Late Bank Holiday Monday

The Best Beloved spent most of yesterday making bread by hand. We were introduced to the idea of making our own bread last year when we were in France with our friends, the Cattermoles. Terry has his own bread making machine and apparently they are all the rage over here as well now. However the independent and headstrong Best Beloved is determined to make her bread without the initial outlay of money for an electric breadmaker (£50 in Comet). Her effort yesterday wasn't as successful as she hoped and she has gone back to the recipe books to find out why. I am sure she will succeed because she is a determined lady.

There was a letter in the Times about someone describing joining the officer's mess of a regiment. There he was asked to behave like an officer and gentleman by his commanding officer. He asked the latter to define what was meant by an officer and a gentleman. The reply was, "A gentleman is never seen to be carrying a parcel. A gentleman never dances backwards in a waltz. Every woman in his presence feels like a lady." I am not sure about the first two but feel I could make a go of the last one.

I had my annual health check and everything seems to be in working order. My blood sugar level came back at 5.3, which I think is normal. My weight seems to have only dropped 1 kg since I was measured the same time last year. This is not very accurate as when I was measured last year I had just come out of hospital and had lost two stone as a result of my experience. I then gained weight up until Christmas but have been losing it ever since. I was nearly 18 stone at Christmas and am now hovering around the 17 stone mark. I was 16 stone 13lb last week. I am confident of achieving the 16 stone mark by December this year ( or 2lbs per month). Debbie has promised me a party if I make 16 stone. It will give me an incentive to drop to 15 stone by this time next year. Onwards and downwards as far as weight goes!

I read back over my own postings and re-read the one about PE and Games. I realised this week is half term week. I used to hate the half term week in Summer as it was the one I inevitably spent writing up the children's annual reports. I have always been a deadliner and always promised I would construct the things piecemeal but inevitably it would come to this week and the only way I could get them finished was to put my head down and do them. So my condolences to all my teacher friends out there who are writing reports! Mind you, our school used to write a half way report in Spring too so the Spring half term week was also spent writing reports.
I understand from somewhere that one of the ideas afoot is that teacher comments on pupils will be published online so that parents can access them via a secure intranet. It seems like a jolly good idea for parents - they can avoid the termly parents' evenings - but would mean extra strain for the teacher in making time during the week to update records online. From my experience, children learn in a similar fashion to the way in which they grow. Growth spurts take place after a plateau when nothing seems to be happening on the surface. Underneath though all the nutrients and chemical needed to promote growth are being accumulated by the body and then whoosh inches are added seemingly overnight. Learning is a bit like that. The child seems to have made no progress and seems to be on a plateau of achievement. But underneath the concepts are being gathered and assessed until one day the light goes on and the plateau becomes a steep curve before levelling out again. The weekly access to pupil records seem to be an equivalent of pulling the new plant out of its pot to make sure the roots are growing. We will have parents asking why their child hasn't made progress since the previous week. If all the subjects are okay, they will find the one subject that isn't, e.g. "Why isn't my child's progress in speaking Outer Mongolian as good as his other subjects?"

Ah well I have used up all my Tuesday writing time updating this blog so must go off and see the beautiful Debbie now. She was talking of filming this afternoon's session for use on the website. Oh what it is to be surrounded by cameras!