Hills without mills, and Churchills

I spent Tuesday at John Cabot school. It was rated Excellent by Ofsted, but manages its intake carefully to ensure this. I have given up caring about the justice of it as long as I get a nice bunch of kids. This lot were pretty well behaved (with one glaring exception who obviously had something else going on in her life) but I don't think they accomplished much all the same. I enjoyed the junior math but it wasn't until afterward that I figured a better way to explain what they were doing. The last class had 3 students in it, so not too demanding, which made up for the rather muddled start to the day. I had looked on their website for appropriate buses and found they ran a school bus near to me. I waited for 10 minutes past the appointed time and still no bus so went back into town to catch a different one. After school I found that the route had been changed and the service provider's website hadn't been updated.

That evening we walked up to Victoria Park on Windmill Hill, which we had spied from John Cabot Tower on the weekend. It was nice, with dogs and kids playing, and good views back over parts of the city. There were some beautiful stone buildings that were the St Mary Redcliffe CE VC Primary School (I don't know what CE VC stands for but probably Church of England something), but there wasn't a windmill.

Today I was at Churchill where I had been just once before. (This was instead of Wyvern that I don't like so I jumped at the chance.) It's a bit tricky getting there without a car so the agency paid for a taxi from the airport - which is about half way - to the school and back. They make a huge margin so won't miss the L24. It's a nice school and I had a quiet day. I supervised half a dozen kids waiting to go into an exam, gave a teacher a tea break, set up for a lesson and then had a 3 hour lesson with a well behaved class doing a Google competition. They had to create the Google Doodle (that is the customised Google logo that marks special occasions) for 'The Future'. The biggest problem I struck was the laptop batteries dying. There wasn't provision to plug them into the mains directly but I managed a work-around to keep half a dozen of them going which sufficed. By the end of the day there were a few good entries that showed some great ICT skills in making creative doodles. The long trip home meant that for a change I was home after J.

We had a quick walk to pass by a new restaurant boat that had opened yesterday on the harbour opposite us. Looks nice, but the menu is things like Frog's Legs, White and Green Asparagus and so on, and pricier than we normally pay.

Sorry there's no photos. My camera has developed big blurry dark spots that I think may be mould on the CCD. I have to get this checked out. Meanwhile you can check J's blog.

I got the news from OGHS that RY is leaving and that CD has finally set a date for his farewell. I'm very disappointed I won't be there to share what should be a funny night. I quess it will also be a farewell of sorts to GE though she'll be back. I wish them all well for the future. (Of course they won't get those because they don't read the blogs!)

Anyway, I'm off to bed.