The view from here

There are many people in education who love to compartmentalise pupils into neat boxes. These same people will often look down their noses at people who read horoscopes, but give them a psychometric test and they are like a pig in clover. These same people also use the word, pedagogy, I hate that word.
I recently sat through a 3 hour talk by a motivational speaker, we laughed, we cried, mostly I felt like I was being taught 7 ways to suck an egg, but arrogance sits very comfortably on my shoulders. However he did teach me a way of compartmentalising people that so far has hit the spot every time. I am slightly oversimplifying it here but the gist goes like this.

Group A, These people are Dynamic, natural leaders, outgoing, very good a getting through tasks no matter whose toes they tread on.
Group B, These people are cautious, heaven is in the detail, they are task driven, make copious lists and slightly reserved.
Group C, these people are quiet, occasionally timid, very reserved. They do not like drawing attention to themselves but they are good with people.
Group D, these people are impulsive, outgoing, live for today and good with people.

Recognise yourself yet?
If not this story might help.
A teacher tells his class that the next day they will sit a very important test. The next day at the beginning of the lesson he tells his class that the test is cancelled.
The following reactions occur

Group A, beam with delight “Yes sir I agree, that is the right decision, I knew you would see it my way”
Group B, are livid “Oh, sir, that is not fair, I have been up all night revising, you cannot cancel the test, it is not fair”
Group C, smile and say “thank you” they are very happy to have avoided the test
Group D, look up and say “What test?”

Well even I had to admit that I clearly sat firmly in Group D as does Daisy. Kitty of course is group C and both Emin and Leyla are Group A. as is my sister. My poor mother is group B as is one of my colleagues who not only confessed to copious list making, but if she does something over and above the list will write it on the list just to cross it off!
I tell you this story because it illustrates why when Daisy came home on Tuesday and announced that she was flying to Switzerland on Saturday morning, I did not bat and eyelid. She had initially told me she was going sometime during half term in February. When I expressed surprise at the late notice she then informed me I was lucky, she could have realised the day before. The cherry on top is she has to be at school for 5am, and she has decided that rather than stay at home and pack she is going out tonight! Oh to be 16

Kate Breakey

As I continue to add to the A Level PowerPoint's I came across this artist who's work just stopped me in my tracks. Visit the amazing website here

Sartorial style… The highs.. The lows

I have not posted a sartorial post for a while;
I managed to successfully navigate most of what the weather threw at me during my travels over Christmas. You need to pack outfits for travelling, outfits for swanning around lovely, if slightly over heated hotels and then outfits for layering up for the great outdoors.
What I missed was a second scarf; I only took one, and should have taken at least 2 more. To add to my Holy Grail of clothes list would be a stylish but waterproof, coat with maybe a hood. Not a Mac but something thicker which does not create the classic Michelin man profiles that so many puffa jackets have a tendency to do. The Barbour I tried on was not warm enough so the search will go on. I should probably be looking around August rather than when I actually need it. Such are the vagaries of the retail industry.


Whilst I was in Berlin I could not resist having a peek inside the Muji sale; however the exchange rate was so bad that what was £45 in England was £68 in Germany, I spied a maroon version of my grey merino wool shawl cardie. Back home I waited patiently and finally found one last week for a bargain £15. This I decided was what I needed to inject a bit of colour into my winter wardrobe. Which as you can see resembles various shades of sludge. So yesterday I skipped to work, only to feel just a little uncomfortable. It took a while and then finally I realised that it was exactly the same shade as my years 11 girls school uniform jumper. How on earth had I not realised this earlier? Worst of all I was wearing it over a brown top, brown is the colour of their skirts. I could not wait to go home and rip it off.
I guess it will be one for the weekend now.
I must also give praise to what has been the most fruitful provider of lovely knitwear, Uniqlo, last year nothing I tried on there fitted, this year everything fits.
Best of all was the thermal underwear. I bought 4 short sleeved tops which are perfect, they are very thin but very warm the added bonus is that they are not trimmed with nasty synthetic lace like so many other brands, instead they look just like T shirts, and in colours lovely enough not to hide.

Sally Gall

Images from here

Crawl is the beginning of my ongoing investigation into a part of our landscape we, as upright creatures, rarely take the time to think about. Infants know this world for a time. Picnickers and soldiers glimpse it. There is no more dynamic stage of life and death on earth than the first few inches above its surface. This is where prairies and forests are born. Here is where the bulk of our food comes from, and where all terrestrial creatures return when we die. Comforting, beautiful, frightening, strange--this is the terrestrial world. And it can only be discovered and known intimately on hands and knees.

I am currently trying to source resources for the students photography exam. Some of the themes are really good and I have thoroughly enjoyed finding photographers to help the students with their ideas, these are Buildings, Colour and Daily Travel.

The two that leave me cold are Sport and Technology, slim pickings there.

My absolute favourite images from today are these by Sally Gall. They came via the now ubiquitous The Year In Photography, which is now a resource in its own right.

Istanbul in colour

On the brighter days I was able to take some colour images, they give a flavour of the beautiful tiles that are all over the mosques inside and out.

I met my sister on Friday night for a quick bite to eat, which turned into a rather prolonged drinking session. She has found a lovely quiet wine bar that is attached to a hotel close to where she works, so it is not as frenetic as our usual haunt.

Ironically she too is visiting Istanbul, but in a professional capacity. This means visiting the port on the Asian side, so no luxury there and too far away to do much site seeing. Like many people who travel a lot for a living, pleasures are few and far between, it must be hard to be so close to something beautiful, but not have the time to see it.

I think she found mother a struggle on holiday , although I can see two sides to this story,

My sister has forgotten that my mother is a) getting on b) partially blind c) will do absolutely nothing independently of others.

My mother on the other hand has forgotten that my sister is a) pig headed b) suffers no hesitation c) likes her own space

What really upset my sister was my mothers refusal to visit the special shops in Hong Kong where all the designer stuff is kept, so my sister returned home empty handed and irritated.

I amused her with my New Years story. which goes as follows;

Emin had decided on a traditional Turkish New Year 'do' I thought this was to be a dinner dance and dressed accordingly. Not so, this transpired to be a shack clinging to the side of a mountain, 20 miles outside of Istanbul, it had snowed heavily and so the place was freezing cold, the tables were crammed together, the food was as cold as the room and the entertainment began at 10pm and did not finish until 4am.

We were told to be at the Au pairs house for 5pm, we did not leave our hotel until then, we had to get a tram, then walk up a long hill to get on a bus, this went at a snails pace until we got off, we then waited 15 Min's for a lift, finally arriving at the Au pairs at 7.30pm. I still had to get changed, finally we left at 8pm. 11 of us piled into a large van with no seat belts. I could have wept, I was sick with worry, I am normally so scornful of people who die in car crashes because they had over filled the car or they were not strapped in. Here I was doing both. Being in a van meant we had to cross over to the Asian side on a bridge further up. The traffic was barely moving, the bridge was a toll bridge and so where there were 4 lanes we already had 6 and then for each toll booth 3 lanes tried to jostle through one small gap. Two and a half hours later we finally arrived.

I then sat with fixed grin as all around danced and partied. They knew the songs they manged to dance on a square of floor no bigger than a postage stamp, and they all without exception chain smoked.

At midnight we lit a sparkler. This bit amused my sister no end having watched Fireworks in Sydney harbour. We arrived back to our hotel at 5.30am grabbed some sleep before flying home. At this point I must praise BA who were just brilliant, they plied me with delicious Sauvignion Blanc twice, they left on time and landed on time, and smiled a lot.

I have been on the wagon since...Until last Friday!

Helen Frankenthaler

A small dose of life style envy accompanies this post. I am late to come across Frankenthaler's work, I found it whilst putting a PowerPoint together on the theme of Colour.
I love seeing artists in their studios

and I love these paintings, a real breath of fresh air in terms of colour and lightness of touch.

I have spent many many hours putting together this PowerPoint, colour was one of 6 questions.my GCSE students will have to chose from next week from their exam paper.

Years ago when I first began teaching, we would give the students their exam paper and tell them to get on with it, and little has changed in some schools. However I am held accountable for the grades these girls achieve and as they have little or no inclination to help themselves I invariably end up doing much of the research for them.

I enjoy it but it does require many, many, many hours of looking and of course I do get easily sidetracked.

The view from here

Is not as pretty as it looks.
This tree blossoms from the end of December through to April. It stands outside my office window and has become a beacon of hope, guiding me through the bone chilling winds and driving rain. Throughout, the blossom clings to the branches like barnacles to a ships hull.
This is the last year I will see it as we are as a school finally moving. We are told we should be grateful, what’s not to love about a new purpose built school all sleek and modern? Well how long have you got? The air craft hanger they have given me is a soulless and very badly designed box. I hate it. We are perched up high on a hill and I am on the top floor with views of an industrial wasteland that is a Medway town. No trees just mile upon mile of sprawling urban landscape.
But from the end of March my current view will be no more. I leave what appears to many, to be a room of chaos, but I love it, there is a place for everything, I have spent 5 years fitting the room around me like a warm cashmere coat. Come rain or shine I can hear the war cries of the local boy’s grammar playing rugby, I watch birds and squirrels fighting for the last crust the girls have left after lunch. I watch new buds open into fresh luminous green leaves and then watch them turn a golden brown, before falling again. To watch the seasons pass from this window has been one of the small pleasures that gets me through the day.
I have tried so hard to leave this job before this moment, despite a fairly substantial pair of golden hand cuffs. But I am still here.
In an effort to look forward I am busy trying to work out ways in which I can humanise my new environment. If you have ever seen the film Green Card you may remember the greenhouse Bronte sold her single status for. It too was high up, but it was an oasis of calm and so I will let my ivy roam and try to create my own green house in the sky.
Well that’s the theory.