Photo a day

As well as entertaining all at my school, Sarah spoke to me about a project she was inspired to start this year:  to take a photo each day of the year to represent that day.  I thought this was a pretty cool idea and vaguely thought about starting it next year.  She showed me some of the photos she has taken recently and there were some real fancy and exciting ones, but others were like a bowl of cereal at 10 o'clock at night when she realised she hadn't taken one that day.  I thought about it and realised they were all valid in their way.  This morning I went for a walk along the river up to Godstow (am really proud of that btw!) and was taking some photos of a swan, when I made the decision to give it a go starting my year now.  And then I thought that the blog would be an excellent spot to record my photos of the year on.

Am currently debating whether to officially start it today when I made the decision, or last Friday when I heard about it as I have photos taken then, but they weren't taken with that express purpose.  I reckon I will put them up, but will count today as the official start date.

Am also currently concerned about the photos I take at school.  I don't want to put photos of children up, even from behind, but that's where I spend most of my week life.  I wonder if I can somehow haze out the parts of the photos with children on?

I think I might aim to do a weekly post of the photos to keep it manageable.  We'll see how it goes.

Sunday 7th February 2010

Swan on the river on the way up to Port Meadow, Oxford.

Saturday 6th February 2010

New haircut

 

Friday 5th February 2010

Class 2G, visit by Sarah Outen

Sarah Outen

I have had a very proud day as my friend, Sarah, came to school.

I have mentioned her before - she is the amazing one that rowed across the Indian Ocean solo last year - (she has a great website).  I told my kids on Monday that she was coming and they have been getting more and more excited all week at the thought of her coming.  Am not quite sure how the excitement started building - it was genuinely more them than me!!  One girl emailed Sarah on the first evening and I shared that in school and put her in the special book for it which was a snowball effect!

Anyway, needless to say she was amazing.  I was there for the talk she did to the infants which was such fun, and then she went over to do a talk to the Juniors which sounds to have been fantastic then she came back to chat to my class which they loved and loads were crowding round her at the end of the lesson when they should have been going to lunch!

Here is the email of appreciation that I sent Sarah this evening.  I hope it conveys the amazement and the thanks:


I can't really begin to thank you enough for coming to school today and how amazed everybody was and the impact that you had on staff and pupils.  I don't think i had done a good enough job bigging you up before, as to me you are still my friend Sarah who has happened to have done this amazing thing.   But now they really know just how incredible you are! I know you must get a lot of praise all the time, but i just wanted you to know what our School thought, so here you go:


Mr, the head, spoke to me several times this afternoon saying what a great job you had done and how amazed the kids were and how we have to get your visit on the school website and how we have to follow your next adventure.  the head of the juniors said in passing what a great job you had done.  all three year three teachers spoke to me (on separate occasions) about how fab you had been for the year three children all the way up to the year 6 children.  one of the teaching assistants who had been in the assembly stopped me and was talking for ages about how fascinated she was and was asking me loads of questions and i came across her later on discussing you again with someone else!  On the infant side, it was the head of the infants, one of the most senior teachers (and my mentor) who gave you the work just before you left from her class so that's a really high opinion to have!  Also the lady who said you were the best guest assembly speaker and possibly the best assembly ever, was the head of the reception year and really pretty senior!  Another reception teacher said how enthralled both the children and the adults were.  Lots of these people talked about what a good speaker you were, it wasn't just that you had a great story but it was how you told it!   And loads of my kids were saying how excited they were because it had been such a good day because you had visited them.   I think more members of staff have talked to me today than ever before - if nothing else you have definitely put me on the map at  school!!!


Also i got this text from one of the year 3 teachers at the end of the day:
Hi! Just wanted to thank u and Sarah.  It was just fantastic!  Wondered if Sarah was around as i wanted to say thanks and let her read some of the letters the class wrote.  Thanks and happy friday!


I have brought the letters home with me so if you wanted to stop by tomorrow morning you are most welcome to look at them, but i know you will be busy. 

Wow and thank you, Sarah!

My Use of ICT - Part 1: Blogging

A sensible place to start an ICT blog, but still valid as a 6th post I feel. While mentally preparing this entry, I realised just how much ICT there is in my life and so this will become a several part blog entry.

I have never blogged before till this trainee teacher blog, but I am not a complete newby to this world. I follow quite a few blogs here and there and like having the RSS feeds up on my firefox page so I can procrastinate while working to see if any have been added to. Most of the blogs I follow are of people recording about their daily lives, but who are experiencing some out of the ordinary life event which gives a reason for blogging, often medically related or temporary travel experiences. These blogs are usually written to get the latest news across as soon as possible and/or in a conversational tone. I 'blame' this for the casual tone of my blog; I have my chatty diary writing brain in gear as opposed to a work related mentality and hence don't spend as long planning or reviewing what I have written. (Although there must be a fair bit thinking and editing, or else why are these taking me such a long time!!) I feel I should maybe start reading some more 'intellectual big issue' blogs before I begin typing here.

There are a few specific blogs that I would like to mention with a slight link to education. Sarah Outen is a friend I met at my undergraduate university (hers was the first blog I was able to follow of someone I personally knew!). She is a fantastic and crazy person who will be rowing solo across the Indian Ocean next year. She is keeping a blog of her training and preparations for the row and intends to keep the blog updated while she is on the ocean. She has an education section on her site and I do hope to be able to get the class I am teaching to follow along with her journey. Plenty of cross-curricular links available: geography, biology, English, PE.

The second blog I mention is both the record of an individual's health journey and a well thought through resource for strangers to refer to. Baldy's Blog was started by Adrian Sudbury, a reporter for the Huddersfield Examiner, near the start of his journey with leukemia. He recorded the effects of the treatment he received and I particularly remember the detail he gave on his experiences with Graft Vs Host Disease for those who may suffer similarly too. He later started a campaign to make blood, bone marrow, and organ donation education compulsory for sixth formers. I have been very moved by Adrian's determination and this is a cause I feel very passionately about. I am currently thinking of ways I may be able to use my future position as a Primary School teacher to help with this great work. This is possibly the only instance when being a secondary teacher seems appealing to me!

EDIT: well, that was embarrassing (good job I spell-checked as had only put one r in there which would have doubled the embaRRassment!), though only for myself as no one else reads my blog. I just went back to look at this post and found out the Baldy's Blog link took me to the Sarah Outen website. Must investigate if there is a way to check the links before actually publishing.