Nice People 12: Nice in Nice

LydiaJ

Spirit wrote: »

Dear NicePeople

Today I came home. I wanted to thank you all foryour kind thoughts and wishes over the last 5 weeks.

So pleased for you Spirit. I'm with lir and everyone else in rejoicing with you that you are home but being :mad: about the lack of care at home. Hoping you are able to sort out how to move forward from here.

I will be joining in Spirit Thursday now. It is 7:30, right?

SingleSue wrote: »

Busy day again today, gas man came out to try to sort out my central heating as it is beggered, rads upstairs were working but none downstairs were. I have ended up with 2 out of the 3 rads downstairs working but now my bedroom and toilet rads not working! He says there isn't much he can do save replacing the whole blooming lot...and the powers that be are still arguing between themselves over that.

At the same time, we were loft clearing, we found a better way to do it today to try to conserve my energy levels/back...I sat on the front room floor and he brought me things down to sort through. Worked well, I didn't get so tired and could keep up and he got plenty of exercise but also more organisation and in the end, we managed to sort more in a couple of hours between the two of us than we did on Sunday in a whole afternoon and 3 of us.

Then finally, school run....and the car died. It got me to the school ok, parked up, Josh came out and went to start it and nothing, completely dead. Luckily I do have breakdown cover and the man who can finally arrived (after I had to go into the school and ask to use the loo, was desperate!) and declared the battery dead as a dead thing. £120 later and my car is working again.....but I was by that time, very cold (school run, didn't put coat on as wasn't planning on leaving the car), very hungry, very thirsty and very stressed.

Tomorrow morning I have the OT coming back as the toilet surround is not working for us, it's great for support but very restricting and I think she may well put pressure on the housing association as they still haven't put any of the rails up or done the step outside.

Ummm who was helping you clear the loft? The gas man? Why?

Hope the OT manages to beat some sense into the council.

PasturesNew

Channel 5 just started Benefits Britain by the Sea. 1 in 5 are on the dole in Great Yarmouth.

Couple £300/fortnight in benefits - just slashed in half without any reason, so they're off to the benefits office for an appointment. Loud, gobby, common.

Ah, she hadn't filled in the right forms.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

I am candle at the ready for seven thirty.

I had to give it a miss and just think thoughts .... it's been blowing a right hooly out there all day and now it's raining. I did turn on the salt lamp though ... nice and safe and lovely.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

I had to give it a miss and just think thoughts .... it's been blowing a right hooly out there all day and now it's raining. I did turn on the salt lamp though ... nice and safe and lovely.

Salt lamp seems perfect t to me, homely, now Spirit is home

I use candles often, so you salt lamp is the same kind of thing as my candles. I think its the thinking that means something.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

I think its the thinking that means something.

I do a LOT of thinking about Spirit, many times a day
She's lovely .... and needs a bit of rest before we drag her out to Ikea again.

Masomnia

Had to google 'salt lamp'. They look nice. I could do with something like that, to give softer light.

LydiaJ

zagubov wrote: »

Lydia, all the best for the inspection next week. Make sure the work printers have got plenty of toner and paper, and the repairman's on callout notice.

Thanks. The toner and paper and so on aren't up to me, but it's obvious that the senior management will be all over that sort of issue and the support staff will have everything in place without a lowly minion such as me having to do anything. I'll do all my copying for my lessons days in advance, just in case, though.

The senior management are firing off a lot of emails ATM about new arrangements they are putting in place to make it easier for teachers - email links to all possible documents we might need to prepare the requisite extra paperwork, arrangements with the caretakers to keep school open for longer hours so teachers can get work done on the premises where all the books/files/printers/copiers/etc are instead of having to take so much of it home - that sort of thing.

They are actually doing a really good job of being both encouraging and helpful IMO. There's no vibe of "get your act in gear you lousy rabble" or even "be amazing or we'll beat you with a big stick". They're all consistently putting across a vibe of "we want to help you make sure the inspectors realise that you're as amazing as we already know you are".

zagubov wrote: »

Give the worst students cheap cameras and send them off to take a close-up of the horizon, and not to come back until they've reached it.

Oooh tempting!!

Actually the class I would be most concerned about (not because they're badly behaved, because they're not, but because I haven't gelled with them or they with me yet) won't be observed. I have my lessons with them during the part of the week when the inspectors will be dealing with management and boarding rather than teaching. The classes that I'm likely to be observed with are the ones I feel I've established good relationships with already. Phew.

(Obviously I hope I will gel with the others in due course, but it's only been a few weeks since I met them, and I only see them twice a week. With some groups, that's enough to establish rapport, and with others it takes longer. I'm not going to say more than that about any of my groups or any of my students, especially on a public forum with a screen ID that would be recognisable to anyone who knows my story IRL.)

Generali wrote: »

Good luck with the inspection. What happens to you personally if it's great/lousy? Do you get a pay rise/the sack/detention?

Not sure what happens. I gather the inspectors' report will mention departments rather than named teachers, but I imagine it won't be too hard to work out which teachers are being described from the context of the lesson they're talking about and a list of which lessons they observed while they were with us. Definitely won't have any effect on anybody's pay, and nobody will get sacked. If they said really dreadful things about anybody, it might trigger further investigation into their competence, but I think that's unlikely. We're a very successful school - the management are anxious about whether we'll be in the top category (as we were last time) or the next one down; nobody's contemplating anything further down the list than that.

silvercar

Who wants to start the next thread?

(Not me, I've had my turn and I got into a tiz with it.)

vivatifosi

Masomnia wrote: »

Had to google 'salt lamp'. They look nice. I could do with something like that, to give softer light.

Go on Mas, say what you're really thinking.... they're well posh aren't they.

Thinking of you over here in Herts too Spirit.

vivatifosi

silvercar wrote: »

Who wants to start the next thread?

(Not me, I've had my turn and I got into a tiz with it.)

I don't know, but I think we should fill it with nice things that will cheer up Spirit, like nice cushions, candles and cashmere throws. And in case she is triskaidecaphobic, it should be numbered 12a...