Some Fretwork and the Interminable Christmas Play at the Chalet School

Hello all. I assume everyone is very busy with their fretwork, lace, crocheting and scrapbooks for the next sale. I've been knitting my lime green bedsocks to go with the lime green nightie I'm going to crochet next.

When do I need to start learning my moves for the play?

Well my friend and I qualified at the same time, I'm at a girls' state school and she's at a girls' boarding school. I try not to kill her when we talk about work. My 7-11 classes are 30-32, hers are 20-24 - honestly, it makes a difference. Her 12-13 classes are no bigger than 8, mine are 17-30, depending on the year. That is an absolute killer (and I do a lot of sixth form). She has boarding duties, as do most of the staff, but the only thing they have to mark are end of half term assessments (once every three weeks for sixth form). We have to do homework, plus class work, plus end of half term assessments. Remember that private schools are still much freer from all the supposed-Ofsted-pleasing nonsense the rest of us have to do. Boarding duties also means they teach slightly fewer lessons. I do t think she plans anything on a regular basis. They set up their schemes years ago and now just teach them. They'll have to change for the new specs, but they do them together and pool everything together. Much bigger staff than the CS would have had, so less work per teachers. Plus all members of staff have a 10% timetable allocation for either PE, drama or music or some other nonsense. So she spends 10% of her timetable time playing netball with the gels. And I do mean playing. You have to do a certain number of activities per week, but they're normally the staff hobbies, so sports, music, drama, watching films in French, book club, knitting, painting, whatever... so most staff think it's more like fun. Last year she 'supervised' a weekly cookery class that someone came in to teach, and a weekly one hour hair styling session, which a local hairdresser taught it has its downsides though. She has one evening off and half a day at weekends during term time, but does get amazing holidays. But she rarely sees her boyfriend in term time.

And hilariously they do actually do expeditions (not just trips) during term time which the teachers go on. All school trips are term time unless it's something like world challenge, we have to give up holiday time. And the girls are very different to ours, more likely to complain, and the parents can be a nightmare. Boarding duties come with boarding responsibilities, so she's on call at night. Girls constantly together like that means that friendship issues become a massive part of the form tutors' lives - we rarely have to deal with that after year 7/8. But there's very little telling them off. I taught down there for a day when we were trading teaching tips and lessons, and they were sitting on desks, had their shoes off, writing in pencil , chatting over the teachers. Totally different world. Much more indulgent.

if I didn't have three small boys and a teaching husband I'd been down there in a flash

Erm... I vaguely recall someone dispensing advice to Jo on not marking with red pen, I think, in Jo Returns. It makes a mess everywhere. That's not really very similar, is it. Sorry...

Yes, Cheddar, exactly. All of that, plus in Briesau the school begins from scratch and needs local girls to attend. Then the San develops separately, afterwards (employing local doctors ie. Gottfried, and not just bussed-in Brits). They generate employment in a poor village which relies heavily on seasonal tourism, although admittedly it does appear that literally every person they ever employ comes from the same family.

In contrast, a massive school and San suddenly launch themselves on a tiny and largely unpopulated mountain shelf in Switzerland. They ship in all their staff, pupils and patients from Britain/England (interchangeable terms for EBD ) and they bring along their trusty band of Pfeiffens too. Not that I imagine many Swiss would have been queueing up to do the CS cooking and cleaning, really.

I can totally imagine how a (British/English) teacher might have seen a job ad for a small school on the shores of the beautiful Tiernsee and thought ooh, that might be an adventure; whereas I imagine the prospect of joining the CS in Switzerland would be more like, I dunno, joining an academy based in a space station or something.

But at the same time I could see the appeal of joining when the finishing school is set up, as Vi Norton does: I guess again, it's small and newly establishing itself and sounds different and interesting. I am probably being irrational, because being stuck with three colleagues in the middle of nowhere in Switzerland is surely no less stifling than being stuck in the middle of nowhere in Switzerland with a much bigger number of colleagues to choose between, plus the alternative options of Freudesheim or Adlersnest. Maybe it is the proximity of Freudesheim that is the dealbreaker!

Isn't there a bit in one of the CS books where someone is giving tips on how to avoid too much marking? Is it when Jo comes back to teach for a bit, or when Kathie joins? It's a new member of staff receiving the advice, anyway.

could be a figment of my imagination though

I suppose there's a lot more effort made in the Tyrol books to integrate into the community - becoming bessie mates with Herr Braun, going to Marie and Andre's wedding, getting out to the Kron Prinz Karl for a bit of Tzigane-watching, being invited to stay with the Mensches etc. It all feels a bit more natural than when they only socialise with the School/San/Winnie Embury. I think it also sounds a lot more like there actually is a community there - they all band together in times of fire(ball) or flood or Polly Heriot ringing the school bell. And then for quite a few of the Tyrol books there's St Scholastika's. And the apple lady and a shop where one can buy fruit cake and smoked bacon and a hotel with hair-shampooer, and a winter carnival when men drink schnapps and get a bit lairy. There's bugger all on the Platz apart from the little Gasthaus where the echoes are.

I'm trying to remember how arduous being a teacher seems to be in Lady of Letters. I don't think there's much complaint of there being a lot of after-hours work to do - actually I think most of the staff seem to spend a lot of time gossiping and playing bridge, except for Our Heroine who instead spends lots of happy evenings at the ducky little cottage which belongs to one of her senior colleagues. They have wonderful evenings filled with fascinating conversations which sounds much better than the experiences in War Among Ladies, if perhaps somewhat less plausible.

To be honest, I don't see the appeal of being a CS teacher at all by the end of the series. I hadn't realised that the class sizes had grown so much, but even aside from that it's a ridiculous prospect - you're basically trapped in this awful tiny enclave of the School, the San, Freudesheim and Adlersnest. That's literally it. The only thing you can do for fun is sit in the staff room, visit Joey for English tea and radio parties, presumably visit Biddy and Hilary, and occasionally escort a class to Lausanne or Interlaken or something.

Somehow the school at Briesau doesn't seem anything like as stifling. Not sure if that's because the location itself is actually any better (Briesau does feel more populated than the Gornetz Platz, but realistically I'm not sure that the school staff would have had much to do with anyone other than the school, the San, and Die Rosen?) / more conveniently located for appealing trips; or whether it's that the smaller staff is actually less claustrophobic, because they're not such an inward-looking clique at that point?

By the later Oberland ones they have 25 girls in a class. That's quite a lot, especially when they also have to attend endless Evenings and fall off their chairs laughing at tableaux. Of course, Madge and her 9 pupils at the beginning would have had it much easier.

Anyway, my lambs, I'm off to fetch a cow from Herr Frankincense and a goat from Frau Myrrh (both of whom exist solely to lend animals to the School and never appear again) for the Nativity and lead them to sit next to Bruno the Untrained. What could possibly go wrong?

Sorry Princess. I had forgotten what an important role sheep was in the nativity (though in fairness I'd only promoted him as far as lamb). Fortunately, however, since the Ofsted inspection and Rosli's lengthy improvement plan for the Freudesyurt nurseryurt, it has been converted to an academy meaning that all problems with it have evaporated. So I can attend rehearsals (for my role as 27th peasant) and the performance without bringing the singleton along.

I think a Sadducee attitude means being cynical or unduly doubting. But I am basing this mainly on Lord Peter telling Parker not to overdo the Sadducee attitude in DLS.

I'm going to start on Regiment after finishing the Josephine Tey from the site someone linked to earlier. You lot are very bad for my productivity.

And no, Primrose, your DS can't be a sheep. There is a distinct progression from back row of the choir, to noises off, to sheep/baby angel through to First Reindeer-Donkey. Your DS must serve his time (unless he's a Bettany-Maynard-Russell of course, in which case he can have a starring role, three solos and a vote of thanks).

That was what I've always thought about the planning, Nell. Also, I always imagined teachers had a textbook they followed instead of having to spend time finding, adapting and creating their own resources, and after the teacher had demonstrated whatever it was on the blackboard or led a round of reasoning from cause to effect the girls got on with working silently at their desks while the mistresses did their marking. However, in War Among Ladies the teachers definitely go home (to their cheerless 'rooms' in the houses of working class women who'd clearly rather they weren't there) to spend the evenings planning and marking.

Yay, exciting new thread! Thanks Cheddar.

I think it was the Sadducees who killed Jesus. They crop up a lot in the gospels, anyway.

Ha, mornington, I think £16.14 is more or less exactly what I paid for my copy. £16.something, anyway.

Re: the CS compared with modern teaching. Their class sizes are a hell of a lot smaller. That has to count for something, especially re: marking. So you planned once - at the start of your career - and marked probably half the volume of work, on account of fewer pupils per year. Even allowing for random extracurricular stuff like producing the Christmas play and falling off mountains and trips to Stubaital and dealing with Joey, I think it's an easier job than now. Or maybe not. Maybe that's why they barely had to look at a doctor before becoming engaged - it was the only escape!

Oh to only have to plan once in 20 years!! Of course the CS was free of government interference and the dreaded ofsted....

Regiment of Women thread I haven't included any spoilers - it's just a placemark until Nell, Mornington, Emily and anyone else are ready for a nice spoilery discussion.

I bet the devoted Anna knows the correct proportion of salt to greens, but she turned down her one proposal of marriage.

God, I could really murder a cup of coffee with obligatory featherbed of whipped cream, but alas I have no cream in the house so I cannot. The coffee will have to be with plain boring milk instead.

Thank you for the kind encouragement re £8.27, Nell!

RoW contained a fair few literary references that rather passed me by, but at the time I was too hooked to go and look them up. I shall have to flick back and see what they were. There. "the Sadducean attitude to personality". Never 'eard of it. Wikipedia says the Sadducees were a Jewish sect who did not believe in any life after death - the soul is not immortal and there are no rewards and punishments after death. That makes sense in context.

Fret not, Cheddar, for I definitely paid more than £8.27 for a paper copy...

Books are lots cheaper than they used to be, aren't they? My 1995 pb edition says £8.99 on the back. This very interesting website tells me that equates to £16.14 in today's money - which is quite a lot more than I'd pay for a standard (ie not rare) paperback over the counter nowadays, and much, much more than I'd pay for a kindle version unless it was something I absolutely had to have.

So, it's half term, and I am under a pile of marking/planning/sorting out of resources/trying to plan the carol service/KS1 play etc. How on earth do the staff at the CS manage to spend their half term on excursions with the girls and still be ready to teach? I mean WHEN do they do planning and organising etc??? (obviously I would get slightly more done if I was not posting on here but I ma taking a break and longing for a cup of coffee with featherbeds of whipped cream..)

Hmm. Maybe this is why I remain unmarried and unmarriageable.

Fret not, Cheddar, for I definitely paid more than £8.27 for a paper copy...

Emily my lamb I am afraid I don't follow your point re: 'defervesced' and have just had to google it to find out what it means.

Goodness gracious me. I have just come across the following line in Autumn Term by Antonia Forest:

(The domestic science mistress) "had...told Lawrie that she would never catch a husband if she couldn't remember to put salt in her greens".

I mean, DH obviously tested me on the saltiness of my greens before proposing. Naturally.

Emily you have just changed my life! I didn't know Gutenberg existed.

And yes, ROW does seem to be on there. I'd never heard of it but have just downloaded it to see what you're all on about! I'd looked on Amazon already, but it is indeed £8.27 on there which I couldn't justify.