Half way through half term update

It's Wednesday, H and I have spent the last couple of days getting the studio ready for the Open Studio, and the car passed its MOT this morning. I went to school yesterday for some A Level revision. Can't believe their exam is next week. I'm really nervous. With my GCSE group, I had never felt so prepared. With this group, I've never felt so unprepared. Oh dear.

Well, better get back to holding up shelves and pictures.

Catching up

It's been a busy week, with lots of late nights and then no computer.

Tuesday - more ICT training. I learnt how to use a program called Kar2ouche, and decided to do some research on using blogs to support learning.

Wednesday - my busiest day at school. Three lessons of crowd control. However, kept calm - decided it's not worth it to get too flustered. Had a SACRE meeting after school. Finished my Form Reports.

Thursday - Went out for a meal with a friend from school who is leaving and some other colleagues. Loads of food at the Chinese restaurant we went to. Went back to her house to chat for a couple of hours afterwards. H was away overnight, so no computer.

Friday - I had been looking forward to teaching my Year 8 class all week, and they didn't let me down. I now have another video to edit, and one group also managed to create an animation about stopping the killing on the streets. Quite moving to hear what the speaker on the animation had to say. H arrived home!

Saturday - well, I'm up, but not completely up, so now I've added this, I should go and get ready for the day!

Visualisers

We had a lovely weekend. Actually, I can't remember much of what we did on Saturday ... ah, we watched the cup final, or rather H watched it while I did stuff on the computer, then we went to Oxford Circus to buy a book for our new cousin, who was born three weeks ago and lives not far from us (Yay! A baby relative who is close to us and not miles away!). In the morning I had watched some cooking programmes (while H had driven to Sainsbury's) and had been inspired by Gary Rhodes, so after we arrived home, I cooked up a tasty salmon dish, with the salmon marinated then grilled in a garlic, olive oil, chardonny, mustard, salt, thyme and soya sauce marinade. Delicious! We have Italian potatoes and salad with it - sorry, no photos!

On Sunday, after church, we went out to view some open studios in Deptford then went a bit further south to visit our new baby cousin. He's so cute! And you wouldn't believe he was only about three weeks old! For most of the visit he was fast asleep, very cute and quiet. He woke up a bit before we left and was crying a bit, but not much.

Today I've been blogging and learning more about computers on my ICT course, which finishes tomorrow (although, actually, I have another half day of training after half term). So that's been a good three or four days then. Wonder what Wednesday will hold!

So much to do, so little time ...

It's amazing, the way the time flies by when there are no classes! When the bell went for lunch, I couldn't believe it ... why doesn't lunch arrive as quickly when I'm teaching?! Year 11s are on exam leave, Year 10s are on work experience. It was good to have that time to try and get a few things done ... but all too soon that time had slipped through my fingers!

The first exam of the season ...

I'm glad to say that they were all there, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fully equipped with pens, revision guides and thinking caps. The questions all seemed fair, and most of the topics we said would come up, did come up. There were a couple of a bit off-centre questions that seemed to step outside the typical question structure, eg "Explain why people argue about abortion" rather than "Explain why there are different Christian attitudes to abortion", but hopefully they will have remembered the many arguments we discussed on Tuesday. It was a fair paper, and if they haven't all got great grades, then I don't know what else I could have done. Let's hope it bodes well for the rest of the exams.

I visited some work experience students today. One group was working for a record label (a small one!) and the other with a director for what I presume is a small independent film company. Very interesting work going on ... but a few of them seemed to be sitting around doing very little and seeming a bit bored! Let's hope it was just because it was just before lunch and they got shy speaking to me ... their supervisors were happy with them, though, so they must be doing something right!

The car is in for its service, so I have a little automatic Jazz at the moment. Automatics are so strange ...

Busy day ...

I think this is the busiest day of the week ... Two pupils eventually arrived for my AS class. I then had my new Year 9 class ... the boys were really disruptive, but I made the conscious decision to carry on teaching the pupils at the front of the class. It was an introduction to the new topic, the first of the GCSE topics that they'll study. During break, I managed to find an empty ICT room, so that was my Year 7 sorted - they are marginally better in an ICT room, because the badly behaved ones get on with playing games, while those who want to learn follow the instructions, listen carefully to what they have to do, and get on with the task. Period 4 should have been my Year 10s, but they are on work experience. During lunch a couple of Year 8s came and played on my computer, creating talking animations, in preparation for the lesson on Friday. After lunch, I had my A2 class, which went on after the bell, and also included tidying out one of our store cupboards and emptying the recycling bin.

So all in all, my busiest day has been a not too bad one.

Tomorrow should be interesting ...

Year 10 Work Experience ...

... How I love it! Two days with no Year 10s, and my Year 8 class yesterday and Year 7 class today were sitting exams, so I have been invigilating instead. Other than Year 7s on Monday it's been a good couple of days so far! Still have an annoying cold, though, that means my nose is still buried in a tissue for most of the day. I'm sure there were other things I wanted to say, but I'm too tired and a bit dehydrated now!