Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 February 2005 19:26:58
Day three of Lent and I'm not doing too badly. No sugar in my coffee's bearable, knowing that it's for a limited time if I so choose - although I am not so sure I'll find it that easy next week when I am at home all day. There have been cakes and biscuits and boxes of chocolates in the staffroom every day this week - my favourites at that - and I have been very good and simply walked away. My only lapse has been an accidental one... I found a colleague hiding in the maths cupboard eating a little bag of sweeties where the kids couldn't see her, and when she slipped me one, laughing that a calorie shared is a calorie halved and where better to do sharing than in a maths cupboard, I popped it in my mouth before even thinking. One bite and I suddenly said "No, no, no, it's Lent!!!", to which she replied that it wasn't lent, it was given. Didn't stop me regretting it, though.
Life is a little uncertain at work at the moment, with the impending changes seeming inevitable over the next four years and the only matter under consideration being how. I am not looking too far ahead. The move to a two-tier system would find me torn in two, wanting to do neither and both simultanously, and would I even get the job that I wanted if we're all thrown into the pot and then handpicked for the new places? Hmm... too much soul-searching, I find, ain't too good for the self-esteem!!!
Changes in the job I love (don't tell anyone!) may come even sooner as the school is, apparently, badly over-budget and needs to make cuts of £30,000 in staffing next year. Could be my job, if I'm honest about it, although there are two others in as much or more danger than I. But to my disgust there's more talk about doing away with the smaller, lower support sets - my little (You call a group of 14 children with learning and behaviour difficulties little?) sets - and combining them in large mixed ability groupings with a target group gleaned off so that our results in the league tables improve. Come September, I could find myself working in a situation which I feel ethically incorrect. Will I have the guts to go with my principals? Pah, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
In the meantime, I am really rather enjoying teaching. Especially today. Why today? Well, it's the start of the half term holidays, isn't it ;)!!! Seriously, I am still glowing from a lovely compliment the other day. Forgive me if I bask in it for a boastful moment - a senior colleague described my lessons and teaching style as "delightful" and added that that was also the opinion of an impartial observer who sat in on one of my classes the other day too! Well, thank you :D