Acting in Concert

Michael Fowler Centre

Even though my beloved's back is still very painful (thanks for all of your kind words of support) she insisted on going out to the Christmas concert last night at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington.


This was a concert with the NZSO and a soprano + a choir. When she told me she had got the tickets, I was momentarily confused. A Soprano? which one? Tony? Carmella? Christopher?

No.  It wasn't them

No. It was a lady called Aivale Cole, singing soprano.

As usual we arrived just in time. Why is it when you're late every other idiot driver goes so slowly, especially in the James Smith Car Park?

We got to our seats, my beloved hobbling down the isle on my arm. She was in such obvious pain that nobody complained about the slow progress, even when we were going up the busy stairs.

Before we had left home, I had applied (at her request) a deep-heat patch on her lower back, and she'd popped 2 Paracetamol and a codeine. I think she was a bit zoned out.

However, back to the concert, which was really educational as I shall explain.



After we had been seated for about 5 minutes, the orchestra began to prepare and the choir began to assemble. The ushers closed the doors in preparation for the concert to start, and ....I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Whilst the orchestra looked down benignly, people were scrambling from the poorer seats to the better empty ones. We had booked quite late, so we were right down at the front, crammed into a corner, and all around us people were scrambling and shuffling and in several cases crawling over chair backs, moving to seats with a better view.

People scrambling like crabs

By the reaction of the orchestra and the rest of the audience, this was quite a normal act. I was astounded. I had never seen such actions before. It must be the Kiwi cultural attitude, as it would never happen in the UK.



As the concert progressed (I wouldn't recommend it) I spent most of my time looking at the members of the audience. It's actually the part I enjoy the most when the music isn't outstanding. The choir was OK, as was the soprano (just. Good pitch, but not enough volume) but the orchestra seemed to wish they were somewhere else.



The other educational bit came at the end, when the ensemble started on Handel's Hallejujah Chorus. Members of the audience began to stand. More and more of them stood up.

I was in a mild panic.

Had they changed the NZ national anthem to Handel?

Why had nobody told me?



I adopted the demeanour which has served me so well over the years.

Bugger it. I wasn't going to stand. I didn't care if everyone else was upright, I was sitting in a comfortable seat, and by God and by Jiminy I was staying there. So fuck every one else, I'd do what I wanted and to hell with conventions and acceptable behaviour. (Sounds just like some of our kids, doesn't it?)



As we left, my beloved (still hobbling bravely, but a bit more comfortable with the large gin helping the codeine) and I discussed the concert. Neither of us had particularly enjoyed the music, although the Hallelujah Chorus was nicely done, but the arrangements of some of the pieces and the choices themselves were rather uninspired. We were both giggling about the audience standing up.. We've both noticed a tendency of a Kiwi audience to go over the top with standing ovations, cheering etc. We reckoned it could be a hangover from the old colonial days, when the poor isolated Kiwis were so grateful that anyone actually wanted to visit their sheep-infested little country, that they went completely over the top just to convince the poor buggers to stay.

Please stay.  Our sheep are so pretty.

Mash it up

My beloved has a bad back.
Many years ago, she was a nurse, and repeated lifting of patients caused a slow but steady damage to her discs, and eventually she was diagnosed as having 3 ruptured inter-vertebral discs.  Think of it as having three of your vertebrae rubbing together, bone on bone.  Sometimes the pain gets very bad, and she has to take to her bed.

My beloved is a stoic.  She refuses most pain medication until she starts to cry with pain, so when I saw her in bed cryimg, I knew it was bad.  These episodes normally last for about a week, then she's back on her feet, but they're pretty intense for the first 2 or 3 days.
So I do all the household chores.  I normally do my fair share, but I'm not a very good cook.  I can make nutritious meals, that I think are reasonably tasty, but my beloved and my children say that while not actually vomit-inducing, all of my food ends up tasting the same.

We had some lovely turkey and ham meatloaf left in the freezer, plus a mixture of different beans, plus some left-over potatoes and some gravy from the weekend roast.  My beloved didn't want any spuds, so they were for me.  I heated everything up, and I put the remaining spuds into the gravy and gently simmered.  As the last of the gravy was absorbed, I added a very large knob of butter and mashed the lot up with plenty of pepper and salt.

The rest of the meal was OK, but the mashed potatoes were fantastic, rich and buttery.  And all for me.

Washed up, cleaned up, tidied things away, took in the washing, folded and stored.  Such is a Man's lot.

My beloved's pain is reduced, and she's sleeping quietly.

Small(ish) whisky before bed.  It's going to be a long day tomorrow.  More bloody activities

Activity Day

Oh SHIT, the kids from Nuova Lazio are back

Richard [of RBB] is off to the Zoo.  No he's not going to entertain the savage beasts with soothing music, he's taking a group of our kids on a day out.
We used to do two things at the end of the school year (apart from jump for joy, cheer loudly and get absolutely smashed) we took the kids for a walk over the hills to Eastbourne (where we laid on a sausage sizzle), and we took the kids to the swimming pool in Nuova Lazio.

This year, we were told that things would be different.  This year we would have a whole range of activities set up for the kids, so we could keep them occupied and have some fun.  This year it would work.

I posted a series about these activities back in October, and one of them was accepted.
The Picton Special.  What a treat for the kids and the accompanying teachers.  Two days on a boat going to Picton and back again to Wellington.  We've got paintball contests, ten-pin bowling and some of the following:

• Making Models (with cardboard and glue sticks, not bikinis and Brazillians)
• Jewellery /Ceramics (make not "borrow" from the Mall)
• Mountain bike trip (Well done Taffy)
• Coffee Making and café skills (As long as we get a free mug of Flat White)
• Tramp through to Orongorongo (Good for "losing" the naughty ones)
• Lego robots/Brochures (All on computers.  I'm so fed up with computers)
• Maori Faculty trip (hunting the Moa) (We really have no idea what they're going to be doing)
• Movie Day (Harry Bloody Potter)
• Lawn Bowls (Peace and sanity.  Then 20 screaming kids arrive)
• Fishing (Always good for a couple of "Man Overboards"  They wouldn't let us go out for Great White Fishing, something about not being fair to the poor fish)
• Cap Design (If the cap fits........... I wonder if they mean cervical or cranial?)
• Tennis at the tennis club (What a clever place to have tennis. Maybe we can nick the nets to use for the fishing?)
• Walk over Whakanui (Good for "losing" the naughty ones, again)
• Swimming (Seen it, done it, got the T-shirt)
• Zoo/Te Papa (Yawn)

 I said some of these activities, because our biggest problem is getting the kids to buy into these innovations.  Our kids are incredibly conservative.  They hate change.  Their brothers and sisters and cousins and maybe even Mums and Dads went on the tramp to Eastbourne (with sausage sizzle) and went to the swimming pool, so they would obviously do the same.

So we'll try, we'll arrange the buses and the permission slips and the money and of course, the Risk Assessment Forms. (What are the dangers of going to the Movies?  Apart from the excruciating boredom of watching Harry Bloody Potter, not a lot)

I said we, but unfortunately I won't be among the helpers.  Ringo still hasn't finished writing/checking his reports, so I'll be spending most of the next two days printing and re-printing the Year 9 reports.

To cap it all, I heard yesterday that as there hasn't been a huge uptake for the activities, and as there is the ever-present danger of the kids actually rioting through boredom, we're going to do two more special activities on the last two days.

We're going to  take the kids for a walk over the hills to Eastbourne (where we will have a sausage sizzle), and  to the swimming pool in Nuova Lazio.

 

Why can't we just stay in school and just teach the kids.  We're losing about 30 hours of teaching because someone wants the kids to have fun.  We're not paid to give the kids "fun", we're paid to educate.  I was giving my class an exam on the last day.  They didn't complain, they weren't bored, they worked.  It was what they expected and we had a really nice time.

Culture Day

The Culture Kings (I kid you not, I just did a search for "culture" and up they popped.

Today in Nuova Lazio High is culture day.

No, we're not going to spend the whole day making Yoghurt or Cheese, we're going to spend the whole valuable day investigating the various cultures which make up the society we live in, here in Nuova Lazio. The idea (I think, I've been focussing so much on the Timetable that I haven’t really been paying much attention to what else is going on) is to have 8 areas, each representing a cultural aspect that the kids can investigate through practical tasks and conceptual investigation.

The cultures will be :

• Maori
• Pasifika
• England
• Japan
• Dutch
• Fijian
• Malay
• Kiwiana

Oh such a merry time will be had by one and all, and I hope you spot the missing cultural areas like:

• Gangs
• Scottish
• Irish
• Welsh
• Australian
• Drugs
• Hoons

This is the sort of thing that as a kid at my school, I would have thrown a sickie rather than be exposed to all this. I wanted to be taught and learn the important stuff. You know; things like reading and writing. There's not going to be much teaching and learning going on for our pupils over the next week, and if there's any parents of our kids reading this, do your kid a favour, break his/her leg so they can have a week at home in bed. They'll thank you for it later. Buy them a good book, and tell them you'll break the other leg if it isn't finished be the end of the week.

Break a leg

Motivation is so important in education.

Speed Reading contest at Nuova Lazio Mall

Very Early so Very Late

LATE

I had to get up at 5am to get my son back intoWellington.. My beloved had gone all soft-hearted when she heard that his room in his shared flat had little in the way of ventilation, so she donated our free-standing fan to him to see if it would help.  Commuting into Wellington on the train and holding a 1.5 metre fan wouldn't be easy, so it was decided (I was informed later)I would give him a lift in my car very early this morning.

SLEEPY

So I'm actually writing this post from school, using my superior powers as a technosuper-geek to allow me to post over the school system.

Feels strange composing this with students and other teachers about.  They all think I'm doing something important with the new timetable.  I've got them well trained. The only problem is being unable to search for any pictures of scantily clad young ladies to go into this post.  Seeing such images would really reinforce my reputation as a perve.

Sleazy

Well, what do you know, I still managed it.

Justice

I like having the occasional little drinkie.  Not too often, and not too much.  However my beloved does not always agree.  She seems to think that anything more than one glass of wine a week is indicative of incipient alcoholism, so I do what every married man does.  Lies and hides.

Not really, but I do have a wee drinkie in private now and again.

So when my beloved had an idea of taking a magnum of Huia 2004 Pinot Noir as a present to my relatives in Scotland, I said great, and away she went fossicking amongst or wine cellar.

When she came back, I knew something was wrong.
It wasn't the icy glare
It wasn't the frowning face
It wasn't even the lips clamped in a razor sharp line.
It was the large and empty gin bottle being shaken at my face.

Oh Shit.

But wait a moment, I don't like Gin.  Oh the occasional G & T in the summer, but it isn't my beverage of choice.

Just as my beloved began to ask the question, spittle dripping suavely from her tightening lips, about what THIS was doing hidden behind the wine bottles, I remembered.

I waited until she had finished, and then posed the innocent, yet pointed question.

"Oh Dear, didn't you ask me to put that way so you could use it to make Sloe Gin?"

A moment of complete silence, then the joyous and rarely heard utterance; "Oh"

Sometimes life can be very, very sweet.

Lost Memories

Memory

In his recent and very evocative post, The Curmudgeon (TC) tells of how a simple toasted cheese snack took his memories back to a pleasant time in the 70s New Zealand. A simpler time, but by the sounds of it, a more boring time.  There wasn't much to do.

Proust (not to be confused with Prowse) wrote in his book À la recherche du temps perdu about involuntary memory, where an input from any of our senses could trigger non-conscious recall from our past, the taste of the toasted cheese being an example.

I had my own flashback last night. 
Sitting at home, tired after an especially long week at school, I was watching/dozing  TV, with my beloved and my Son (back for a visit from his flat in Wellington).  I was feeling exhausted, but it was too early to go to bed (about 7:30 ).  Like TC, I suddenly wanted a hot and savoury taste, but I wasn't hungry, just having finished a very large plateful of my beloved's Beef Rendang. 

Bovril, the very thing.  My beloved, knowing of my occasional fondness for this British beefy/yeasty drink, always kept a jar in the cupboard, and I had a mugful made in minutes.
The first sip took me back.
It was not a pleasant memory.
It was in Hampden Park in Glasgow.  At that time (1971) it was the biggest football (soccer) stadium in Scotland, and it was used for all the football internationals.  Scotland was playing some other foreign team, and as usual, the Scots were loosing.
I should explain that I have never had any real interest in soccer, but a bunch of my friends and colleagues were going to this match and I went along.  They were all football fans, supporting many of the different clubs in the Glasgow area, and were normally bitter enemies; Rangers and Celtic, plus one poor confused individual who supported Partick Thistle.  However, all such rivalries were semi-forgotten in the face of the common foe.  Scotland uber alles, we're the guys, see you Jimmy, awe awa an bile y'r heed, wha's like us.

I had only been to one football game in my life, with my late Grandfather, who took me when I was about 4 or 5 to see Airdrie play Partick Thistle.  I didn't understand or enjoy it very much.  So when I entered Hampden Park, I was unprepared for the experience. It was in the winter it was cold.  There were no seats, we all stood in the terraces, supported by the occasional iron railing.  There was no drinking inside the stadium, something new in Scotland, but a riot the previous year when Celtic played some Spanish team had allowed the Polis to crack down on the booze. 

Of course wee all had had a few warming beverages before, about 4-5 pints of beer, and a few whisky chasers. We were feeling absolutely no pain by the time we got in.  I cannot remember much about the match, but at half time, we went up to the rim of the stadium, where the food cabins were situated, and we managed to get a hot pie and a cup of Bovril.  The Scotch Mutton Pie is a rare delicacy and with the grease congealing on your lips, the hot bovril added a delicacy to the whole gastronomic experience.  We made our way back to our place and as we arrived, I became aware of a noise.  It was not unlike the sound made by a little stream as it fell into a placid brook, a gentle tinkling/splashing sound.  The sound was getting louder and louder, and I became aware of a waterfall now forming and flowing down the terraces. 
There were over 52000 men (plus the very occasional woman) in the stadium.  There were 10 toilets. Everyone had partaken of a fair amount of beer before the match.  Bladder pressure (and the cold) necessitated relief, and seemingly the football etiquette insisted that if you needed to go, you went up to the very tip of the terrace and pissed against the back wall.  Gravity then collected the liquid and it flowed down the terraces in a series of waterfalls.

The smell was appalling, the impression I took away was of complete barbarism.  I have never been to a football match since, and often, when I take my first sip of Bovril, I smell the ammoniacal stench of the waterfall.

I much prefer real football (Rugby Union) now.

TFIF

This has been a very long week, I don't remember ever feeling so old and being so tired at the end of term.

Most of the students are actually OK, just the usual troublesome few, but we're all so bloody tired that we're starting to make little errors of judgement.

Sometimes my brain feels as if it's starting to melt under the strain of the timetabling.

Just so drained and withered.

Can't think, too tired

Just exhausted.

But we mustn't panic.

Because there's ONLY SEVEN DAYS LEFT

Then WE"LL BE ON HOLIDAY

And we can completely forget about school and the students and just enjoy ourselves in the summer.

Line Dancing

We had an unusual announcement at morning brief yesterday.  We were told some time ago that our form class structure wasn't working, and that we would probably be going to a vertical form class, where each such class would have a mix of every year group in the school, arranged by house membership.

Then the announcement that a system seen in just one other school would be adopted.  We would be using the timetable line structure to arrange the form classes.
That means that on the first spell on Monday, whichever senior class you get at that time would become your form class.  The junior classes would be arranged slightly differently (not yet specified).

It sounds like a very strange system.  What's happening to the much-vaunted house system? That's not been mentioned.  What happens if the timetable structure changes (as it does quite often in the first month) does your form class change also?  What happens if a teacher changes to a different class? (happened many times this year) what happens if a pupil changes a subject?

It all sounds like an absolute plan for a disaster.

But on a lighter note, I've been having great fun as a member of the timetable committee.  It's bloody hard work, and I've felt like my brain's going to melt-down a couple of times.  But I can drop hints to people about they're classes for next year, and enjoy the reaction. 

WHAT did you say?
Well f*ck me.

It's quite amusing to see a colleague's face go from normal to white to choleric red in about 30 seconds when I casually mention that" I hope you enjoy teaching Dance/Drama/P.E./Cooking/Computing" according to that persons personality and personal characteristics and preferences.  I do make it clear later that I was just joking, but I think I'd better stop.  We're very tight for teaching hours next year, and I don't want to trigger any Myocardial infarctions.  Yet.

Why Men Die First

Standards are slipping

Checking things out

Last night was report checking night at Nuova Lazio High.  This is where a select few turn up and check that the comments produced by our dedicated gang of educators is up to the high standards expected of our prestigious academy.  This proof reading tradition originated in the dim past, after a serious batch of errors was released into the community, and the then Principal insisted that all further teacher generated comments be double-checked before printing and posting.

A batch of errors being released

In most cases, the mistakes are minor, and are mostly stylistic in nature.  Things like inconsistent use of capitals (Term 2, term two, Term Two, term Two etc.) However, in some cases, it's basic grammar, punctuation and syntax.

When I was a High School student, I can remember days and weeks of constant spelling practice, verb inflection exercises, sentence analysis and synthesis (parsing).  We might not have had great research abilities, but by God, we could create a sentence which was error free and made sense.  We learned to manipulate language, to construct accurate and even elegant prose.  Some of our present day teachers at NLH have not been through a similar process.

Basic spelling errors, incorrect tense usage, missing commas, inconsistent voice and use of person.  It went on and on.  Some of course were OK.  Richard [of RBB]'s efforts were ready ahead of time, and models of succinct and witty enthusiasms.  Railway Guy as always, was a foundation stone of grammatical knowledge and usage.

But some of the rest!! I shudder at what these lovely and hard working people are teaching our kids.

I will mention on closing one other impediment to our struggle for perfection.  I refer of course to those deaf and dumb so-called professionals who couldn't even be bothered to print out their report comments for checking.  I'm not talking about teachers away on trips or courses, I'm pointing the finger at the lack of forward planning by a few of our colleagues, who, hours after the deadline are still printing out their reports.  Plus about 8 who just didn't print them out for us.  Or I suspect have their work checked by a colleague.

It gets depressing.

It was also depressing for MoE [The teacher, not the Ministry] who got stuck with being an acting temporary Deputy Principal when the rest of the SLT had swanned off to some meeting off-site (probably a pub), and who was trying to control the usual mob of suspects outside my office.  He always approaches these incidents in a calm and controlled way, and I admire him for his professionalism.  I would have loved to have strangled one of the hyperactive, abusive, foul-mouthed little buggers pour encourager les autres.

It's not too late.
I have a little list
They never will be missed.  Not by the teaching community at least.

I wonder how deep the creek is outside my classroom? 
I wonder if an accident could be arranged?
I wonder if I could get away with it?

Will they find out?

The Royal Bloody Wedding

Prince William and Kate Middleton are going to get married.

Hoo-bloody-Ray

Nothing makes me happier to have left the class-ridden society of the UK for the (warmer) egalitarian climes of NZ.  The buggers don't even get married for another 5 months, which means an increasingly hyped approach by the media all around the world.

Who cares?
Who really gives a shit that one of the parasitic bastards who have sucked money and land from the people of the UK is going to get married.
Is it going to impact on our lives? No.  It's just an excuse to flaunt their wealth and position to all and sundry.

A pox on them all.

Anyway they should know better by now.  After the fiasco with the Bimbo of Westminster (better known as Blondie or Diana), keeping a low profile would probably have been the intelligent option.

I've seen articles on astrologers predictions, dress possibilities, choice of venues, 3D television broadcasts of the ceremony, honeymoon choices (even NZ is on the list)

But the bloody icing on the bloody cake is he headline I saw today.

Beckhams to attend royal wedding.

Well, that must be the official seal of approval.  If Victoria and David are going, the union is obviously blessed in heaven, and no mere mortal should stand in their way.

I just hope that my blood pressure doesn't blow a gasket before the entire vomit-inducing business is over, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Courage

Bravery

I am a man of many faults. Please, please don't gasp in horror, it is true. I have some failings. Not many, it's true, but I am not fault-free.

 

 

 

I do however possess (I think) moral courage.

 

If I'm in a meeting and a statement is made that I don't understand, I'll ask for clarification. I'm not scared to ask. I've found over the years that there isn't really a dumb question, and not asking about an unknown abbreviation or a newly named concept makes you look even sillier later on.

 

 

 

If an idea is presented which is based on concepts that I find contravene my world-view, I'll challenge them.

 

Last year at the HOF meeting which was deciding which courses would be available to our students the following academic year, a proposal was put forward by our Maori HOF that they introduce a course called Putaio. This was a science course, but based on Maori world-view and concepts. I originally trained as a scientist, in Biochemistry and Microbiolgy and only later did I pick up my MSc in Computing, so Science, and its concomitant ideology is very dear to my heart. I made the comment that "Perhaps Science should be taught as Science not mixed in with cultural references" As far as I know, there is no such thing as American Science, or Indian Science or any "type" of Science, there is just science; an objective method, based on theorems and experiments which tries to make sense of our Universe and establish some sort of system which will allow us to predict a cause and effect

 

Ringo told me off "For being culturally insensitive" The course went ahead, but I still think it's wrong.

 

Is a Maori Oxygen molecule different from a European one?

 

Do Maori electrons travel at different speeds to others?

 

Complete bollocks.

Courage

 

 

 

However, yesterday evening, I displayed a moral courage equal to anything I've done before.

 

 

 

Last month, as I mentioned in my post, I bought my beloved (who suffers from a mild vertigo) a tricycle. Bright red, with a huge white basket over the back axle. I also bought a cheap second hand bike for myself. The idea being that we go for gentle bike rides around the area where we live. Yesterday was the day. I packed all the bikes into the back of my FWD and went down to Trentham Memorial Park.

 

I re-assembled the bikes, strapped on the stupid bike helmets and off we went

 

 

 

Now I've been on a bike since I was about 4 or 5. Most of us in the Western (and Eastern) world know how to ride a bike. I haven't been on a bike for over 8 years, but I didn't even have to think about it, just jumped on and away I went. I went very slowly, allowing my beloved plenty of time to get used to her new conveyance.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a sight like it.

 

My beloved was in the grip of fear. She had forgotten how to steer, so I was gifted with the view of a lady of mature years, face frozen in a rictus of terror, legs extended stiffly and off the pedals veering madly (at about 2 kph) off the asphalt track onto the grass.

 

Over the next half-hour, I ignored the hoots of laughter from the gin-soaked members of the Trentham Cricket Club (TCC), who, sitting on their clubhouse deck, were being regaled by a continuous comedy of errors as my beloved:

 

• went around in circles for 5 minutes
• went off the path 12 times in 20 metres
• screamed at me to stop the bloody thing as she had forgotten how to use the brakes
• managed to strip the chain of the gears
• tried to stop the tricycle by running it into a bush
• smiled and waved at a passing pedestrian (he was overtaking us whilst walking his dog) and promptly steered into another bush (This one was the TCC favourite.  Two of the members fell of their chairs rolling about at this.  One actually fell off the deck, but I think he was pissed)
• forgot how to change gear when going uphill
• forgot (again) how to brake when going downhill

 

 

 

I was really proud of myself. I didn't flee. I didn't try to pretend that I didn't know her. I didn't even have a sign on my chest saying"She's not with me"

 

I exhibited great courage (and devotion) and stayed with my poor anxiety-ridden beloved as she struggled gamely to overcome the torture machine know as "The Red Trike"

 

 

 

Eventually she prevailed, and we continued on around the paths of this lovely park. We stayed on the flat, and mostly circled the cricket pitch and the reserve. I deliberately avoided the lovely path down by the Hutt river, I may be brave, but I'm not an idiot.

 

We're staying away from the river for the foreseeable future.
Look, I may look silly in one of these bloody bike helmets, but I'd look a complete f*cking idiot wearing a life jacket at the same time.

A complete f*cking idiot

 

Early Sunday

Watched the ABs thump the Welsh.  Good game, but now I'm tired, so back to bed.

Go the ABs.

Deadlines

Teachers work to a series of deadlines.
Every day we have to plan, resource, present and assess in 3 to 5 one hour sessions, each with it's own deadline, the bell that announces the end of each session (or spells as we call them in Nuova Lazio High, as periods have been removed from the school vocabulary as being too demeaning to menstruating females)

We have just completed the Junior exams, which had to be organised with each teacher having a set time and place to go to for their turn at supervising an exam room.  The exam papers have to be marked by early next week, because another deadline, the report deadline is rapidly approaching. 

The report deadline is itself made up of a multitude of sub-deadlines for printing, proof-reading, re-printing, DP's comments and final printing and posting.

Unfortunately, a few of my colleagues couldn't recognise a deadline if it came up and bit them in the arse.  They're always late, or in the wrong place at the wrong time, or even unprepared for a lesson.  There's not many, but they make life difficult for the rest of us.  We all can make mistakes, but when you see the same mistake happening again and again action needs to be taken, except it doesn't.  They get away with it.  I would sack the buggers.  If they're still making the same mistakes after 7 bloody years, then it should be either dismissal or death.  Their choice.

Anyway, the Reports.  We spend days weeks or even in some cases, minutes in crafting these important statements on our students' performance over the last year.  Each sentence is carefully checked for grammar and syntax.  Each paragraph is lovingly moulded to be a glittering entity, striking in it's elegant simplicity, conciseness and lack of ambiguity.  The entire statement is checked and double checked for errors and compliance to the accepted style.  Our Deans, responsible for the pastoral care of our young, will add crisp, elegant comments on the little darlings' overall attitude and achievement.  Our Senior Management Leadership Team will then grace the bottom of each report with a short but pithy sentence, hand written in a cursive copperplate script.

None of this is required.  We can autiomatically generate the results of every assessment that the students have been given.  We can automatically generate their attendances, sickness and pastoral incidents.  We can even generate all of their sporting and extra-curricular activities and successes. We only need to add the following comments to complete the picture.

Academic	Behaviour	Attitude
Good	Good	Good
Average	Average	Average
Poor	Poor	Poor
Concern	Concern	Concern
Thick as Shit	Ape-like	Complete Dickhead

Seeing as many of us use the blesséd Copy and Paste, perhaps sometimes to excess, the simple comment table shown above is possibly just as accurate, and definitely more accessable by most of our parents and caregivers.

Anyway, I must get back to finishing off my reports, as I've got a bit behind because of my timetabling responsibilities.  I've got a deadline to meet.

Exams

An exam

All of our students are sitting exams this week.  Our seniors started their NZQA exams last week, and they continue right through (for some of them) to next week as well.  Quite a few have been coming in to do last-minute research or revision, and some have been trying to complete another couple of Internal assessments under our supervision.
Don't believe all those stories about our lost generation of youth.  The vast majority (90%+) want to achieve and excel, and it's a joy to help them do so.  If any are reading this, best of luck folks, you deserve to succeed.

A different type of exam
Peek but don't cheat

Our juniors are also sitting exams in all the core subjects, and this year they're sitting them in the gym. under the usual exam conditions.  This creates a lot of problems, notably for the PE staff, but the boss wants the Year 9s and 10s to become used to the traditional big-hall exam feeling, and he has a point.  None of our pupils have sat an exam in this way before.  All through Intermediate and Primary, all assessment is in their own classrooms, and most of the assessment they get is formative rather than summative, so they were not under as much pressure.  Our pupils have to become accustomed to the feelings of stress and anxiety everyone gets during big exams, otherwise they will be at a major disadvantage when they sit the big NZQA exams in their Year 11.

Stress makes you do strange things

The juniors have been behaving superbly.  No mucking about, no talking, no cellphones.  There are always exceptions however.
Our hyperactive Year 10, who was starting to hyperventilate and trembling in his seat after the first hour of a two hour exam.  I think he's never sat in one place for more than 40 minutes in his life.  He tried, but just couldn't do it.
Then there were a couple of our year 9s who went at it hammer and tongs during tea time.  The usual name-calling got very intense, and the two involved just wouldn't let it go, and were eventually sent home.
Then the piece de resistance.  One of our notorious juniors, who is constantly in trouble, and who has been accused many, many times of tagging (drawing graffiti for any non-NZ reader) walls around the school was caught cheating in his English Exam.  Because we have about 180 students in each of our junior years, and because the gym will only hold 120 at one time, I have allocated some of the students into 3 or 4 extra classrooms, and it was in one of these that the cheating was discovered.  The silly boy had his notebook out and under the desk, resting on his knees.  Every time he turned a page, the supervising teacher could hear the paper rustle.  The best bit was after the notebook had been confiscated, it was found to contain, not just notes for cheating, but many examples of the boy's graffiti style.  Proof at last.  He's for the high jump, and I really hope the board kicks him out.  He's constantly disrupting just about every class he's in.

Parent's Night

Lastly, we had the police in.  As I mentioned in an earlier post our computer systems were hacked a couple of weeks ago, which cost us a lot of time and money to fix, and some of our seniors may have lost a couple of credits, because they couldn't finish some assessments, so whoever did it is not well-loved by us.

The policeman who came in was not one of your average cops, he was from the cyber-crime division of the NZ police in Wellington.  I didn't even know we had one (It is apparently bad manners to call them robocops.  They seem to strongly resent that name.  Wonder why?)  He had come in to process a charge of theft made against another of our pupils who had stolen a flash drive from one of our science teachers, and had then wiped the contents; a complete year's notes, resources and exercises for all of the teacher's classes.  Luckily our great Systems Manager, he of the Red Hair, managed to recover almost all of the data, but the pupil involved did not seem to realise that he had done anything wrong, and the charges were laid in the hope that something might get through to the kid before it's too late.

The policeman, after dealing with the theft, had a long talk to Red Hair about the hack, and we are delighted to find that he has the power to get the ISP to divulge their logs, so we can find the actual physical address of who it was that hacked into our system.  I'm not talking about just an account name, I'm talking about an actual physical trace which will stand up in court.  I didn't realise that all such logs on modern electronic switches could reveal so much.  The hackers "Ass is Grass", and will probably be covered in blood if our angry seniors get hold of him.

Justice is Nice

Revenge is Sweet

RETRIBUTION WILL BE MINE