1 out of 4

What a week!

Very busy, and next week looks to be chaotic, as I lose my classroom (as does the other member of my department) because the department classrooms are being gutted and completely re-furbed. The timing makes sense - all of our year 10's go on work experience, so the rooms are used far less in the next fortnight, but it does mean being a roaming teacher for the next two weeks, which is a pain in the arse. But I am not complaining as I will have a nice new shiny classroom!

On Thursday I did something I never thought I would do - I shopped someone to the police. A guy on quite a powerful motorbike was racing (seriously - at least 60mph) up and down the road that our school is on (a housing estate, on a hill, with poor visibility due to cars being parked on both sides of the road, and speed bumps. Not only was he racing, but he was doing so with a female pillion passenger who WASN'T WEARING A HELMET! Doh. So I took his registration and gave it to our resident police officer. Its up the the police what they do with that information - but that sort of behaviour is reckless, selfish and puts too many people at risk. Weirdly though - I felt GUILTY for reporting this information to our PC, even though it wasn't me that was doing anything wrong!

ON Friday, the boss and myself had to go to a conference on 'Data analysis' - this is because we are part of that flippin' list of schools who didn't meet government targets....which is ironic, seeing as we met the criteria last summer, (and more ironic, given that we got 4 mentions, by name, in the House of Commons on Wednesday, by Ed Balls - congratulating us on our improved results and on meeting the government targets!). Anyway, that aside, we had to go to this conference.

By 10 am (it started at 9.30) the boss and I were already hugely p***ed off. It was basically school perofrmance data for beginners....not wishing to blow my own trumpet here, but I am WAY past that - I argue with OFSTED inspectors and win in discussions about performance data. The course was being led in a completely un-charismatic way, and what was more worrying was the number of senior leaders there who clearly didn't have a clue (I assumed that everyone knew what we knew...wrongly).

At 11 am I rang my Dad's work - which was literally 2 minutes away from the hotel where the conference was at - spoke to one of the fab girls in the office and told them I would be coming to see dad.

Boss told me to bugger off at lunchtime - so I went and had a pleasant half hour at the foundry where my Dad has spent the significant part of his adult working life. Thanks for that AP!

Spent last night and some of today completing the painting - basically 3 smaller canvases, painted as part of a whole (abstract) image, then mounted on a large canvas, which had been background painted to complement the colour scheme of the 3 little ones. Hence 1 canvas, out of 4.

James and I have been to Warrington on the train again. Spent too much money on books, DVDs and clothes. Also got James some new school shoes and trainers (not too bad ...58 quid for the two pairs, and unless something unusual happens, we'll get over 12 months out of each pair if James stays true to form!)

Had tea (steak and chips - dead healthy!)...off to watch a film with Jimbo - all crashed out on the new sofa. Then its early bed for all as we are all pretty pooped!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend ...and is bracing themselves for the cold and snow?!?!!?!?!?