Soccer is More Important than EDUCATION

A normal morning at Nuova Lazio High School.



At this point I wish to apologise to the poor bloody readers of this Blog.

Personal and family commitments precluded my posting for most of last week.  What makes it even worse is that almost all of the details are sub judice, and if I make any comments, I may well end up in Gaol.

However, back to the main thrust.

Every morning, with the exception of Wednesdays, when we go through the sheer f*cking torture referred to as Professional Learning  (it used to be called Professional Development, but as usual, some namby-pamby-ivory-tower-based-completely-out-of-touch-bloody-educationalist got the name changed to PL instead of PD.  I bet that made his f*cking day.  It's still mostly complete crap) we get what is laughingly called, "The Morning Brief"

Question: "How can I be a better Teacher"

Answer: "Give me a 20,000 volt cattle prod"

Now THAT'S PD.

However, I digress.

It was a normal Monday morning at NLHS.

Oh, another digression.  The pay system in NZ for schools has been based on a company called PayServe, and although famed for numerous cock-ups, they have stabilised in the last year or so, and have produced a fairly reasonable service.

So the MoE (The Ministry, not the blogger) changed the contract.  Obviously.  If it works, f*ck with it.

A new company called NovoPay is taking over the system in the next couple of months.  Because I'm concerned with recording teacher absences and relieving teacher hours and contracts, I've been told to undertake some training in the new system.

So I went on-line today to start the training session (Please note, no extra time allocated for training, we do out out of the goodness of our hearts.  We do it for the kids. *snorf*)

The training system uses a "fictitious" school called Novo Sands High School. It's just to close to NLHS for comfort.  Is there somebody in the ministry reading the blogs?

Scary.

Sorry, back to the main post.

This has got to be the main post.

Anything less would just collapse.

We were all assembled on the staffroom for the morning Appel, and Dancing Bear did his usual bit.  A bit of jiving, a bit of joking, a bit of dancing, and a funny story.

Then the DPs (Abbreviation for the Deputy Führers.) gave their contributions.

But wait.

Someone was missing.

YES.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Ringo was absent.

But why was the Ringed One not present?

Was it (hold breath, daring to hope) The Black Death?

Was it (sphincters twitching in anticipation) something sexual and decidedly dodgy?

Was it (cardiac muscle so excited it was causing arrhythmia) Terminal Pedagogy?

No.

It was worse.

I found out later that the reason the our professional f*cking leader was late was because he had something much more imprtant to do.

Something much more important than to be a peer model for our teaching staff.

Something much more important than being present for a restorative meeting with me and a student who told me to "chill out, because he was having a smoke".

More important than any lesson preparation, marking, or anything to do with teaching and learning really.

The only good thing about Soccer (Sorry YONKS, I just couldn't resist)

He was staying at home to watch the football match of England v Italy.

As far as I'm concerned, he has now lost all credibility with the staff, who now universally recognize him as a complete wanker.  (This is actually the mildest epithet used by some of our Deans who are in close and frequent contact with him.  Poor buggers; no wonder one's leaving and one's threatening to leave.)

All I can say now, as a professional teacher and middle management leader and a Scot.

I'M SO GLAD ENGLAND LOST  Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

"Tak that ye Sassenach bastards"

Robert the Bruce, Bannockburn,  (AD1314)

"Tak that ye Sassenach bastards"