with growing disbelief. I am a year 11 tutor. Tutor statement blanks are available on the system for each student in your tutor group (location of same provided) Data and Student comment sheets will be made available by January 5th and should be completed in registration time. They should be handed in together with completed Tutor comment sheets on January 9th. Buh? That means 24 sets of data have to be looked at by me; processed by me; meaningfully commented on by me, with the students predicted grades at my fingertips, of course, having spent the Christmas holiday learning them (not) and typed up by me on incorrectly templated sheets that migrate down the page as you type so you have to keep deleting the unused lines to keep the template on the page. Pah!
So, (and I'll have to come back to lesson 3's trauma) I toddled along to Pat's room to whinge. She thought it was like Student Review Day Data (which, you probably won't remember, I had already had in September) and wouldn't take very long. I was too punch drunk to process and toddled back to lesson 2. I had just addressed the class when the fire alarm went off. (10.20) So out we all trooped to the snow covered tennis courts. I had taken my boots to school and they were safely in the staff room along with my coat. gloves and scarf. I could feel the damp seeping through my shoes as we stood in the cold and snow. Some bastard threw a snowball that got me square in the chest so I now had a wet jumper too. Today, I have got the cold symptoms which I would have avoided if only my feet had remained dry. That's the fatal flaw for me. Anyway, eventually back to the classroom where 7N1 were able to view The Wizard of Oz while I finished data inputting. (10.45)
Then, I realised, no, this isn't SRD; this is PPR (don't you love initials). I went back and told Pat that, which got the desired sympathy vote. She however, was not only sympathetic but had a cunning plan. That week is House meeting week so, as they had that time offered for SRD prep last meeting, why couldn't Year 11 tutors have the same? Brilliant. In my 10 minute dinner break, my Head of House was in the staff room so I told him I had a radical plan, which I laid out. He had no objection. Phew.
Back upstairs. In my journey to Pat's room I was cheeked by some small boy who then ran away. Git. However, revenge was sweet because he actually ran away from his lesson in the room next to mine so was 8 minutes late for the lesson and was kept in over break. I had to do it mind because the teacher in that room was on duty, but that was all right. So, no break. (11.15 - 11.30)
Lesson 3 was lovely: Year 11 and getting to grips with Act 3 of Romeo and Juliet until about 4 minutes before the end of the lesson when a girl suddenly said 'I'm going to be sick'. This is one of the current bugs along with the chest infection that I had evaded so far when all around succumbed (Damn you false fire alarm) so, I prompted her to go immediately, but when I looked at her she had absolutely no colour. She couldn't get her balance and fainted. (12.24) Fortunately a friend grabbed her and she didn't hit her head. I had to go over to the Science room over the corridor who have a phone, ring Reception and ask for a First aider. Meanwhile, girls in my room were growing hysterical, but the bell rang for dinner (12.30) and I had to shoo them all out along with the lollygaggers who had gathered at the door.
Sharon, one of the First aiders, arrived and I suggested an ambulance should be called. She agreed as the girl was slipping in and out of consciousness and complained of a bad head. So back to the Science block to the phone. It was Christmas dinner day but fortunately I had not ordered it as last year's was so rank, so I stayed with the girl, a couple of her friends and Sharon, waiting for the ambulance. We waited and waited until eventually Sharon suggested I should go. This was 20 minutes after we had called the ambulance from a station which is less than a mile away.. Of course, we had to contact the girl's parents, but her step dad works nights and was in bed, while her mother, irony of ironies was at work, as a nurse somewhere in Shotley Bridge Hospital. Sharon managed to get hold of her real Dad though.
In the staff room I shoved my haggis, neeps and tatties in the microwave and went out for a cig. While I was out there I heard the ambulance siren almost 30 minutes after we called. I had my haggis (delish) and was pulling myself together for the joy that is my year 10 when the only other member of the English Department still standing hurried in to say she had to go home with cystitis.(1.10) I waved her off. So I had to come up with work for 4 classes, including my own at a minute's notice. Ha!
Nothing else happened except I got indigestion from gulping down my dinner.
Home to text Head of Department to see if she knew about the whereabouts of her papers and to wrap Lou's Christmas presents as we were going out for a meal and she would be away in Cuba for Christmas. Texts revealed Head of Department's hubby had brought in her numbers for Effort, Homework and Attitude for her two classes, but they had been put in Joani's pigeon hole. Joani had been off all week and nobody had thought about telling me that hubby had been. She didn't know about the marks. (See above).
Out with wrapped pressies and card at 7.15 and off to pub. Nice meal though I could have done with more garlic jus on my chicken gambarella. Then we did the quiz and finished third, in spite of the picture round being sporting venues. So £2 profit.
Home at 11.40 and so to bed.
Today I had 4 lessons and a lot of work to do. So on with the Wizard, Hot Fuzz and Bring it on after letting Year 11 have a free lesson 'cos I was tired. I then - input the numbers for two classes; downloaded teacher packs for all the APPs, made a new folder and copied all of them into the Shared area; wrote a Medium Term Plan for Year 7 from scratch and started a Year 8 one. That got me to dinner time, which I spent in the staff room. During my PPA time I took one of the new English teachers through the plans and did the reassuring bit. There was supposed to be a Department meeting after school but there was only me so I came home with a sore throat. That's the downhill bit.
Two more days? I'll never make it. And I haven't even got my Christmas tree up.
I see Allardyce has been appointed by Blackburn Rovers, so, depending on your point of view we have been pipped at the post or saved from a fate worse than death. I'm not sure, but we play them on Boxing Day so his reception could be interesting, depending on if we have appointed someone else by then.
Over the course of the morning I pointed out in briefing (8.45 am) that when a data input deadline is Wednesday it does not mean 9am on Wednesday because that would mean technically the data would have to be input on Tuesday, making Tuesday the deadline and some of us hadn't had any free time yet to input said data. or even a copy of said data because said data was the year 11 mock exam results. which my Head of Department hadn't been able to mark through illness and the Chair of Governors (an English specialist) who'd volunteered to mark them hadn't bothered to contact us with the state of his progress yet .... breathe.... so could there be a rethink. The Head looked shifty eyed and said that the end of school would be OK. As it turned out the point was moot as he hadn't finished marking yet.
Lesson 1: Year 7 are watching The Wizard of Oz while I am marking poetry papers and inputting my own data (what? I'm not perfect) when the office monitor turns up with a missive from admin. (9.35) I read it with growing disbelief. I am a year 11 tutor. Tutor statement blanks are available on the system for each student in your tutor group (location of same provided) Data and Student comment sheets will be made available by January 5th and should be completed in registration time. They should be handed in together with completed Tutor comment sheets on January 9th. Buh? That means 24 sets of data have to be looked at by me; processed by me; meaningfully commented on by me, with the students predicted grades at my fingertips, of course, having spent the Christmas holiday learning them (not) and typed up by me on incorrectly templated sheets that migrate down the page as you type so you have to keep deleting the unused lines to keep the template on the page. Pah!
So, (and I'll have to come back to lesson 3's trauma) I toddled along to Pat's room to whinge. She thought it was like Student Review Day Data (which, you probably won't remember, I had already had in September) and wouldn't take very long. I was too punch drunk to process and toddled back to lesson 2. I had just addressed the class when the fire alarm went off. (10.20) So out we all trooped to the snow covered tennis courts. I had taken my boots to school and they were safely in the staff room along with my coat. gloves and scarf. I could feel the damp seeping through my shoes as we stood in the cold and snow. Some bastard threw a snowball that got me square in the chest so I now had a wet jumper too. Today, I have got the cold symptoms which I would have avoided if only my feet had remained dry. That's the fatal flaw for me. Anyway, eventually back to the classroom where 7N1 were able to view The Wizard of Oz while I finished data inputting. (10.45)
Then, I realised, no, this isn't SRD; this is PPR (don't you love initials). I went back and told Pat that, which got the desired sympathy vote. She however, was not only sympathetic but had a cunning plan. That week is House meeting week so, as they had that time offered for SRD prep last meeting, why couldn't Year 11 tutors have the same? Brilliant. In my 10 minute dinner break, my Head of House was in the staff room so I told him I had a radical plan, which I laid out. He had no objection. Phew.
Back upstairs. In my journey to Pat's room I was cheeked by some small boy who then ran away. Git. However, revenge was sweet because he actually ran away from his lesson in the room next to mine so was 8 minutes late for the lesson and was kept in over break. I had to do it mind because the teacher in that room was on duty, but that was all right. So, no break. (11.15 - 11.30)
Lesson 3 was lovely: Year 11 and getting to grips with Act 3 of Romeo and Juliet until about 4 minutes before the end of the lesson when a girl suddenly said 'I'm going to be sick'. This is one of the current bugs along with the chest infection that I had evaded so far when all around succumbed (Damn you false fire alarm) so, I prompted her to go immediately, but when I looked at her she had absolutely no colour. She couldn't get her balance and fainted. (12.24) Fortunately a friend grabbed her and she didn't hit her head. I had to go over to the Science room over the corridor who have a phone, ring Reception and ask for a First aider. Meanwhile, girls in my room were growing hysterical, but the bell rang for dinner (12.30) and I had to shoo them all out along with the lollygaggers who had gathered at the door.
Sharon, one of the First aiders, arrived and I suggested an ambulance should be called. She agreed as the girl was slipping in and out of consciousness and complained of a bad head. So back to the Science block to the phone. It was Christmas dinner day but fortunately I had not ordered it as last year's was so rank, so I stayed with the girl, a couple of her friends and Sharon, waiting for the ambulance. We waited and waited until eventually Sharon suggested I should go. This was 20 minutes after we had called the ambulance from a station which is less than a mile away.. Of course, we had to contact the girl's parents, but her step dad works nights and was in bed, while her mother, irony of ironies was at work, as a nurse somewhere in Shotley Bridge Hospital. Sharon managed to get hold of her real Dad though.
In the staff room I shoved my haggis, neeps and tatties in the microwave and went out for a cig. While I was out there I heard the ambulance siren almost 30 minutes after we called. I had my haggis (delish) and was pulling myself together for the joy that is my year 10 when the only other member of the English Department still standing hurried in to say she had to go home with cystitis.(1.10) I waved her off. So I had to come up with work for 4 classes, including my own at a minute's notice. Ha!
Nothing else happened except I got indigestion from gulping down my dinner.
Home to text Head of Department to see if she knew about the whereabouts of her papers and to wrap Lou's Christmas presents as we were going out for a meal and she would be away in Cuba for Christmas. Texts revealed Head of Department's hubby had brought in her numbers for Effort, Homework and Attitude for her two classes, but they had been put in Joani's pigeon hole. Joani had been off all week and nobody had thought about telling me that hubby had been. She didn't know about the marks. (See above).
Out with wrapped pressies and card at 7.15 and off to pub. Nice meal though I could have done with more garlic jus on my chicken gambarella. Then we did the quiz and finished third, in spite of the picture round being sporting venues. So £2 profit.
Home at 11.40 and so to bed.
Today I had 4 lessons and a lot of work to do. So on with the Wizard, Hot Fuzz and Bring it on after letting Year 11 have a free lesson 'cos I was tired. I then - input the numbers for two classes; downloaded teacher packs for all the APPs, made a new folder and copied all of them into the Shared area; wrote a Medium Term Plan for Year 7 from scratch and started a Year 8 one. That got me to dinner time, which I spent in the staff room. During my PPA time I took one of the new English teachers through the plans and did the reassuring bit. There was supposed to be a Department meeting after school but there was only me so I came home with a sore throat. That's the downhill bit.
Two more days? I'll never make it. And I haven't even got my Christmas tree up.
I see Allardyce has been appointed by Blackburn Rovers, so, depending on your point of view we have been pipped at the post or saved from a fate worse than death. I'm not sure, but we play them on Boxing Day so his reception could be interesting, depending on if we have appointed someone else by then.
