Ritu’s Healthy Living – Week 6 #icandothis

18 Sep 2016 52 Comments

by Ritu in Health, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: #icandothis, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Health Check, Healthy Eating, Slimming World

Well hello all you wonderful Peeps!

Sorry I haven’t done my healthy living update for a couple of weeks but school/life/family… you know, those things, they kinda get in the way!

But last time I mentioned that I was starting Slimming World to kick start things again for me, weight-loss wise!

So, I have been following the plan for 2 weeks now, and I can honestly say I have really enjoyed the ideas behind the eating, and weight loss reasoning. I am eating well, I am never really hungry either!

So, to start, here are a few foody pics to whet your appetite!

Did you see? Even my favourite chocolate snack, Malteasers, featured! I can eat Malteasers on this plan! I am so happy!

Yesterday I went out to dinner to celebrate our school’s Good Ofsted report, and I felt a lot more confident in myself too! And I didn’t have to starve myself, heck I was even able to have a wine spritzer!

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And my loss?

Well, after 2 weeks on SW I lost

5.5lbs!

That’s a total of

10.5lbs!

Thank you all for your encouragement!!!!!

#SoCS Sept. 17/16 – ‘-est’

17 Sep 2016 38 Comments

by Ritu in Challenges, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: -est, Best, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Colleagues, good, Linda G Hill, Ofsted, School, SCOS

Linda’s SoCS prompt this Saturday…

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “-est.” Base your post on any word you can add the suffix “est” to. Enjoy!

The Best!

Last night I went out for a meal with my colleagues. It wasn’t just a general get together, but a celebration of a fantastic achievement for our school, staff and pupils.

I don’t know if you recall, but just before the summer holidays, we were winding down,t hen got the stressful call regarding Ofsted coming to visit. Ofsted, for those of you that don’t know, is the inspecting body that the government has in place, who spring inspections of schools and then gives them gradings and constructive advice.

Two inspections ago we were rated Good. It would be nigh on impossible for us to ever get Outstanding, with the results we get. This is not because of the lack of effort on the part of the teachers and children, but the demographic of our kids is such that there are many from disadvantaged backrounds, or EAL (second language) children, so they are always wonderful,b ut not ‘quite there’.

Three years ago we got another ‘call’ and they came. This inspection was triggered by data regarding the then current Year 6 children, who were a very tough year group with many issues. We had new management in place, lots of new strategies, and a school full of willing and able staff and pupils. But we got Requires Improvement.

It wasn’t the worst. We didn’t get Special Measures, where the head gets removed, and the school could get taken over by an academy, changing the structure forever.

But it was disheartening, nevertheless. Everyone works hard but it wasn’t enough. We spent the last year and a half with various officials visiting constantly, and much restructuring happening, policies changing, and shuffle arounds of staff. And they came…

And we got GOOD again!

It was the greatest feeling, as many schools in our area have been receiving the lower two gradings recently, but we got GOOD!

We even had special chocolates!!

So yesterday, the head teacher arranged an evening out of music and food to celebrate all the hard work of the whole team, to get us to this level!

And, maybe I am biased, but honestly, I really do think we are the BEST!

#SoCS Sept 10/16 -View

10 Sep 2016 49 Comments

by Ritu in Challenges, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Linda G Hill, Socs, View

Saturday SoCS prompt …

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “view.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

How do you view yourself?

Do others view you in the same way?

Or do you have an over/under-inflated image of yourself?

I think I’m an ok person. Happy, friendly, positive, approachable.

Others may view me as annoying.

At times I can be funny, the life of the party, but on other occasions, I can be a wallflower.

But I know I can be a tad stubborn, I speak my mind, I often don’t think before I speak too!

How do you view me?

That Big Boy Of Mine

07 Sep 2016 32 Comments

by Ritu in Children, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Big Brother, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Children, First Week, Lil Man, Proud Mum, Secondary school

I feel bad calling him Lil Man, but in stature he still is, so I guess I can carry on using the moniker!

Anyway, as you all know, he embarked on the next stage of his educational journey on Monday, starting BIG SCHOOL or secondary school.

I was so nervous. Much more nervous than him, or if he was, he did a great job of hiding his nerves!

But we walked in together, and he disappeared off…

He used his new mobile to text me at break, to say everything was ok, and let me know when he had lunch.

His grandad was there at the gate, waiting to pick him and they walked home with a few of the other boys he knows already, and their respective carers.

So my baby got home in one piece, with a big grin on his face!

And over the last 2 days, he has surpassed himself, in my eyes, anyway. He has come home with achievement points each day (one was an Ethos Award and the other a Star of the Class Award!), no forgetting anything, rudeness or bad behaviour, that would result in behaviour points, and 100% attendance, to all his classes.

How do I know?

Well, nowadays there is this whole system that is like Big Brother for schools!

His school sends all parents a special login to a service where we can see a child’s timetable, and each subject teacher registers them every lesson so you can make sure there is no truancy happening.

If you are like me and you worry, but don’t want to be too obvious, this site is perfect. If he forgets to text to say he arrived (which he has forgotten every day so far!) I can check to make sure he was registered initially.

I can see if there are any positive/negative points awarded, so they can’t hide that detention…!

Even their homework is on there so we know when things are set, and due. A good idea so you can give them gentle reminders to make sure they don’t forget. (forgotten homework is a behaviour point or even detention!)

We know when they have PE, so can make sure they always have the relevant kit in school. Sadly they don’t have lockers or even coat hooks, so this all has to be carried around on the day, along with the relevant subject books for that day.

And all his academic progress will be on there as they get assessed, for us to see.

I can pay online for his school dinners, if he wants them, so he doesn’t have to carry around money. They have their thumbs scanned at the beginning, so when they want to buy food, they scan their thumbs, and the relevant amount is deducted. And, I can check to see what feed items he has bought too, so if lunch is consisting of 3 desserts and chips, we can try and rectify that, because we know… no more fobbing mummy off with “I ate [insert all healthy food followed by a fruit dessert because that’s what mummy wants to hear!}”

We also have the ability to email their teachers directly of we have any worries. I did this today, to clarify a couple of points, and assured them I would not become one of those parents who is constantly on their case! And I got the most amazing reply back from one of his form tutors, telling me what a pleasure our son is to have in class, and how much they love to have him there! I’m not that naive that I would think my boy is something extra special to them. They probably would say the same for all the children, especially so early on in the year, but it still makes us feel so proud of him!

So, all in all, he has settled beautifully! And yes he has his phone, which he spent a few days going crazy on, WhatsApping his friends constantly, but the novelty has worn off now I thing

And yes he has his phone, which he spent a few days going crazy on, WhatsApping his friends constantly, but the novelty has worn off now I think, so it is there for the emergencies that I said he needed it for!

Signing off as a very happy mummy! 🙂

Back to Skool

07 Sep 2016 18 Comments

by Ritu in Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Back to school, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Children, Nursery

Oh yes…

Can I just let you youngsters know that us teachers have the same feeling of doom when we come back after a school holiday?

We don’t enjoy torturing you with hard work and assessment… but it’s our job…

You know what, that sounds really negative! It’s not all doom! It is lovely to have that feeling of freedom for a few weeks, not having to be at school before 8am, marking, assessing, effectively labelling children for reporting purposes. that bit is really gloomy.

But personally, when I start a new school year, there is an extra spring in my step.

With Nursery, you are catching those children right at the very beginning of their educational career, and though I don’t know what they’ll be like, I look forward to the challenges that these unknown entities bring!

Last year, my first academic year as a teacher, I started with a true baptism of fire. With language barriers, social skills below expectations, behaviour problems and anger management issues it was a tough year, and that isn’t including the Special Educational Needs children and Children in Care either!

This year, I started on a positive note. I had met all the children already, and there was no one who was flagged up immediately as someone who would possibly be a problem child… ish. (Well there has to be some, doesn’t there!)

So this year we have 3 spaces still, which I am sure will get filled pretty soon.

The remaining lovelies are 26% English , 41% Punjabi speaking and 33% other languages, from Slovak, to Russian, Polish to Greek, Albanian to Kosovan!

One child is partially deaf. One appears to have slight aggression issues, one is a ‘bleeder’ which means if he bleeds, and we can’t stem it, we need an Ambulance ASAP! One with kidney issues, a few who speak NO English, and the odd nappy thrown in too!

A wonderful mix!

Yesterday we had them in with parents for an hour as many have never left their mums or dads, and today was their first day trying to be without their parents, for just an hour again.

3 criers/screamers in the morning. Not bad for 19 kids to be honest! We are down one at the moment, as he is on holiday still!

2 criers in the afternoon, out of 15. Two were unwell (already?!) so hadn’t come in, but that’s to be expected.

And to be honest, most of them were amazing! They independently went about their playing, and exploring, and a few started to get a tiny bit wobbly near the end of the hour, looking for their carers, but on the whole, they did GREAT!

It’s too early to say yet, but all in all, it wasn’t bad.

The only blot on my horizon was that I woke with a pain in my knee (recurring injury from a few years back – thanks Sonu Singh!) which actually got really bad by 9.30am. So much so I was holding on to things to walk because I couldn’t put weight on it!

But I soldiered on, and got to the end of the day!

Honestly, right now, I am looking forward to this year. I have a great team by my side, and we even have a new addition too, who is to be with us every day, so here’s hoping we can give these kids a really great start to their education, and make them enjoy nursery and love learning, so when it’s time for Big School for them next year, they are WAAAAY prepared!