Just a quickie post in a bullet point “stylee” ..

– Manic week, not made any better by being germ ridden! (read that as: “have a cold”). We do lots of one to one tuition and we started these again in Maths this week after the students mocks, which means “free (and I include PPA) lessons” no longer exist for some of us – its our choice and  that’s one of the posts I’m halfway through writing (** ahh one day it WILL see the light of day**)  

– League tables last weekend show the school at which we work to still be in a very strong position. Amazing progress.

– Job advert for a new maths teacher finished today, as did the ad for 2 Deputy Heads. In terms of maths we’ve had a few applicants, but more about maths teachers being like “rocking horse poo” another time (in fact I may finish that post next week).

– Week 4 of the bread and butter w/sheets added to the post here. The response about these has been amazing from other teachers and year 11 are really getting into it. Year 10’s not so much, as there is a real issue with retention. I started using a spreadsheet this week to keep a track of each class, and you’ll see I’m at different stages with each group, and it’ll be interesting when I am able to compare “like for like” – I am hoping that the competitive element will spur year 10s on a bit. ( The working out is to calculate the mean average for me using a show of hands.)

I get so many ideas and interact professionally via twitter and/or email with so many great people – this week is no exception: 

– I was asked if I had any “how to” worksheets for the June ’13 Foundation paper and I don’t specifically, but some of the topics are in the Higher paper, so I’m adapting those and I’ve started throwing together some for the rest (still a work in progress so watch this space)

– Following a discussion from another teacher about how they want to use the Top40 tutorials, and the idea is that it will be used during tutor time and they wanted to have the student worksheets printed as a pack, so I’ve put together clips 1 to 10 and 11 to 20 (the others I.e. 21-30, and 31-40 will get done next week) – along with a little tick sheet on the front. I’ll put them in the teacher toolkit under Extras (the “extras” folder is also going to get a revamp over half term so that its a bit more structured.

– One of our users has put together (the fabulous Jayne Glass @mathsegee … hi Jayne!!) a sort of welcome guide to give to the rest of the maths department, when they started using JMOnline – I seriously love the idea (and am kicking myself that I didn’t think of it first *stamps feet*) and she has graciously agreed that I can blog about it too!!

Well, reading that back to myself … it really is a mishmash of what’s been going on (so much so, that I’ve now renamed the post “Twaddle & gumph!) To be honest, I have an observation on Monday which still needs planning, a load of emails to send and deal with, 2 sets of books to mark, its my anniversary tomorrow (20th!! I know! I was a child bride!!), so am out for the rest of the day after I finish doing A and A* Saturday School in the morning. Don’t get me wrong .. I am not complaining … I like being busy its just that at this precise moment I am not feeling the creative juices right now. I’ll do you a deal though … I promise I’ll blog Monday about my obs .. warts ‘n all! Its that type of stuff that I know us teacher types like to read .. nosey beggars!!

Have a great weekend.