Old age

Being an avid listener to Radio 4, which, I am told by younger colleagues and my own children, is an inevitable part of hitting middle age, I listen regularly on my way to work. This week, I have been aware of a trailer for a programme on air this evening called 'It's my story' here
Nothing unusual in that except that I was struck by the description of the retired couple who feature in tonight's programme - something on the lines of..."They live in a mobile home, which, like them, has seen better days."
My overwhelming reaction was that this was such an incredibly patronising way of describing someone!
If these people had been in their thirties or forties instead of pensioners, would the presenter have dreamt of saying anything so downright rude? Not likely.
Barring untimely death, we'll all be old one day and reliant on younger members of society and there are times when I would be quite happy to see the more insensitive among us being on the receiving end of the treatment they dish out to older people! Maybe one day they will. What goes around, comes around!
Am I being oversensitive or does anyone else feel that older people are frequently treated as second class citizens?
Feel free to use my forum if you would like to comment. (I've made it look pretty, so it's a shame for it not to be used!)

Slow moving traffic

Having had to negotiate yet more mobile cranes, slow lorries, tractors etc. on my journeys today, I have decided we need a new pressure group to free up the roads for those vehicles which can move at a reasonable speed during rush hours, which, these days seem to last most of the day.
So, sign up here to join S.M.O.O.T.H. alias Slow Moving Objects Off The Highway.
(Good, innit!!! Spent most of the journey to work this morning thinking that one up!)
Members of SMOOTH will have to undertake to throw sharpened knives at the tyres of any slow moving traffic they encounter on their journeys in order to disable them. They'll soon get the message!
Once they have got the message, there will be no need for the government's latest brainwave, which is to dedicate extra lanes for the use of cars carrying more than one person. 2 birds with one stone, see!
However, in the meantime, maybe it's time to get the blow-up doll out of the attic for the passenger seat so that we can use the dedicated lanes anyway. Come to that, one could put the doll in the driving seat and sit in the passenger seat in order to aim those knives more accurately at the tyres of the slow moving traffic. (Perhaps that is going a bit too far. Blame all this rubbish on a long, hard day at the chalkface!)

Snowdonia railway

Another early start this Sunday - this time to Llanberis to ride on the train to the summit of Snowden.
Snowdonia Railway
Keith has bought a PDA with satellite navigation sofware for the car, so he was eager to try out his new toy. I have been promised one for my birthday next month so that, when I am contacted by a school to do supply, all I need is to key in their postcode and this wonderful software will talk me through the journey. And it really does! Even when you deliberately go the wrong way, the lady's voice patiently gives you the revised route or politely suggests that you do a U turn as soon as possible. I was expecting her to start swearing and the PDA to go up in smoke - I was secretly a bit disappointed when Keith didn't get an earful for not following her instructions.
Anyway, anyone familiar with Snowden will be aware that the journey up in the train loses a fair proportion of its attraction if one is surrounded on either side by thick cloud, and guess wot!! that's exactly what happened. However, we enjoyed what we did see and duly climbed (almost) to the summit, to be met by a very tame sheep who has obviously been bright enough to suss out the opportunity for free titbits if she endears herself to the visitors.
By the time we had got back to base and travelled on to Caernarvon, the sky had cleared, there was hardly a cloud in sight and had we been at the summit of Snowden then instead of this morning, we would probably have had a magnificent view for miles! Oh well, the luck of the draw!
To make matters worse, no lottery win last night means work tomorrow as usual! :-(
But we did have a lovely day!!!

Random days

Keith has decided that when he is put in charge of running the country (!!), he will pass a law to randomise days of the week. This will mean that we will never know, until we wake up in the morning, what day it is. If we are lucky, we could have 3 or 4 Sundays in a row - maybe not so good if you have to cook Sunday lunch for the in-laws each day!
On the other hand, you could end up with 3 Mondays in a row, or a fortnight of weekdays and no week-end. Not so bad if you work weekends, of course.
What about a week of Christmas days? Fine if you're a child, bankrupting if you're a parent, disastrous if you are trying to diet.
If, like him, you are a workaholic and work 8 days a week, I don't suppose it matters either way, but it would make life a little more unpredictable. I could live with that!

Key Stage 2 SATS results

The maths SATS results arrived this morning. These are the results of the tests the top juniors sat in May. The score for an average 11 year old is level 4. Here, there is concern that 9 of the 50 children achieved a level 3 instead. When the names of the pupils concerned were read out to me, I wasn't at all surprised, in fact I felt that some of them had done well to achieve the level they did. I had had most of them in Year 3, so I knew their capabilities.
But there is concern. We never do as well in maths as we do in English, was the comment, so we will not be setting for maths next year. It demotiviates those children in the lower sets and we don't set for English.
No! There will be no setting in maths next year because the pupil numbers and school budget dictate that the part time teacher, who taught one of the sets, has to be made redundant. (It's not just me!)
I put forward my view that in maths particularly, it is vital to establish an understanding of basic concepts and, in sets, this is easier to do with the lower ability pupils.
But concern continues to be expressed about these 9 children. They're not really classed as special needs pupils - they would have to be shown to be working a full year behind their age group for that. Then there might be some excuse! So what, I enquired, does that say about the Special Educational Needs system? No answer.
But, wait a minute, does all this doom and gloom mean that we didn't get any level 5's?
Oh yes, 19!
Well, that's excellent.....isn't it?
Yes but 'they' will be wanting to know why we have had 'so many' level 3's.
So, no credit to those children who achieved their potential even though their potential doesn't run to a level 4 then?
Also, why is it that 'they' apparently find it impossible to understand that 'average' by definition means that there will be some children above and some below - yer actual curve of distribution, mate!!!

In-car music

Having had my ears assaulted today by so-called music emanating from a nearby car at the rate of unmentionable decibels, I wondered why it is only afficionados of 'heavy metal' or similar who feel the need to pollute the airwaves like this.
Why is it that we never hear strains of Beethoven's ninth streaming down the local highways??? Maybe I should start a new trend..........!

Traffic again

3 mobile cranes on the way to work this morning and 3 very slow lorries.
Then, on the M56, a busy motorway at the best of times, a red double decker bus trundling along at at least 35 mph. Looking at it more closely (well you do get pretty close to something doing that sort of speed on a motorway!) it was from very near my destination. I thought about offering the driver a tow, but decided against it.
Mind you, I'm glad I'm heading Liverpool way in the morning. the queue of traffic stacked up waiting to cross the Runcorn Bridge in the other direction is frightening! And this at 7.10 in the morning. Don't people sleep any more?