Pecora Nera

Need to visit Esselunga

K in Modena

Very true. That must be such a pain. What did the single teachers do? Call mamma and papà presumably.

Pecora Nera

Hey even we needed to call mamma in the last month, there was no guarantee that her wage was going to turn up. We had already managed for 3 and a half months and life was getting very tight. It is difficult when the money coming into the house almost halves, at the same time the numties who are renting our house in the UK failed to pay the rent one month so we had to shovel money over to the UK.

Bella Italia

Patty

Pecora - I got the jar at the SMA (a small branch of Auchan) they are usually found next to the Oviesse shops nowadays.

Lorna at Vicenza

Chloe has had her first taste of what it means to go to bed late and have to get up early the next day.

She loved the school dance, went to bed at 11.15pm, slept through her alarm this morning and really didn't want to get up when I shook her at 7.30 this morning.

How I remember going out "just for a pizza" sometimes and ending up going to bed at 1 or 2am and having to be in the office by 8.30am


SCHOOL'S OUT - YIPPEE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Garbatellamike

C'mon Lorna it was later than 2am

Lorna at Vicenza

Not often on a week night - honest.

Those were the days when I could stop at the ATM and withdraw 20 thousand lire - have a great night out, and still come home with some change.

Pecora Nera

A colleague of my OH who teaches art and P.E across two schools received a call from one of the the head teachers. The head said I have looked at the marks you have given the children and they are too low.

The teacher said I have been fair with my marking.

The Head said you need to change all the marks and give them higher marks or the parents will complain to me and I will give them your telephone number....

The teacher has changed all the marks to 10. She said it was a waste of time producing all the course work and taking her time to mark the children's books and reports. She said she won't bother next year it makes no difference if she is forced to mark high to please the parents.

My wife said her colleague was very upset. I asked my wife what she would have done. She said she wouldn't change the marks.

Lorna at Vicenza

That ìs probably because a lot of parents don't see sport as being a "proper" subject and if their kids get shit marks in maths and English etc. at least they get good marks in sport.

Not saying it's right of course because it isn't.

Pecora Nera

I am not sure why the low makes but I think the teacher took her 2 subjects seriously and I suppose the kids she marked low didn't..

All the head has done is demoralise a teacher and given the parents a false picture of their children's progress. Can you imagine the problems if they decided to rank schools by performance as they do in the UK.

Everyone would receive a 10 in every subject.

Garbatellamike

Mind you to be fair we were heading for 10s all round back in UK.

You should have heard some Headteachers in UK squeal when Gove called their bluff over league tables. For years they had claimed that there was no grade inflation and no taking easy options to advance up the table (e.g. an NVQ in woodwork = 3 GCSEs at Grade A-C) and standards were much higher across the board, there was better teaching and strong determined leadership from the exceptionally talented Heads who would never stoop to focus on the tables.

So Gove said fine let's rank by the UK Baccalaureat (5 or 6 core GCSE subjects english, maths...et al)- The (unintentionally ironic) response from the Heads Union - this is so unfair we weren't warned we were going to be ranked in this way and would have done things differently!

Not sure that the UK league tables are anything other than a briefing tool for government ministers to create the illusion of progress and an excuse for Heads to justify up to 6 figure saleries whilst on the other hand the poor old classroom teachers are inspected to death by OFSTED and have to deal with little blighters who are fully aware of their human rights but completely bereft of personal responsibility.

Not sure the grass is any greener on the other side of the fence.

Patty

thats a sad story Pecora - so wrong on all levels. Your poor wife having to work in the system over here.

Pecora Nera

My wife is a much stronger person for working in this crazy system. 5 years ago she was very stressed by the school system and disillusioned by everything. She was pushing for us to return to the UK.

The past two years she has stuck to her guns and has had more than a couple of arguments with teachers and parents.

She finds school tiring and frustrating but now some of our best friends are teachers she has worked with and some of the parents of the children.

If she didn't love kids so much she would have chucked the job in years ago.

MarkRD

As mentioned in earthquake thread, maturità in progress, but not that much to moan about really .. except the amount of stuff they have to cover, but I suppose that's the same everywhere.

The terza prova (4 subjects in 3 or 4 hours) is probably the worst ... but now that's over with too!

Just the oral left to go..

Patty

My youngest son has just finished his terza media exams - it went pretty well. Now he can have a little rest before the real slog starts with the superiore.

I have the list of books required - a nice big dent in my purse

Hope your daughters orals go well Mark (my son was allowed to do the history of hip hop in his music oral and a small demo of each style - he was chuffed cos all the teachers applauded him )