Yesterday's letter in the bookbag - please help your child find out the meaning of their name. Okay, done. Daughter isn't put out by the fact that her name is actually demonstrably inaccurate, but wasn't amused by my take on her middle name.
Today's - we had a preview of this cos they sent it home, incomplete, by accident last week. Each child has discussed something they'd like to learn to do, something relatively easy to perfect in a short time, it says, like doing up all the buttons on a coat. Daughter has managed to come up with 'learning to ride her bike without stabilisers'.
Oh dear.
I'm not sure this is going to happen. Will report back.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Stirring it up
Just back from the finance and premises committee, where I have sneezed and sniffled all over everyone. Oops. Highlights included a thrilling and blow-by-blow account of a sewage leak (featuring the title statement above), and an equally thrilling burst pipe (with actual burst pipe, in fact FOUR burst pipes). The caretaker has done his back in, so the head (approaching retirement) has been doing heroic things with manhole covers.
Also discovered that the school dinner provider is changing at the beginning of April, a fact I see is on the council's website and various other places, but hadn't been flagged up to parents.
The (potentially) Good: online payment system planned; much blether about quality local ingredients; doesn't appear to be a monster catering firm like the previous one (I hold this against monster firms, our work catering is done by a GIGANTIC corporation who defend every price raise by whinging that they don't have the purchasing power of Tesco); actual staff remain the same, and apparently the cook is very good.
The (again potentially) Bad: will the online payment system work (it was compared to the one for the milk, which worries me, as they cocked up Daughter's free milk for weeks); they don't have menus online, which is a shame as I always lose the hard copy; the specific menus I've seen for schools in other areas aren't great (one choice every day is salad, which Daughter will not eat).
The (definitely) Bad: price goes up 10p (defended in press release by someone who you'd think was working for the company, rather than being an elected councillor).
We will see. I'm not heartened by them being chosen by the county council, who do not impress in other ways. Things like paying over the odds for utilities, not being able to run their own financial systems, making schools pay for consultants to run tendering processes for them, but accepting no liability if the process fails to deliver what the school needs, or indeed what the council stipulates ...
Also discovered that the school dinner provider is changing at the beginning of April, a fact I see is on the council's website and various other places, but hadn't been flagged up to parents.
The (potentially) Good: online payment system planned; much blether about quality local ingredients; doesn't appear to be a monster catering firm like the previous one (I hold this against monster firms, our work catering is done by a GIGANTIC corporation who defend every price raise by whinging that they don't have the purchasing power of Tesco); actual staff remain the same, and apparently the cook is very good.
The (again potentially) Bad: will the online payment system work (it was compared to the one for the milk, which worries me, as they cocked up Daughter's free milk for weeks); they don't have menus online, which is a shame as I always lose the hard copy; the specific menus I've seen for schools in other areas aren't great (one choice every day is salad, which Daughter will not eat).
The (definitely) Bad: price goes up 10p (defended in press release by someone who you'd think was working for the company, rather than being an elected councillor).
We will see. I'm not heartened by them being chosen by the county council, who do not impress in other ways. Things like paying over the odds for utilities, not being able to run their own financial systems, making schools pay for consultants to run tendering processes for them, but accepting no liability if the process fails to deliver what the school needs, or indeed what the council stipulates ...
Monday, January 12, 2009
A new year stumbles into being
Obviously, Daughter is back at school now. Less obviously - not actually today. She was sick in the middle of the night, probably due to scarfing a huge bag of Tesco rip-off Skips while we weren't really paying attention. Oops. Husband took the day off work; I got to work longer than usual to make up for last week's flexitime disaster. The disaster being:
Monday - Get up at 6.30. Roads are so icy anything above 8mph is lethal. Get into work at 8.45.
Tuesday - Get up at 6.30. Faff about. Car needs de-icing. Get into work at 8.45.
Wednesday - Day off to wait for new PC.
Thursday - Get up at 6.45 due to motivational failure. Get into work at 8.45.
Friday - Get up at 7.15 because Daughter has come into bed with me after bad dream, and doesn't need to be woken at 6.30. Get into work at ... 8.45.
What do I DO in the mornings?
I also forgot to make Daughter her packed lunch on Wednesday, I remembered just as Husband was taking her to school, so I'm doing REALLY well so far.
I finally have an idea of the timetable at school - PE Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; literacy Monday and Tuesday, numeracy Wednesday and Thursday, creative stuff and finishing things off on Friday. Oh, and show-and-tell that's now called something else on a Thursday. And library on a Thursday. Despite this when Husband asked Daughter last Thursday if she'd done any numbers, she said 'no' (definitely no, not the usual 'don't know' or 'can't remember'). Mind you a lot of the numeracy stuff they seem to do at this age is about shapes, patterns, sizes etc - not explicitly numbers, so that may explain it.
I will learn more shortly, as I have an appointment with numeracy governor hat on to see the teacher responsible for numeracy ('maths with Miss S', the post-it says) so will find out about new-fangled maths teaching.
Monday - Get up at 6.30. Roads are so icy anything above 8mph is lethal. Get into work at 8.45.
Tuesday - Get up at 6.30. Faff about. Car needs de-icing. Get into work at 8.45.
Wednesday - Day off to wait for new PC.
Thursday - Get up at 6.45 due to motivational failure. Get into work at 8.45.
Friday - Get up at 7.15 because Daughter has come into bed with me after bad dream, and doesn't need to be woken at 6.30. Get into work at ... 8.45.
What do I DO in the mornings?
I also forgot to make Daughter her packed lunch on Wednesday, I remembered just as Husband was taking her to school, so I'm doing REALLY well so far.
I finally have an idea of the timetable at school - PE Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; literacy Monday and Tuesday, numeracy Wednesday and Thursday, creative stuff and finishing things off on Friday. Oh, and show-and-tell that's now called something else on a Thursday. And library on a Thursday. Despite this when Husband asked Daughter last Thursday if she'd done any numbers, she said 'no' (definitely no, not the usual 'don't know' or 'can't remember'). Mind you a lot of the numeracy stuff they seem to do at this age is about shapes, patterns, sizes etc - not explicitly numbers, so that may explain it.
I will learn more shortly, as I have an appointment with numeracy governor hat on to see the teacher responsible for numeracy ('maths with Miss S', the post-it says) so will find out about new-fangled maths teaching.
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