Over A Week? Wow. Imagine What It Will Be LIke When I Am Fulltime

I knew I hadn't posted for a while but WOW. Over a week. Life is freeway-like at the moment. I can't really even afford to be posting this as I am meant to be marking..but it is so mind numbing.
"Hah," remarked a colleague,"marking maths? Isn't that just tick, tick, tick?"
"Yes. If the children you teach get everything right. In my case it's sort of 'search for a mark'."
Having said that I am excited by the fact that only one of my year 8 babies failed his exam and that may be partly because he didn't take a calculator! I have been working on him all semester (he joined us late) to come to class with a pen and his maths book. Time after time he arrives empty handed. We agreed to have a text book which we keep in the classroom for him and that has helped. I gave him a chocolate every time he remembered his pen. I reminded ALL of them about having calculators and fresh batteries available for the exams. *sigh* I don't know what else I could have done. Perhaps this will teach him something?

In another exam, Y10 Science, I was supporting two girls with mild learning difficulties. The topic was Human Reproduction and the question asked them to describe the journey of the sperm once it entered the vagina. With some prompting it became evident that one of them thought sperm came from women and the other didn't know what it was at all. What had they been doing in class? What will happen to them in the world????? I dread to think.

Last Wednesday was the BA's Graduation from Middle School. Middle School is a new concept here in Australia. It's really just High School but they keep the kids with one form teacher and gradually introduce the concept of moving around classes. Next year in Year 10 they are into full on' find your own room and subject teacher' mode.

It was an emotional night as she leaves her dear friends to start at a new school next year. I do hope we've made the right decision. *sigh*

Isn't it terrible how you don't realise your kid needs a haircut until she's up on stage in her uniform!?

On the weekend we put up the Christmas tree. Well, I kind of left it to the kids.As you can see, Small Boy is a great boon in the process.He got minorly excited about putting up his own mini-tree. This tree is the sort of thing one has to deal with in second marriages. It is a left over from Himself's bachelor days. One year it will quietly disappear. Like that sofa.
Here Small Boy helpfully shoots baskets with ornaments whilst the BA does the whole elder sister thing. She is so mature. See?
I mean, don't we all try on the ornaments as earrings? Of course we do.

And do Madonna impersonations with Christmas wreaths.