uncleglen

I have taught in challenging secondary schools in London and it is obvious during initial teacher training that the workload is going to be massive and we do it because we have passion for our subject and wish to pass this on and ENABLE our students. (if you don't feel like this you should not do it imho) Unfortunately many students arrive at secondary school without the necessary numeracy, reading and comprehension skills that will enable them to access the secondary curriculum. The root cause of this is at infants and primary level- and having seen what went on in that sector 20 years ago, I am not surprised and have always felt that that is where the money and efforts should go- (smaller classes would be a good start and total emphasis on the 3 Rs). Also we need to remember that society has changed and we have had almost illiterate people uncontrollably breeding for decades at twice the rate of the educated and will have been disadvantaged from birth. The advances in medical treatment also means that more children with special needs are surviving and are included in schools. And I noticed she mentioned 11 different home languages spoken in the class...... Things can only get worse whilst education is a political football....

This is my 20th year teaching secondary students and whatever has been going on in primary schools is not working properly as there are too many students coming through who cannot read well enough to access secondary curriculum material, and even though they may be able to recite their times tables they cannot read nor understand the maths questions in order to utilise this skill. A flashy building does not a school make!

Everywhere around here there are villages- all joined together with tonnes of concrete and tarmac..

The Return- Killswitch Engage

Used the O2 live chat and all is now back to normal.

If you eat 250g of tomatoes the terpenes in it give you body odour for a week. And I am crying because potatoes do not count as veg. but as starch. To count broccoli as one of the 7 a day you have to eat a portion the size of a cauliflower (a middle sized one I imagine) I am a supertaster and all that green stuff makes me gag- I am going to die........

They've always been here but the Western Europeans haven't. Not many Germans though- not surprising since all the Germans I've met here on educational or training courses have always criticised our NHS systems, transport, housing etc. (my mum says the Germans are ultimately responsible for all our present problems anyway!)

Sent text yesterday- got a message saying it was not sent but the recipient said it arrived 14 times.

Everyone I've heard today has been Spanish. Steveo I dare you to do a 2 finger salute a l'Agincourt!

Only a politician would come out with something like that ep

This is happening to 3 people in my house- all on O2- since yesterday

The EU is riddled with extreme left wing politicians. They are as dangerous to our freedoms as extreme right wing politicians. All politicians are only interested in votes because then they can maintain power over the ordinary people in the street- power being the only other thing they are interested in. The fact that people of this mindset actually have so much power is very scary because their motives for doing anything are questionable. Increasingly in the public sector work place the creeping micro management, (e.g.target-setting and other practices that ignore the human factors present) emanating from politics is destroying any enjoyment that we had.

Since yesterday we have experienced text messages being sent up to 7 times each. The O2 website says that a mast may not be working in the area! It's working overtime if you ask me.

The road between Goose Green and the station is bad and the pot holes are not visible

The fox doesn't care when it rips your baby, rabbit, guinea pig, lambs etc. apart and not just for food (neither does your cat for that matter), I say leave it to the farmers and country dwellers.

A young relative of mine had similar symptoms and when blood began appearing he went to the GP. It turned out, after several weeks of wrong diagnoses, that he had ulcerative colitis but by this time he was severely anaemic and on his knees with exhaustion and painfully thin. Then it was a blood transfusion , steroids etc. The eventual diagnosis was as a result of a colonoscopy

Kazoo?

Get off my Cloud- Rolling Stones

The school needs to know what is going on in as much detail as possible and you need to be very assertive in dealing with this because in my experience as a teacher there are some teachers who will not tackle this in the classroom because they themselves are secretly 'anti-gay'. In my experience if the problem is not dealt with then it is usually the bullied children who suffer the most- mainly because they refuse to go to school. In one school I worked in, the bullied child wanted to move schools and the local authority asked the head what was being done about the bullying. The head convinced the local authority that he was dealing with the problem satisfactorily and the request for a transfer was refused and the consequences, unfortunately, were disastrous.

It is only the NUT. The NASUWT are still in talks with the government. Other unions have instructed members not to cover classes that have NUT teachers out.

Love or Confusion- Jimi Hendrix

Land of Confusion- Genesis

mikeb is correct- this happens every year in all public sector areas so lots of pointless stuff is done or bought because the money cannot be transferred to other departments. Interesting that the budget has announced 200 million for the repair of potholes

I've got a Tower- it's brill for cheap cuts of meat stew (20 minutes), soya beans, chick peas, must be saving energy too.

Yes pinecone- I believe in the three Rs -Refuse, Reuse, Recycle