Sophie and Bodie

Nine days after Sophie was born Janines daughter Sjaan had her baby in Christchurch. Nanna drove down overnight and was present at the birth. His name is Bodie and sometimes he has playdates with Sophie. He doesn't look keen on the kneegrab though.

This is Toria with Sophie.

This is another photo of me with Sophie. I didn't get to meet her for four months. She is gorgeous.

Grandaughter

This is my Grandaughter Sophie. Her Mum Janelle had her at 5:26 am in Christchurch. She was 5lb 14oz at birth.

Another Year

Well another year passes and I'm still a relieving teacher. Interestingly I was "terminated" at the end of last year on the grounds that the school didn't have enough funds to pay me. I mentioned this recently to our Union rep who promptly said rubbish the funding is continous. So I'm re-employed at least for the moment. lol. Did the NEMP thing again last year but not sure I will do it again. Sold the MR2 for a great profit to help fund the replacement for my partners car. We were written off by a guy who missed seeing the corner.
We drove to Hamilton without a clutch which was both hilarious and frightning and swapped it for a Mitsi Colt. I'm beginning to miss it though and I'm spending a lot of time on Trademe looking for a replacement toy.

2008

Hell it's a year since I posted anything on here. I spent most of the last year relieving and really enjoyed myself. I also spent six weeks working on the national education monitoring project (NEMP). This was a tue eye opener working in "top" private schools and decile ones. In fact I now have a bit more sympathy for ERO after seeing some of the things going on. Nothing actually bad just the huge range in the way schools operate. I've got my application in for this year as well.
This year I'm doing principal release at Marco and Kaimata. It's been very enjoyable working with a senior class again. You seem to be able to do so much more with them.
I still seem to be the IT person but I'm a lot more relaxed about it these days. I carry a range of units big and small in my head that can slot nearly anywhere in the programme.
Mason and Anja are both doing NCEA level one, Victoria has started at Stratford High, Cameron is yr5 and a member of St Johns.

Janelle gave up law and did a Diploma in Vet Nursing. I went to her graduation at Easter which was rather cool. She is working at a top surgical vets in Christchurch. They are the vets for the zoo and she is sort of hoping to work on a tiger or lion.
I sold last years mid life crisis toy - the BMW - for a profit and have since aquired an early model MR2 Toyota. Driving out to Marco on the Forgotten World Highway has become something to really anticipate.

Over the holidays we spent two weeks touring around the East Cape. Spent several days at Tolaga Bay and I had forgotten how cool it is. Took the boys out on the wharf and remembered how it had taken me ages to screw up the courage to jump when I was a kid. Mason went straight into a backflip and Cameron jumped straight after him. Who says modern kids are wimps!

Changed Lifestyle

Well the school has now closed and I've shifted house, my divorce has come through and I have a new partner. I've also started life as a relieving teacher. I was really unsure about this but it's ended up with more work than I can handle. It's been really great to get around other schools and see whats happening. I'm afraid it's confirmed my preference for smaller rural schools. This isn't from the learning aspect as I've been really impressed with the schools I've seen. It's a personal lifestyle choice. Still I've decided to do this for the year and then take stock at the end. It would be really easy to lose contact with the overall picture and become a glorified babysitter that walks in at 5 to 9 and out at 5 past 3.

I have also bought myself a toy. A 1981 BMW R100RS motorcycle. It was bought sight unseen from Trade Me and I picked it up and rode it back from Auckland. Firstly across the Harbour Bridge in high winds. The wrists were pretty sore and it was totally embarrasing at Mokau to find I didn't know how to open the fuel cap. A knowledgeable crowd of onlookers formed and we decided that it was jammed and a bit of brute force would help. It's worked fine ever since.I only ride it on fine days (wimp) and enjoy tinkering with bits and pieces.

SKI TRIP

One of the better things about your school closing is that you can spend up a bit more on school trips. We have made two attempts to go skiing in the past but it's never worked out. Well it's hard to ski with no snow. So at very short notice we booked accomodation at Mt Heights Motel and Discovery ski packages for everybody. The weather on the first day was great and the kids I all started with a skiing lesson.It was really neat to be a pupil with them. They passed and I failed. I damaged my knee and that was basically it for me. The kids were all skiing at the end of the two hour lesson. They spent the rest of the day zooming up and down Happy Valley pausing only for snack bars, drinks and sunscreen. We left when they closed the field and went over to Tokaanu for a lounge in the hotpools. Had tea at Turangi and all kids were asleep within the first km. home.
Next morning the weather was dreadful but we rang and they said it's great come up. We were above the clouds, brilliant sunshine, and we could look across at Mt. Taranaki seeming to float above the clouds. Pure magic. Cameron spent the day skiing Happy Valley with boots. skipants, gloves shades and a singlet. Toria had more lessons and made one trip down the valley. The others went up with two skiing parents to the Rock Garden. They spent until two in the afternoon skiing and then we headed for home. The improvement in their ability was remarkable and it's well worth the trip.

Weblogs

Hmm it's been awhile since I added anything to my own weblog - seem to spend heaps of time working with others on theirs. In fact I've help set up over fifty this year. Basically we seem to have met our goals with setting these up. There have been a few technical problems and staff changes across the schools haven't helped much. Now I feel it's up to the schools and the kids themselves to continue. I have had lots of requests for site counters, how to add video etc. I was initially going to do this. However after thinking it through I've decided to put in a short lesson at each school on how to follow links and use help pages. Two of my seniors have been taught to do this and with a little help on using the templates for their sites they have mmanaged to do a great deal themselves. The point of all this is the kids gain ownership of their weblogs. When you put in the effort to personalise your blog,(or help each other to do it), then it becomes yours. Hopefully this applies to the concept as well.
I'm very pleased with the kids weblogs from my school. It's now an option for them when it comes to publishing written work. They are reasonably selective about what they publish and the driving force seems to be the perceived audience. For the juniors it's a specific group; nanna sisters, family friends, the people who put comments on the blogs. The seniors are more aware of the far wider potential audience. One good reason for a sitecounter is it can show them the world wide audience. It's a shock to see that someone fron Nepal or Japan has logged on to your blog.

Lately

This week the Board made the initial decision to close the school due to lack of numbers. Next week we will be holding a community meeting to see if they come up with any alternatives and then we will be approaching the Ministry.
So with most long term planning on hold at the moment it's been good to get out into our cluster schools and help them set up weblogs. We are aiming to get the children sharing their stories with a much wider audience. Also an audience that can provide feedback. We are running everything through one site called ED's Weblogs. My own personal thought is that we structure everything so that the children are using the technology to achieve an outcome rather than the technology etc of weblogs being an outcome. Early days - but they do look good.