Friday (and Thursday)

Yesterday was a slow, sleepy, unfortunately busy day, leaving little time for frivolous necessities such as blog entries.  Sorry, gentle readers, for not managing to be here.

Today is the last day of the half term.  This 'extra' week has been a killer for us.  Adults and children are dropping like flies, vulnerable to colds and a tummy bug that seems to be doing the rounds.  When you're weary, you're more prone to bugses and that's what seems to be happening.  Mind you, I'd rather have the longest half term we have ever known (eight full weeks rather than the usual six or seven weeks) this side of the half term rather than the run up to Christmas.  It's just the way the weeks fall really, nobodies 'fault' as such.  Regardless of the impact on the adults in the school community, the children are utterly worn out too and need a break.  Thinking is slow, pace of work has dropped significantly and they are edgy and irritable with each other.  Thank goodness for book week!

Book week has been brilliant.  If I could, I'd post a few photos of them wearing their teddy bear headdresses, which are lovely, but I can't, of course.  They loved making them and loved wearing them and walking out to their parents with them on.  They have made up some great rhyming couplets although we were wise to make the whole week a minimal writing week, given the prevailing tiredness.  They loved making some Teddy Bear pairs cards and playing the game with a friend.  They have been very interested in the contents of the Big Blue Bear Book Box (it was amazing how many bear books I found in our book trolley) and they have sung Bear Songs with great gusto.

It was supposed to turn very cold overnight.  It doesn't seem to have done so, judging by how it felt when I popped out to the freezer a few minutes ago, but I guess the cold will land on us today.  Just my luck to be on playground duty this afternoon!  Today, of course, is SEN day and I have a pile of paperwork to work through.  So exciting!!!  And given that I used some of my coordinator time for SEN, I shall be catching up on some coordinator responsibilities too.  I'll be hitting half term at a run, I can see.

Yesterday a parcel arrived at school.  I always get my orders delivered to school now.  They don't mind and it saves having to turn out again to pick it up from a delivery office, always rather a drag.  I ordered a potato ricer!  I've fancied one for years now.  I love proper, creamy mash but my current masher really doesn't do any kind of job for potatoes.  It's great for mashing veg in a soup so you get a soft lumpy texture, but when I have mash I WANT mash, not soft lumps.  I will be testing it out tomorrow and if it does a proper job (fingers crossed) I might pipe out the results into rosettes to freeze (if I can find where I put my piping equipment!)  Then, on Sunday, I will produce a great, flavoursome gardeners pie and cottage pie for Sunday lunch.  And maybe some potato scones for the freezer.  Yum yum!

One more day!

Saturday

Phew - back again.  Thank you to everyone who stuck with me and continued to come in, despite the empty room!

What happened was that I tried to upgrade my anti virus and something went wonky.  I have no idea what as I am a technoidiot, but I seemed to be left with only a partially working anti-virus - not a very comfortable thought.  I contacted my lovely ICT expert who gave me some advice, I followed it and it all seems to be working fine now.  It's doing its 'first time optimisation scan' as I type.

It's been a long week.  Two consultation evenings for a start.  Both went well, everyone seemed pleased and sees progress, and I had some very helpful and informative chats. 

We had a visitor into Y1 on Thursday - a less than two month old baby and his lovely mum.  The children were entranced, asked loads of really good questions and then made some super posters about how to care for a baby.  Now we have a super whizz photocopier that does colour, I am going to enlarge some of the posters to A3 size for a display.

Yesterday afternoon was a very important meeting which I chaired, supported by the other SENCo.  It went well, what we wanted was agreed and we were very pleased with the outcomes.  There was a bit more paperwork afterwards, but I got that done and posted off, so it's a bit weight off my mind.

Next week feels odd.  Every other school year I have ever taught has seen this weekend as the start of half term and in many parts of the country it is half term.  However, we have another week before the break - rather a shame really, because the children are very tired now, everyone is noticing that their classes are slow and weary.  But another week we have and it's going to be Book Week with a focus on poetry - yay!!  Andrea and I had a lovely time last PPA, devising a week of  activities around the rhyming story 'This is the bear'.  Foundation Stage is focusing on Nursery Rhymes and I know one of the junior year groups is doing the Charge of the Light Brigade.  We have a poet in school who will be taking each year group in turn for a session and then on Friday it is non uniform day and we will be dressing up as story or poem characters.  I think I will resort to my old favourite, the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe.  Easy peasy!  Andrea and June are talking of getting teddy one piece pyjamas, but there's no way, absolutely NO WAY . . .

So that's my week.  One more and then it is half term.  And that's filling up rapidly - I'm going to have to be strict with myself or I won't actually get any kind of break.

And now I'd better go and start in on the kitchen which shows serious signs of neglect after such a busy week . . .