Accolade

Am feeling encouraged today. Two mothers were talking to me as their year 6 progeny spend a last day at our school "My child has always liked you" says one, other nods, "you are just like a mad professor". Great I think , the label eccentric will follow, and I have reached the height of perfection.

Tell it how it is.

I would not believe me. I am exaggerating. It would not be so bad if you tried this. You are not giving the children a suitable curriculum. It is not interesting. It does not engage them.You are not trying enough strategies. You need layered Targets. You need working walls. I have had enough. I need a rest. I need to finish my Agatha Christie. I do not need inclusion, infact I would like to be excluded myself.

Post Hype Stress

What am I going to do now that my Football stickers are not the currency of year6. I expect year 3 will do anything for them.

Top trumps

Who would have thought that the simple pack of cards downloaded from the Oxfam site would have been such a success ? As FIFA fever spreads like that tummy bug throughout the whole of school, at least years 3 to 6 now know what the letters stand for. The clever cards of 32 qualifying countries draw the children in to a world fronted by football but undergirded with hard facts of what used to be known as general knowledge. I and they have learned without even realising it that in Angola the life expectancy of a human being is less than 46years, and that it has the highest infant mortality rate amongst countries in the World Cup. Children and Miss now know that the highest CO2 emissions are from USA, and that Togo has the smallest population. We have had a good week with these cards. Thank you Oxfam and thank you Gareth Pitchford , your Primary Resources site is really going somewhere. It helped that each winning card and we spun these out, led to the reward of a football sticker card from an album company making millions and probably adding to CO2 emissions.

Keep your eye on the road

Have been waiting weeks for the first Spotted Orchid to flower by the roadside near the Royal Oak turn off,on the A165. First one today.

Wars of the Roses

Have just seen the trilogy Henry VI, Edward IV and Richard III in one day at the Stephen Joseph. IF I am tired but happy, I dont know how the members of Northern Broadsides are being in character so long. At least it was good to spot the religious Henry having an anacronistic fag outside the stage door. Im now reading 'The daughter of time ' by Josephine Tey of course, as I cant find my copy of '1066 and all that '.

Cloud Appreciation

A good day today.

A city on the East Coast

Kingston upon Hull is a great place for a weekend.Now that the ABC (remember David Whitfield and Gene Pitney) has been knocked down it is so much more convenient to stroll to Albion street past the One World Shop, and then the Chinese supermarket and get a bus somewhere. How about the 115 to Newland Avenue-do the second hand book shop have lunch in the veggie cafe behind Skeltons .
Then wander down Marlborough Avenue and see if the Post Office in Hardwick Street is still there or check out the Tenfoots, or is that tenfeet.
Spend the evening at the New Theatre listening to 'The Marriage of Figaro', (Opera North) in English , in the stalls of course, see the geasepaint.

Stay at Madam Claphams and have a really clean room with a proper bathroom , not a cut out corner borded in, eat a Full English with great service, no brown bread. Then stroll on across the square, into a Sunday with no school Monday to ruin your enthusiasm or a later Heartbeat. Walk past the remains of Queens Pub and across the end of the Technical College. Remember your mother once took the car and put it in that multi-story when it was first built and then forgot and went home on the bus. On down the staithes along the river. Have Parish Communion at Holy Trinity , and Thank God for preachers who tell it as it is.


MY VERY FIRST MENTION OF HULL CITY OF CULTURE IN THIS BLOG 

Thank God for Chelsea

Really awful days at school do not last long. Have been cheered up tonight as this evenings hour of the Chelsea flower show BBC TV offering has raised my spirits. Thank you Carol Klein- you are a natural. I loved watching you, interesting , informative , opinionated, and I feel I want to know more about some Thistle called Cirsium. A natural educator, and why ----you love your subject. I am going to have a good day tommorrow, I love Escher, I am ready to tessellate , look out YR6.

Two days to go to half-term. How many of us are thinking this-we happy breed. Sitting here in my quiet and cluttered sitting room , organising my favourites and listening to the rest of the household snoring in front of the TV I cant free my mind from school. How sad is that. Have decided to follow the conventions of 'The English Patient' and do all that Literacy tells you not to-so punctuation in this blog is going to be Level 2a at best, in it you will find my best non-agreement of verbs and I will spell words as they sound or as my memory servres, yes thats serves. Fruity Friday, thats a laugh.