Saturday

Good morning, gentle readers, and welcome to Saturday.  The first weekend of the new school year, even if the children aren't back until Mnday.  Yes, it does feel odd but I will get used to it in time.

Hasn't it been chilly though?  There have been some most sensationalist headlines about blizzards this weekend (ha ha) and the temperature tonight is predicted to go down pretty low although I doubt we are in any danger of frost in this warmer corner of our isles.  'They' also say we could have an Indian Summer later this month which would be nice for continuing to ripen the tomatoes and I suppose one must be grateful for small mercies and realise that the cold temperatures mean that it is unlikely that blight will develop, despite the rain!

So . . . yesterday.  Well, as I said, I was in school for the school conference and it was lovely to see everyone after the break.  These people have been a big part of my life for a very long time after all.  So many little habits - I checked my tray for mail (but don't have a try any more as the names have all been changed), I looked at the rotas on the noticeboard for when my dishwasher duty was (and don't have dishwasher duty any more), I looked for my name on the playground rote (which was more likely) and I don't seem to have any playground duties although I think I will do some afternoon duty when that rota is drawn up and I almost headed off towards what was my bay when I arrived and had to make myself turn towards the staff room.

It was a weird feeling.  Just me with none of the wrappings I have been used to.  No coordinator role, no SENCo role (although I had got used to that a bit), no curriculum leader role, just me wearing my 'newish governor' hat.

What was really nice though was walking back out at around 12:30 to go swimming!  I shall get used to that one fairly quickly!

What was interesting was my reaction during the conference.  The first half was devoted to exploring the new school development plan and the changes in expectations that are there as a result.  Terms like 'accelerated learning',  'core learning skills' and 'learning for life' , all very admirable and desirable, floated around and I was pretty relieved to realise that they won't be worrying me too much, that I won't have any responsibility for making them 'work'.  I'm getting too old for too much change!

The second half was more interesting.  Each governor who attended was teamed up with the subject leader to look at that subject's objectives for the year.  Most of the governors are linked to a curriculum area, you see, and we - I mean school staff - stay in contact and invite them in for meetings, discussions, interviews with the children, etc.  Anyway, I don't have a subject area yet so was put with Music, Art and DT because that governor hadn't come and had a great time working out schedules for visits through the coming year.

I learnt that handbells will still be on Wednesday at lunchtime and am hoping to be able to get to that still.

After that it was a pleasure to go swimming with Beth although I was pretty tired after such a very early awakening.  We took it easy, no bursts of what passes for 'faster' in my unfit world, and managed to get 26 lengths done before we got out.

It was no surprise that, when I got home and sat down to get on with some knitting, I fell asleep pretty quickly and slept for a good hour!

So that was yesterday!  I will tell you about today in the next entry but will just say I am very much looking forward to it all.

Food:
Breakfast:  tomatoes on toast, apple
Lunch:  don't know yet
Dinner:  Ham, chips and runner beans.  Nice and easy!