I cannot believe how little work I’ve done over these holidays. It’s incredible. I’ve never had a summer like it. Normally there are things know I can spend a few days doing here and there.
This year I’ve done NOTHING. I’ve worked so hard in my first year at my new school that I just needed a complete and utter rest.
The most work I’ve done for many weeks is the ironing – up until today yesterday anyway. Well actually that’s not true, I did spend our anniversary weekend away (we were going to a friend’s wedding anyway, it’s 5 years of marriage and so it seemed sensible to make a big deal of it) stuffing envelopes with letters telling the former Year 11s when to come into school for their exam results. We ‘lost’ our examinations officer in the last week of the summer term and it feels a bit like déjà vu as we didn’t have one this time last year (except that this time I sort of know what I’m doing). The kids were in at 10.00am, I just finished talking to the local reporter in time to guide him to the two pupils with 23 GCSEs including 18 A and A* grades between them. I also entrusted the other deputy (!) to use my video camcorder to record the happy and sad faces of pupils as they got their results. I had a desk for the 8 pupils who had just missed getting 5 A*-C grades who we think we can help through remarks and sitting the Adult Literacy and Numeracy online tests (guess what I’m doing later today?!) Our results have basically stayed the same (which isn’t what we needed but was more than I’d hoped for). If we can build on this we’ll get where we really ought to be next year.
I’ve only really been back in school for a couple of days and I’m already feeling exhausted, thank goodness for the bank holiday weekend.