Sunday .. before a start of a new week.

Its the end of another weekend and next week will be about the last working week I have with the kids before xmas.

I have been grading all the shop projects over the weekend and its nice to see that most of the kids rose to the occassion, there were some surprises and a few disappointments.

Tomorrow I see a few of the classes and I am sure they wont be happy those who failed to reach an acceptable standard but the work was in their hands, It was in effect up to them to take on the learning and produce and if they chose to sit and chat, do homework or watch videos online that was there choice and the results they will have to live with.

I already know one particluar student is going to be confrontational because thats how he is.. he will complain and moan yet he is one of the laziest students with a poor attitude regarding work. He failed last year and in this system that means you redo the year. So he still feels he should be in 9th grade not 8th, he feels he is the big man in the class the one who knows everything and can act super cool.

When you consider I grade from 1-7, Grades 4 and 5 are seen by the kids as a problem even though they are a pass where as 6 and 7 are the grades everyone wants and most achieve - the lessons are set up so its almost damn near impossible to fail.

But this boys group managed a Grade 2 and I was being bloody generous. If I was honest I am actually looking forward to it. I have prepared sheets which I will need to print out in the morning covering all the classes - and I will pass them out without a word.. It gives the kids a breakdown on every aspect of the work both the grade they achieved for a particular area and over all grade with comments. There will be a lot of happy kids and of course some that wont be.

The rest of the week is clock design we are going to do an acrylic clock for the kids to take away for xmas. That will take up the remaining periods as well some break time and lunches.. There is no paperwork with this just a simple design and make non gradeable task.

So thats the plan for 12 days and counting. (Not that I AM counting you understand.)