Survival Guide to OFSTED

A picture tells a story. Here is my week's story. These yummy items are all my little joys that helped me recover from the dreaded OFSTED. OFSTED, for those of you who don't know, is the team of inspectors who come and make judgements on the level of teaching that has led to pupil progress in your school. It is the way in which the government can further demoralise underpaid teachers. Constant goal posts and value based judgements where data is God; not the happy smiling faces of children learning to explore life in a creative and safe environment. That would be too subjective. And common sense.

Being inspected is always stressful, especially if you work in a school that for 7 years before you showed up had been failing to make suitable progress. A new team of us have been trying to turn it round, with the threat of an OFSTED inspection ever looming. It's extremely stressful and when the final call came, we knew it was time to find out if we'd done enough. We worked into the wee hours to make sure we had every shred of evidence we could possibly have and performed to our absolute best. The kids were amazing. One of my favourite moments was a suited inspector sat on a mini childsize chair with his clipboard and one of our 6 year olds stomps up and holds his work up to this bemused mans face and waited until he heard 'That's great work!' before he returned to his seat. TWICE.

I am now sick and tired and fretful. The washing machine just beeped from the MOUNTAIN of laundry that I ignored this week. The fridge is scarily bare. We found a mouse in the bath. However I survived and in this week has been the deep joy of a supportive man cub. LOOK at the goodies I got as a 'well done'. Champagne and flowers. The temptation was to crack open the champers immediately but having just taken every cough and cold remedy we had in the house, I thought it prudent to hold off.

I also received 2 new skeins. Yes, I know it's cheating my stash down BUT because I am now in control of yardage in and out of my stash I know these skeins can be welcomed and not do so much damage to my total that I will fall off the wagon.

If I were going to fall off though, could I land in a pile of String Theory please? I am not a pink girl, let's be clear but when the colours are this good, the little punk princess in me just wants to mosh in tribute. All hail punk socks.


Then there was this little skein of wonder. It's Old Maiden Aunt fingering weight in the colourway 'Lon dubh blackbird'. It's a very dark blue that's almost slate and it's a mix of Alpaca, cashmere and silk. Yup. You may drool now and wish you could touch it. I might just glue it to my face.