Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Just got up!

Yep, you read that correctly!

I'm not feeling so well, and it is my PPA time, so I'm home, and I've just had about a 30 minute nap. Some dappy woman phoned up looking for North Timber, and then when I said no, just rung off! No apology or anything!

Ah well.

So now I'm going to have a cup of tea, and sit quietly for a while, and see where we get to. Tempting as it is to go back to bed, I'm afraid I won't sleep tonight if I do!

LOL.

No, not LOL, ROFMAO!

I just had a conversation with R.

I let him know that there was a picture of BG, we looked at it together, and then there was a conversation about communications.

I said that there had been no answer to anything I had sent the BG whilst he was away. He said, yeah, that's because it didn't come from him. I said "But you were away, wasn't that the point of me contacting her to let he know how you were, because you couldn't?" He said "Yeah."

SO? What? *confused* lol!

The blog comes from both of us.
It is rarely acknowledged, and the amount of comments in 3 years can be counted on one hand.

Any emails that I send, are sent because he cannot. So expecting him to send them is just bizarre! I mean, if he could send them, then he would. LOL! He doesn't avoid contacting BG at all! He works hard to ensure contact does happen whenever he can and whenever BG wants it. So if he hasn't sent the email, and I have, it's because he can't and I can, so saying that he isn't .... or won't..... or.. ....... oh LOL! whatever!

I thought if I wrote it down I could look at it until it made sense.

It doesn't lol!

So I'm going to work to battle APP, ISP, AFL, MFL and IEP's, because those acronyms make more sense than this!

Morning!

Well, I ended up going to bed last night at 9.15 and was asleep by 9.30. I remember R coming up to bed later on, and that was fine. And then I remember 3am, 4am, 4.50am. But in that warm snuggy way of looking at the clock and going "Hmmmm! Not yet!"

Up around 5am, and then looked at last nights blog going "Hmmmmm! What did I write?" But it turns out it was ok. It's always honest in here though. If a person is going to lie on their blog, then what's the point?

R knows I blog. He knows what I blog about. He knows where it is to read it if he wants to. We have no secrets like that. The only secrets we ever keep are those about birthday presents! Everything else is fine!

But I woke up to a picture of the BG in her glasses, which were definately chosen by a child. I can't make out what she's holding, but it isn't worth asking about and opening up dialogue after Sunday. She-Ex managed to really upset AC that day, but it wouldn't have dawned on her that he would be upset, or that he might be up, or that the language and content of the conversation were inappropriate for *any* child's ears. But that's just the way of it. We'll see what Wednesday brings.

Today is my PPA day, and I am taking my laptop in, with the plan of getting my reports sorted onto there and thence onward. But there are technical issues I can get around with a paper copy of dob's and so on.

Or I start on the APP stuff.

*feels spirits sink - and not in that good way*

Basically, APP is the new assessment process in schools.

Each child has 3 A3 sheets of paper, that have graded targets on, that we colour in as they are achieved, and it zooms up the school with them. (1 writing, 1 reading, 1 maths) Each year, we also pick 3 children, one higher, one middle, one lower ability, and we keep a selection of their work as well as lots more A4 coloured in graded targets, for each of these subjects.

Example.

Writing.

31 children in my class. Each has a piece of A3 coloured in.

3 children in my class have examples of work kept. These have to be 2 literacy, 3 cross-curricular, that we have to keep as examples of the 8 strands of literacy being covered. With me so far? We then get more A4 paper (currently about 9 sheets per child for writing) and we colour in the bits they have secure understanding of.

Then we make an evidence based judgement on whether the child has achieved low, secure, or high level 1,2,3,4,5. There are no more P numbers, so none of the progress of the children I have who work hard can be recorded in that way, except through Early Learning Goals which are for Reception and not appropriate for bigger children.

There is no child speak version of the APP sheet.

This is not less work (hence me saying the ex-boss told lies!) this is more work. It is not productive. Oh, and it has to be done by 2nd June.

So.

18th May - SATs week.
1st June - All SATs marking done. (90 x maths papers, 90 x spelling, 90 x mental maths)
2nd June - APP in, (as above)
22nd June - Reports due in. (31)

Almost all of this will be done in my time. My unpaid time. My unclaimable as overtime, time. And this, my Dear Reader, is why teachers need the holidays they get these days. But I can't *do* any of this in the holidays at home, because it needs to be in before summer, although I could, and will, spend some of half term in school.

And I need to teach as well. And plan to teach. And resource my teaching. And run ICT training. and and and and and and and and

Oh well. I expect the attitude will be that they have had their SATs so the standard of teaching won't matter lol. (Not from me, that attitude, but higher up!)

Better get on with it.

LOL.