The one and only Tearoom, to be sure , it is.

[UniS]

To pinch an intro from the very first one and only tea room thread. in 2009.

The tea room is now officially open, serving hot chocolate, tea, freshly-squeezed orange juice and a range of home-baked muffins. Tablecloths and crockery are charmingly mismatched antiques (no Cath Kidston here). We overlook an attractive although somewhat overgrown garden, with a distant view of rolling countryside.

Everyone is welcome but house rules dictate that anyone indulging in fisticuffs will be ejected.

Please come in.

2011
We seem to have fetched up in Ireland, this place looks remarkably like a pub,There is even a guiness barrel over there. The NMBs are all sporting shamrocks. The mirror ball is here, but I leave teh rest of the unpacking to someone else.

Pmd you about that CMot

just teh job application outstanding on jobs list.... must knuckle down and write it. Have to apply my letter and in that letter make sure I address all teh essential bits from teh person spec. AND show good numeracy and literacy skills!

would this glass of Shiraz help the application go a little more fluidly UniS?

Amber
Are you threatening to burn your Union card?
Or Mr. Gove?

If the latter, can I help?

Good luck with the job application UniS!

Evenin' all.

Unlike Unis, I still have 10000 things on my to do list. This is why I am having hot choccy and MNetting. ::nods::

As I do not have a child of school age and my husband is in a different union (university) I am simply staying out of this whole debate. I don't know enough about either side to talk about it. So just assume I agree with you, okay?

Horray for boy- proud mummy moment alert-
Boy has moved onto Red band books from school.

He liked very much having a football related biff/ chip/ kipper to read tonight as his first "official" red band book.

that has helped. I now have a long list of stuff I want to get into the letter of application - letter not form for this one. am stopping for night now and going to read a book now that DH has finished MY new stooki stackhouse library book.

Tee - it's not the pensions thing that has got me riled (although that's why I'm hiding in the priest hole)

Its:

EMA

Tuition fees

Not giving people enough time to prepare to bring in the new science exams effectively

Then saying that he's going to abolish modular exams (we haven't even started to teach to the new modular science syllabus that they have just accredited....)

Telling HTs to do things to keep schools open, that were they to follow his advice would result in them failing OFSTED

New OFSTED criteria saying that if a school doesn't do at least as well as the average school, it will fails OFSTED (notice to improve or special measures)

Destroying national pay and conditions for teachers by trying to make all schools Academies or Free schools that are not subject to them.

Changing the assessment criteria for science so that 30% of the marks in the exams depend on english (which is really good for my students with language problems)

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Fell off my "I'm on" again, so need to mark my place ... you know, at work we have forum software with the feature "My posts", but when I click on it my brain always thinks "Threads I'm On". Sadly it's not nearly as entertaining as MN. Or perhaps it's just as well, or I'd never get any work done.

No poorly children here. One of my cats has been bitten though, and is currently under house arrest until he feels a bit better. He's curled up on the bed while his brother is out marauding - ver strange, it's usually the other way round.

There is a distant cry from the priesthole of "Tea and cake" "Thankyou Catita"

Donki, "New OFSTED criteria saying that if a school doesn't do at least as well as the average school, it will fails OFSTED". This bit has been making my brain boil ... our country is run by a government which lacks basic numeracy and cannot understand an average (y5 numeracy). Actually, that isn't really such a suprise, is it?

Sympathy to DCMB's cat - keep an eye on it; cat bites can be nasty.

Good luck with the job application, UniS, although I missed what the job actually is.

Anyone else coming to London Zoo on Thursday?

Incidentally, Wriggle's friend's dog is no more. We are pondering Big Questions and after my RE course I am quite tempted to become a Hindu. It makes such perfect sense.

Serpent, makes perfect sense when you consider this comes from an organisation, which regardless of its prevailing politics, considers a CHILD who doesn't achieve at the average level to have failed.

Sigh.

I would LOVE to go to the zoo on Thursday, but I am nowhere near London and we are doing our normal stuff on Thursday - work (bah) and school. DD's school will have five teachers (out of fourteen) out, with the remainder, and their classes, going in.

Cat has been to the vet. He is pumped full of medication - and OMG I have just remembered he is supposed to have an oral anti-inflammatory this evening. Our evening is about to go downhill rapidly ...

Wrap him in a towel, cover the pill with butter and get out the red wine ...

Evening lovelies. Sadly I'm not going to make the zoo but have v busy work day ... Boo.
Love Reading back on eclectic tea room happenings. Little to report here. Went to great gig tonight. We're looking for Au Pair help eek

Tell us about the gig, Oxeye. And have you been (n)uked yet?

DCMB some advice here on giving cats pills.

I do believe a small boy is off back to the GP today. Still running a fever and not himself. I think all they will say is 'viral, nothing we can do' but I'd feel better if someone saw him. And then it's time to push to find an underlying cause because this has gone beyond 'oh it's bad luck and going to nursery'. ::nods::

?

Oooh, au pair help! That sounds daunting. I used to be a nanny and a childcare provider and never really thought about it...now that I have DS it boggles my mind how much those parents trusted me. :)

Poor DS, Tee. Hope he feels better soon.

Donki, neither really -though giving Gove an Especially Hard Stare would be ideal. As a Governor of a primary in an area of social deprivation, the only thing we will ever be able to do is 'fail' on these criteria, and yet the children have a high value-added score and are wonderful citizens who really care about each other and the world around them. That used to count for something. A friend of mine is chief of ed for CofE schools and is fighting the 'race for nothing but top academic results' with all his might at the moment.

::puts out and forms a queue for Mellors to serve her breakfast::

::mutters dark thoughts about teenagers who set their alarm on their phone for unearthly hours of the night and forget they've done it and left it upstairs::

Oxeye, my colleague (who has 3 children with 7 year gaps between each, and has worked ft and travelled throughout) swears by Swedish au pairs. In 12 years of having them, she only sent one home

DS's ballet performance today ! Can't wait to go and see him dance finally

Don't know much about this Gove...is he deserving of The Famous Cheerful Stinkeye and/or Slap List?

This country is mad... I've got an internet acquaintance who's been let down badly by his parents and the education system - so much so that the 'further' maths group of 4 have three of them doing fancy courses and swanky jobs, and he's working as a nursery nurse, studying for his nvqs. In the good old days I know that he'd have found a 'sponsor' of some sort - who would have swapped some of his childcare assistance for some studying time so that he would have more chance on the access course so that he can actually study to be a teacher. Shock horror - a man wanting to teach primary age children! Its almost as bad as working in a nursery!

Anyway, enough of that - another good morning wtih breakfast today, so we all went to school sunny and happy again - particularly as I'd listened to him and not made him go in his PE kit as he told me they'd be seeing a show instead - he was correct MC. Karate grading tomorrow.

I know what you mean - DH has been on-call so all phones in bedroom - and he sometimes accidentally leaves them so that they ping - which of course wakes me and not him

There seems to be a resurrgence of house sparrows here - noisy cheeping all day long - just like it was when I was growing up and we lived opposite the racing stables - clouds of sparrows then.

UniS - big congratualtions to Boy on getting onto the next level! We don't seem to be getting Biff and Chip stories at the moment - not sure why not, but I'm not complaining. MC has managed to kill the lot of them off in his 'creative writing' - you see, I knew he had plenty of vivid imagination and that retelling stories was just not his thing - and he got a praise point for his use of 'eliminate' which is, apparently, a Wow Word!

All countries seem to be a bit mad these days. Anne Lamott (one of my favorite authors) said that in these trying times "we must obey the Law of the American Jungle: Remain Calm. Share Your Bananas." :o So that's what I'm trying to do...just staying calm, having faith that common sense and compassion will prevail, and helping everyone I can get my hands on. It's keeping me sane so far. :)

We don't have the colored band books here but I can tell that they are of much importance so YAY for UniS' boy! :)