What is on your agenda for today? Mine is mostly made up of rambling!

Rambling as in chatting away about a lot of stuff and nonsense on here then rambling down to the bus stop to the sea side and a ramble along the shore. Despite what the weatherman said - it has turned out nice again.

Mine so far included being woken up by the LOUD radio alarm. I m not at work and I was not READY TO BE WOKEN AT 6.18am. Normally I am a morning person but today it was just a tad to morning -y - for my liking. So Poor Mr Radio got snapped n snarled at! Don't feel sorry for him, he is used to it.

The weather report said rain. SO I looked out of the window for my own weather report. NOT raining. Washer went on. laptop went on. Today I needed to look up something  and not just faff about on it like normal.

It was on a proper go slow, my Internet security was on a tea break I think - so I did what any self taught technology expert did - I restarted it - and WHAM - one of eleven updates installing GRRRR no wonder it was slow.

So as minute by minute dragged by, I used the time wisely. I whinged about it on twitter. I pegged out one load of washing and set another going. I put the pots away. I did some tidying of stuff. Then I pondered how laughable my impatience really is. When you REALLY REEEEALLY think about it, the Internet actually is a bit mind blowing. ( even more mind blowing than the self stripy wool I bought to knit my socks with - one done one to do!) .

We need faster, more up to date information. I am laughing about myself now as when I click a link - or wait for a page to load - ( THIS BLOGGER BEING A GOOD EXAMPLE ) , I am all " come on come on  hurry up" 

Instant information. - But this is to the detriment of children in  Primary Education theses days IN MY EXPERIENCE. Research in Y6 can be dreadful. They have no clue where to start - and normally I have do do a lesson on what to type in and what to search for! Some of them in Y6 can't use an index in a book. You  know A BOOK - hard cover paper inside - words and sometimes pictures on the paper) Then when they have selected a suitable search word - they cannot be bothered to read and sift through the information. They are so quick to say  whinge
"I can't find it" to this I sigh, ask them to scroll down and read for the information they want. EVERY single time we go into the ICT suite I remind them that I DO NOT WANT THEM TO COPY AND PASTE CHUNKS OF TEXT BECAUSE I KNOW IT'S NOT THEIR WORK!
"How do I know? "one barely scraping a L3C child asks - after I look at his work  - text box after text box filled with crap off Wiki.

I have stopped taking them in so much.
They love it because in our lessons I give them books to look at! They actually really like them! They still copy and  paste scrawl  information onto paper but books slow them down. Even looking at photographs, they really pore over them. When looking at the same info on a computer screen it's all too easily clicked away.

Their ultimate favourite text book as a class is the new Atlas. They actually moaned whan it was tidy up time! I actually used them as a "if you get your work finished you can have an Atlas" bribe! It used to be you can go on the computer! Even the reluctant readers!




They never cease to amaze me! 

 I cannot believe I have only one day of the holidays left. I never count the weekends as I get them anyway!!!




My job hunt is still a hunt. I do love my job, but I hate all the crap that goes with it. Our school has embraced the Creative Curriculum and everything is skills based. But in Y6 I wish we followed a more rigid timetable. When I taught  delivered History as History  a few years ago - they became Victorian experts  - I took them on three trips Educational Visits. They knew what we were studying. They could probably have it as a subject on Mastermind. But now? Sure they have lots of learning about History SKILLS - but great big gaps in their knowledge!
When I delivered The Vikings, we went to our fantastic local museum, the children became Vikings for the day and learned a lot hands on. Back in the classroom I brough in Viking food and my colleague and I LAUGHED til we WEPT at their faces as they tried Buttermilk, herrings and rye bread for the first time ever. The children LOVED it! Sadly I don't get to deliver this anymore as the Class Teacher teaches the humanities within the Creative Curriculum umbrella.




When I was at primary school, back int the black n white days I think THAT was the real era of the Creative Curriculum. It was a nice day? The teacher would take us all down the canal for sketching, pond ( canal) dipping and exercise.  Was it in her short, medum and long term plans? Nope. Did my mum know? Not until I got home! Did my teacher have APP sheets to fill in in her PPA time? Gasp no. But she managed 35 of us on HER OWN ( doing myself out of my two jobs here folks) . There were NO BEHAVIOUR ISSUES like these days. We used to ply out when it was spitting too. guess what - we never melted. And I remember when we COULD have melted becuase we had Chernobyl rain raining on us ( don't bother checking dates - I used it for comedy effect )

* Goes to check Chernobly dates for own curiosity - (the internet DOES have it's uses....back in a bit)*

One minute later - 26th April 1986 - I was nearly 15 - I don't recall 'Playing out' as such at The Grammar School!!! But I will have been rained on.....


Now we daren't even THINK about filling in the 150 page Health and Safety forms for going near the canal.


Rambly old post indeed - I have tangents firing off in my head and no time to grab hold and give them direction! Bad Blogging but it's MY blog so I don't really care!!


Have fun whatever you do today - heck - drop me a comment and tell me all about it!