Personal targets

I have spent much of the day marking coursework folders, which can be both soul destroying and extremely positive. Many of the kids have done really well. Some, I wonder whether they have been in the same classroom as me!

Anyway, its all about personal targets. In our school every child has a target, in every subject, based upon how they did in their Year 6 (Key stage 2) SATs tests. I am not going to go into how these are set, but rest assured in my role as chief statistician/number nerd at school, there are sound methods for doing this! When children are assessed, they are given a grade and this can then be compared to their target grade - then we give feedback about how to make more progress to achieve the target. The kids like that they know what they are aiming for, and for a significant majority they often decide that their target is 'too low' and aim for something higher - which is really positive. This process is pretty commonplace now in the education system - its not just us!

Anyway, one of my personal targets for today was to complete my marking of one of my Year 9 ICT groups portfolios. 30 folders. Joy. I have achieved my target and surpassed it by doing some little extra bits as well.

My other target was to plan my lessons for tomorrow - which has been done.

I have stacks of work to do this week - so my target list of jobs is now neatly written in my diary. I can guarantee that by 10am tomorrow morning, another 5 jobs will be on that list, and probably by tomorrow evening, I will have achieved nothing that I have planned to do tomorrow because my time will be demanded by other people!!!

My personal targets for this week (not work related):
1. Finish the book I am reading (authorised biography of INXS - a Christmas present - very interesting ..will blip it this week probably!)
2. Go climbing...we've not been for ages (probably about 2 months) - I know this because I have long nails - they are only ever this long when we don't climb as they have to be kept short normally.

So in honour of my personal target I present to you my GriGri, which is a belaying device - I use this because it has a safety feature which locks off the rope if I let go of the feed handle - this is useful when belaying Corin, as he is taller and heavier than me (by about 3.5 stone) and if/when he occasionally 'drops off' the climbing wall when going for a big stretch, if I let go, he doesn't slam to the ground at the rope locks. However, it usually means that I do fly into the air and meet him half way...it doesn't happen often, but its fun when it does.

Have a great week guys.

By the way - the cheesecakes I blipped yesterday were lovely :-)