Canterbury - 30th January, 2006

Over the last few weeks Julie and I have completed about 20 sessions of invigilating for a local school. These have mainly been mock GCSEs and also some A and A/S level re-sits. We have had some absolutely remarkable moments, eye popping and heart stopping:

"Sir, sir, over here. Sir, sir, I've got bl_o_ coming out my f_ _ _y"

She was trying to shock but it did catch me momentarily off guard, being as it came from the mouth of a 15 year old girl who announced it loud enough in the exam hall for at least 20 students around her to hear. It was actually quite funny and the girl in question was surely going to be a commedienne in later life but at the time .....

Some of the attempts to complete exams (or not complete them) were staggering. Almost in all cases, students taking an exam of an hour and a half (didn't exams used to be 3 hours long?) were finished within 40 minutes. In some cases students did not even attempt to look at their papers. Apparently we are paying some of our students to attend school now and as long as they sit in the exam hall they will continue to receive their payments. Paid to do nothing.

What we did see (and we spent quite a bit of time in the staff room) was a team of brilliant teachers, committed to the kids and who where truly professional. Unfortunately (and this is corroborated in the school's Ofsted report) they are up against a brick wall of a disruptive and often absent set of children. We could hear lessons being taken where the teacher spent at least 80% of the time just trying to bring order to the room and this is in no way an inner city sink school.

The whole experience was quite good fun and we should be going back for the main stretch of exams in May and June. During these we will be taking more care to ensure mobile phone are not taken into the exam rooms!

Canterbury - 14th January, 2006

Somethings have changed. In comparison to our life in London . . . . . .

• We have NO night time meetings at all.
• We have not entertained anyone in our home (except Christmas) since October.
• We are not in a house group (yet).
• The phone rings only 4 times per week on average (outside our working day).
• We have only been in one traffic jam in 20 weeks.
• We do not work at the weekends (yet).
• The boys do no organised extra-curricular activities at all (outside school hours) - it is not recommended by the school. (They do enough).
• We have only had three sets of visitors to our house in 20 weeks.
• We do not have a land line telephone.
• The TV is only 14" (diagonal) and is on only 6 hours per week (for videos only).
• We have spent hours and hours and days and days together as a family.
• Our accommodation costs us £600 per month (half London cost) - including utilities and taxes.
• We listen to at least 10 hours of story tapes per week.

This is not a comment but just a reporting exercise ("The facts mam, just the facts"). This will not last for much longer and neither would we want it too but it is interesting (for me at least) comparing it to our "4 nights a week out, busy, entertaining full time lifestyle" as we knew it.