smurfomatic

Today is: 12.1.21 International soundcheck day

Wow, never seen a zip pouch designed to hold bacon before!

When I moved house several years ago, I bought a table and chairs from Homebase. This was the picture on their website. Wasn't sure how many chairs I was getting...

Certainly once I'm allowed to work from home, I will only be on site for the time required to fix that particular issue.

My requirement to be on site is being reviewed on Friday. I've been busy for the last few days, but most of that was setting up things, resetting passwords and sorting out Chromebooks to loan out, so that should hopefully tail off now.

We probably have less pupils in this time around than over the summer. We had all of Year 6 (about 40 pupils) and no-one else last time. Today had less than 30 children in total, mostly in EYFS, but somehow this time around "I need to be in for any technical problems" whereas in Lockdown 1 I could work from home...

I'm in, sorting out Chromebooks to loan out to families who have requested them. Site is closing at 3pm today and not expecting many people to be in after that (teachers & admin staff working from home, Nursery might be open but not sure, no key worker kids AFAIK). My colleague would be in, but is working from home anyway.

What happens to the morning I wasted, helping the school to set up the overcomplicated testing system, figuring out how to get technophobic staff to record their test results, only to find out it's been a complete waste of my time? Obviously expecting the government to know how to pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel was asking too much.

Northamptonshire now going to tier 3, meaning the "island" in the middle of the tier 3 section of the north west and the tier 3/4 section from London & south east is no more. Not a surprise (in fast expected us to be in tier 3 in mid-December) but gutted as it means no crowds at the Boxing Day rugby game.

This map looks like Blockbusters...and Northamptonshire is the key tile in the middle

Don't let dogs onto cricket pitches, or you may slip on a sticky wicket

Third parents meeting with schoolcloud on Wednesday, only two problems I got told about - one where a parent couldn't log in (not sure what link they were using, but it wasn't for our school!) and another who had issues connecting using a Mac. Second one is strange as the same parent had used the same Mac to connect the week before and worked fine!

There's a TV series based on the film, set in the US with Matt Berry as one of the vampires, also very funny. Two series both available on BBC iplayer.

Tier two here, which means touch rugby training can resume (yay) but no end of season awards night (boo) which will now be virtual (more work for me!)

There's no way this idea would work here. Most teaching staff have emails set up on their (personal) phones, and we also have Educare accounts for all cleaning, maintenance & admin staff (who all have school email accounts but no school devices) so they'd be unable to do required KCSIE training. Would be great for me if implemented though, as I would be forced to remove emails from my dual SIM phone - which I paid for - and also my home laptop, and not get any messages when away from my desk!

As I seem to be the only one actually *hoping* for lockdown over Christmas, so I can spend the day doing whatever I want rather than compelled to visit family, I'll keep quiet now...

Just had our first positive test, one of the catering team. Hopefully separated enough so that only his immediate colleagues and not pupils have to isolate.

Our remembrance readings are being done in the school chapel, streamed via Google Meet to classrooms. Staff not teaching at that time can stand by the area where there is a cross and remembrance markers.

Indeed, the major outbreak here in Northampton was at the Greencore sandwich factory, which has hundreds of people working there.

Just to say thanks for sending the extra pair of socks for my head of ICT - sadly he's in hospital right now, but he just put a picture on Facebook wearing them!

We've just been told the same - as a prep school that goes up to Year 8, it means our top two year groups need to wear masks, but the rest don't have to! Also, teachers who teach one lesson with Y7 & 8 have to wear masks all the time...

We used schoolcloud just before half term as our "free trial", worked really well. Just set up another meeting for next week!

We've used Stone for a few years now, both as a supplier and more recently as a builder of their own machines. Generally reliable and solid pieces of kit.

Would certainly seem to be a breach of the rules as they stand. We're awaiting confirmation that touch rugby training will be suspended as the governing body are trying to get more details from DCMS

BoJo probably forgot it clashed with the rugby...