118. The Final Countdown…
I’ve got it cornered.
The In-tray
The Still-to-do List is down to one sheet of paper; the accumulated detritus of my years at Thrush Woods has been herded into a corner of the ICT room and sits tamely waiting to be sorted. I’ve found no untaught children stacked away in boxes, so it looks like I’ve got away with it again.
113. And I’d like to thank my hairdresser…
In the sliver of time between waving off the last child for their summer holidays, and coming back for the ‘do’, it occurred to me that I should have prepared a speech.
Last time I left Thrush Woods, I’d given quite a lot of thought to what I was going to say. A neat little speech at the Leavers’ Service in the afternoon. The last eight years have been very special, the school is very special, the staff are very special but I need a new challenge. So long and thanks for all the fish.
110. The Prologue
Don’t expect any sense from me: I barely know which way up I am.
Replacing Wordsworth’s poems last night – don’t be overly impressed, we were looking up a crossword clue – I chanced upon my copy of The Waste Land. It made no sense at A-Level – all those disjointed fragments and random voices – hurry up please, it’s time. However, light has now dawned. Clearly Eliot was also in the process of – or poetically anticipating, if you want to be fussy about the chronology – a jolly eventful retirement do. He, too, was clearly having problems putting one thought in front of another.
108. London Pride is a flower that’s free…
“I’m taking eleven Poles to London,” I messaged.
“Is that a crossword clue?” replied DearHeart.”Does it involve a cricket team?”
107. Disappointment…
Knowing that it was my birthday;
Continue reading →
106. Not a blog
Mrs Jellywoman is very well-meaning but inclined to get far too easily distracted from the task in hand. For instance, when she should be writing reports; and finalising writing levels; and entering data from reading assessments; and calculating the increase (or otherwise) in points for each child (and points mean prizes); and the average point increase for the class; and planning next week’s literacy; and planning next week’s maths; and planning next week’s ICT; and when she should be doing absolutely nothing else…
105. Tiny acorns…
“We were just wondering if you knew who’d got the job,” I asked Mr Oak, our retiring Headteacher.
The white smoke was billowing from the room above. We were all keen to know who our next boss would be: a Head makes or breaks a school and the staff with it. Were we going to be maked or breaked?
Mr Oak shook his head. “I don’t know. They’ve not asked me for any help at all with the appointment. Not with the job description or the showing round or the interview. I’ve no idea who they’ve appointed. Sorry.” He lowered his head and I crawled out of the office, conscious that my Headteacher was deeply upset, and that I’d just made things worse for him.
104. Oh… sugar!
“Where’s Olivia?” asked her mother. I looked at Olivia’s “going home place”. She wasn’t there; neither were her coat and bag. I was already soaked to the skin from the dash between the coach and the classroom but this was nothing compared to the tsunami of icy panic which now washed over me. Surely we couldn’t have left her at the Butterfly Farm … could we? We’d counted the children incessantly, Miss Sugarsprinkles and I, at every twist and turn during our trip from Hades but had I actually count them after we’d sat on the coach for the journey back? My mind went a blank.
103. “Romeo met Juliet by the fish-tank.”
The Marker’s Lament
June brings assessments,
reports, progress data. Where
are the strawberries?
Having a screw loose, Pa needed some bits from Screwfix this week. Instead of just driving down there, he ordered on-line with their Click and Collect service first, thus bagging £1.35 towards a cure, costing him narry a penny. The link to GiveAsYouLive is here.
98. An April state of smiles and tears…
Ask me … go on, ask me…
Are you looking forward to retiring?
Hmm… tricky one… and an interesting and relevant question. You must be a very perceptive person. Let me see…
The Jelly Chronicles 