Friday, February 29, 2008

We have lift off

It's taken a time to get this far, and I'll have quite a time of ploughing more items on, but the website for Marj's half of the company is launched!

Serranda Sensuals.

Pop along for all your hosiery, lingerie and swimwear needs.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Parish Notices

I have flu, or the tail end of it. Real flu. Not man-flu. Being ill is very good for losing weight. 5lbs in a week. Better than I'd been doing by being careful with what I ate.

Spirits were raised yesterday by once more attending The Harrogate Lingerie and Swimwear Exhibition. Scantilly clad women and a free chocolate fountain! Marj was also delighted to find there were some male models this year. She has had to lie down in a darkened room to recover.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Many a true word, and other proverbs....

How sharper than a serpents tooth is an ungrateful child, or three for that matter! Domestic bliss eh?!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Culture for the Masses

I did write quite a long piece on this, but as you can imagine it was a slightly ineloquent rant. But basically you can file it under the, "if only teachers had no life of their own, worked 47 hours a day for 12 days a week, then all would be right with the world".

I'm all for giving kids culture but for gods sake, can't someone explain to parents that they have some bloody responsibility to "educate" their kids as well!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Onwards to glory

As part of Marj's annual assessment, she has been asked to consider whether she wants to take the extra training and exams to become a full time teacher and leave the world of Higher Level Teaching Assisstant behind.

As the schools music specialist she already does some teaching just in that subject. So she has been working on the pros and cons of moving forward.

PROS : Having a whole class to take and teach full time. The extra money. Paid holidays. (HLTAs only get paid for working time, not the 13 weeks they are on holiday). "On the job" courses rather than full time education.

CONS : The time needed to complete the course outside of the working day. The parents! (More so than the kids). But by far the worst thing is the amount of admin required to be carrried out by teachers.

That admin is what will probably put her off. Planning the lessons is okay. And if it was just marking work then she could cope. It's the assesments, the "levelling" of pupils, the follow-ups and a whole raft of other stuff she's told me about that I've forgotten.

Gone are the days when teachers just taught, marked and wrote reports. Now they must prove to the government that they can fit all the new initiatives that Westminster come up with into an already full timetable, and then be ready to scrap those next year when they change everything. They must take the blame for the deficiencies of parents in helping their children learn at home. (Parents are asked to read with their children for just 10 mins per day, but for many of the parents at her school there just isn't time to fit this into the merry-go-round of soaps and reality programmes). They are now being cited as a reason that children are obese. When children fight, if a teacher breaks the fight up they are liable to be sued, or at the least reported, should a child decide they were rough handled.

So on balance, what is probably a vocation for her, will be avoided as it is too stressful. That's why most teachers need the holidays.