Friday

The last day before nine days of no alarm (not that I even need it but you know what I mean), getting up early and going back to bed when the tiredness hits (bliss with bells on) and generally slouching about doing not very much at all - how I love PJ days!.

Of course I have my List.  I always have a List.  It's not terribly long at present but it will grow!  At the moment it looks like this:
Tidy bedroom
Sort out freezers
Sort out fridge
Catch up with washing and ironing.
In fact it is exactly the same as the List at the start of every holiday.  I have plenty of black bin bags which is a good start anyway.  I suspect the freezer bit will involve a certain amount of chucking out of unidentifiable packages of stuff that lurk in comparative safely right down at the bottom.  I am also sure that it will involve a certain amount of conversion of raw frozen into cooked and re-frozen.  It's nice to think I will have the time.

Enough dreaming - back to now things.  Yesterday I was off at a morning course with the headteacher.  It was all about the imminent changes in SEN except that the more I listened, the more I realised that we won't actually have to do a terribly huge amount and it will all be on paper.  Our provision won't need to change at all - well, it won't be able to change unless the LEA get their skates on and 'offer' more in the way of provision, funding, resources, expertise, etc.  Will they?  Well, look out for those flying pigs.

That sounds as if I am not grateful for the wonderful specialist support teachers who come in to assess, advise and generally help.  I am, I think they are wonderful and if one is reading (as I think she does occasionally), we really appreciate you!!!

What really puzzled me was how it was all flagged up as huge changes, will make a lot more work, etc.  Certainly there are changes.  Certainly there will be some work.  However, I don't think we are unusual in always seeking to improve our provision within some fairly strict limits, always doing our best to keep up with initiatives, always monitoring planning and delivery of appropriately levelled work, always trying to make best use of adults in the classroom, etc.
I can't for the life of me see why these changes are so radical.  They're not!  Perhaps I will get a shock when the new CoP for SEND comes out in April though.
Oh - and I am so glad that I have kept our SEN policy up to date because an awful lot of that can go into our 'offer' (don't ask why the silly name!!!!).

Mind you, the timing is extraordinarily bad.  You'd have thought 'they' would have avoided imposing two such changes on schools at the very same time.  Schools are (or should be) up to their eyes in organising the huge changes in the national curriculum (and they are huge) and another big change ('they' think it is a big change anyway) at the same time is sheer bad management.  Why am I not surprised???