Tart Tartan

Jacket- St Francis hospice, Victoriana  sweater- MaxC, Trousers- M&S, Hat- charity shop/thrifted, Shoes- Irregular choice, Belt-Peacocks.

Hands up who misses Vix?!  I certainly do!
I found the tartan jacket in a charity shop a while before Christmas- it seems to be a vintage one but it's far too big for me-but I like it- I attempted to belt it and cover up the over largeness with my scarf.  The question is:  what can I wear with it to make it look best and do you think it would be possible to have it made smaller without ruining it?  Any advice, gratefully received!

Today was an INSET at school and to make it different/fun, help us to be more creative in developing the school and thinking of creative solutions, giving us a taste of having to present, we were put in groups for an Apprentice-type task in order to relaunch a hyperthetical school that had closed and was being reopened with a new name.  We were given results, data, map/plan of the school and had to create a new name, logo, mission statement, vision, curriculum, teaching and learning policy, timetable, etc etc.  We had about 3.5 hours to do it.  We then had to present to a 'parents' panel' for 15minutes with questions etc and there would be a secret ballot to choose the school. Inwardly, my heart sank, as I have slept really badly for the last 2 nights (I was still lying there wide awake at 4.30 this morning and like Sophie, I too ignored four alarms and woke late) and all I wanted was to sit and make notes as someone gave me ideas for teaching/looked at our own policy.  To make it worse, groups had been pre-chosen (like The Apprentice) and so you don't necessarily end up with the people you'd work best with.  Equally, like the programme, at first, we kept going round and round with ideas and one person kept harping on about small insignificant details.  Similarly, it did feel like 2-3 of us out of the 5 were contributing ALL the ideas, and it seemed a little like one member (who is very confident), talked lots, said they knew all about it but didn't really help much with ideas, copied and pasted things from the internet, didn't do much of the typing up for our Prospectus , sat chatting and then, when we said she had to do the presentation, copied and pasted my logo and mission-statement onto her first page, and then said, "Look at this" everytime she found a picture to go on the other 2 pages of the 3-page presentation and was just going to read from the prospectus.  Perhaps I am being a little unfair here- she did say, does anyone have a laptop for her to use as three of us were at the three computers in her classroom, but then I went to another classroom to use a computer to free it up.  I expect I was feeling over-sensitive because of the tiredness and anxiety over the task? The presentation, which was a shambles, ended up being all of us talking about bits with me attempting to enlarge our Publisher-prospectus on the screen.  I was happy with my contributions but I found the whole task really difficult and felt rather out of my depth: I know for certain I am not SMT material-  I am a definite sheep, not shepherd!

 The funny thing is: at the end, everyone said they thought the ideas we'd come up with (particularly the new timetable, behaviour policy and way and ideas of ordering the curriculum) were really good, but the shabby presentation and lack of organisation let us down (the presentation was not practised)! In retrospect, it was a nice creative way to do it, and was a way to help us to experience the 'mantle of the expert' style of learning we are engendering in the curriculum but I really really know how frustrated Apprentice contestants feel and how out of their depth they can feel!  However, life is all about challenges and meeting them with good will, a sense of humour and trying your best, even if you are highly irritated!!! Honestly, Sir Alan Sugar should get the contestants to do this as one of their tasks and they will understand just how difficult it is to run a school!!

How was your day?

xx

Big hello to lovely new followers: Alex, Darlene, Mags, Louise, Fiona, Sandy, Comrade Von Pussycat and Lucy in the clouds!  Thank you, thank you, thankyou!!!!