Sounds from beyond the Shed – Week 84

Stay focused and keep on keeping on.

Following last week’s heady announcement of a change in circumstances in July things have returned to normal with a bump as the first set of reports and parent’s evenings land. Since COVID all parent’s evenings have been online which has its advantages but also some real drawbacks. Initially it seemed greatly beneficial that appointments were limited to 5 minutes and then the camera snapped off until the next appointment. Often in the past a particularly verbose parent could create a log jam of pissed-off people delayed in one fell swoop for the entire evening as the whole system gave way to delays all round as it was unable to cope with one teacher running late. So far so good but the problems become evident when you have 40 back to back 5 minute meetings. You end up punch drunk and start calling children by different names and as the evening progresses you are reduced to just muttering and staring crazily at the camera whilst desperately longing for the toilet. So much so, that last week I told two sets of parents that I had been cathaterised and in my last appointment I stated that I was wearing a nappy…. And then there is the Googlebox window into the world of the families. I have genuinely conducted parents evenings wherein the parents are eating their dinners, they are in the car, at the gym and in one case in Pizza Hut! The whole thing has been devalued. You cannot tell these people that their son/daughter is not taking school seriously if they aren’t.

I miss looking a parent in the eye and in the presence of their son telling them that he is a waste of a textbook. Ah well five months to go…not that I’m counting.  In other news first year I’m missing EOTR for the cricket in a long time and Wilco are playing… damn. Still Red Rooster looks very good.

This week I have been mainly listening to some West Coast sounds including Sylvie and Tobacco City and Spencer Cullum. It’s all a bit hippy-dippy (still thinking about Croz) but lovely too, as ever take what you want or need.