Sunday 13 February 2011

February School

That was a very lively school! The line up of Beaks included Miss Livingstone, Miss Brookes, Mr Grimshaw, Mr Malcolm and Mr Ray, while Mr Curmudgeon lingered in the background watching the kids with his curmudgeonly eye. There were around sixteen of us in class as we welcomed several new pupils, andrew, jennifer, richard and john (apologies if I've missed anyone out), and some old friends returned including adam, nicola, patricia and susie. At morning assembly katharine hedge was made House Captain of Celts, a good choice as she led Celts to a resounding victory in the House Cup last school year. We all applauded her.
The day had already got off to a lively start. Readers may be aware that our Beaks (teachers) are parked in the Home for the Befuddled and Totally Confused between terms where they undergo such things as bed pan training, how to do knots (although getting knotted is a speciality of Mr Melman's to be fair; he wasn't at NGM this term as he was tied up elsewhere), short term memory training and the like. Well, knowing this, when I saw Mr Grimshaw (aka The Grim) sporting a name tag with "Mr Grimshaw" written on it, I thought it only solicitous to ask him if he had it on in case he forgot his name? As Head Girl I do like to be aware of the special needs of the Staff as well as the pupils. His reply, would you believe, was to ask me for my punishment book and put in an entry for "cheek"! There's just no pleasing some folk. And I must admit the Grim was in good form, obviously he had been eating his Weetabix, I think daisy would concur with me on that one!
We actually started the lessons with Mr Grim, bitesize history, and this time we made it right through to Elizabeth the 2nd. nicola did the writing on the board for Mr Grimshaw, and got a well earned hp for herself for being helpful. I'd hoped to start the leson with a bang, but the new detonators I'd bought turned out to be defective. it took me until the last lesson before I managed a satisfactory bang, although that didn't stop me being punished along the way for all the abortive attempts!
In Biology we consolidated all that we'd learnt in the past couple of lessons by doing a test on bones and organs. I was quite chuffed with my results, despite muddling up the carpals and metacarpals, ditto the tarsals and metatarsals, and together with katharine taylor earned a couple of precious hps for my efforts. We got the same mark, despite being several desks apart!! t
ommy mac and I helped to give out the tests and gather them in and we were awarded hps for being helpful which was rather nice.
Maths was rather fun. We learned all about co-ordinates by drawing a "Treasure Island" , filling in things like the pirates' encampment, a village, forest, volcano, rivers, anything really we could think of which seemed pertinent, then providing questions and answers as to their co-ordinates on the map. It drove the lesson home much more efficiently than just using dry numbers.
Lunch was rather scrummy. I dropped some foam expandables into the beaks' drinking cups, but yet again, I'd bought defective stuff and they didn't expand. A couple got a bit soggy and I dropped those onto Mr Malcolm's head so that was a result. Only problem was I was unable to sit comfortably for the next few minutes and eat my pudding.
We've got several people off long term sick at the moment, so in Art we made Get Well cards for them. We divided into our Houses and each House was given their own "invalid" . Romans made cards for Michelle, as she's a Roman, Vikings made one for Prof Robertson, Celts did Matron's, and Saxons made one for John Smith, one of their number. We do wish that they all get well soon. We produced some excellent cards between us, and Miss Livingstone intends to post them out as a surprise to cheer them all up.
The final lesson was something of a mystery. Mr Ray lectured us on truth, with disjunctive conjunctions, "p"'s and "q"s, up and down arrows, tills (?) T/F, "and and or" and I should imagine at this point you are as baffled as I was. Being bored, I resorted to my usual cure for this, and caused some disruption. Mr Malcolm actually hauled me out of class rather than writing in my book, and gave me a thrashing which kept me very quiet for the remainder of the lesson. Especially when I asked why he hadn't signed anything off in my book and he said that was an "extra". I still had several offences to be dealt with, and Mr Ray and the Grim dealt with them in their usual salutary manner!
Final Assembly was enjoyable as we discovered how many hps we had all earned during the day. I was pleased I had worked hard and done my revision, and my homework, it brought dividends! That's the nice thing about New Grange Manor, you get credited for working hard and being good even if the Beaks are very strict with wrong doing! So a lovely day all round, and thanks also to chris, danny, geoff, stuart and if I've missed anyone out...sorry!
Bethany Grant
Head Girl