The Daily Grind

Have just spent the last 4 hours trying to timetable “McCrone” for the staff for next session.

Having done the same exercise for the past two sessions I’d just thought I’d got to grips with it, then the cruel twist for 2006 reared; ‘up it to 2 and a half hours’.
Ever fair, I go to the Nth degree to work out exactly how much time is owed to individual staff members – including my part time staff. This feels like a ridiculous exercise: 1 staff member although full time, only has class contact time for 15 hours 50 minutes in the week; therefore she is owed 1hour 36 minutes of NCCT (hope we have the timer set!!)

Working out allocations is the doddle – trying then, to fit the time divisions into a meaningful Primary School timetable is the killer.

My brain is frazzled, my eyes are glazing over and I can no longer add minutes together…
I appreciate anew the difficulties some children have when getting to grips with the mathematical concept of Time.
What I’ve come up with works fine on paper – I think the Maths bit tallies and the children will be educated as opposed to being baby-sat.

However, all this and I’m supposed to be on Maternity Leave.
Only hope the staff appreciate it.
No doubt it will all have changed by August!…