I love my job!

No, really, I do.

Today was the first of four days of collapsed timetable, with a focus on activities across school relating to Malaysia. This is in preparation for our visitors from a Malaysian school, who arrive with us on Monday.

Despite the fact that myself, and my two colleagues pictured (looking like they are about to be up to mischief) have been in a meeting since 9.30 this morning (which finished at 2.10pm!), we did manage to get out around school whilst taking our external adviser around on a tour.

It was fabulous to see different faculty areas engaged in different types of work than they would normally be doing with the students, being allowed some freedom to be creative, practical and not be restricted by curriculum, syllabus, schemes of work and assessment. I have talked to students and staff who have been full of enthusiasm, some of them almost gleeful, who have loved that today was something 'different', who have been able to paint, draw, sew, glue, stick, sing, dance, act, cook, play and most importantly, ENJOY throughout the day.

In the Food technology area, the students are working on a Malaysia Masterchef competition - each day being focussed on preparing different starters (today), main courses and desserts, which, when the final selections have been made, will then be prepared on Monday and served for lunch for our guests. A significant number of staff were able to go down to the room today and sample three different dishes, and provide scores and feedback for taste, texture, smell and presentation. The results of this process have been collated this afternoon and a winner of "The Starters" round has been decided - the chicken satay with peanut dip. Which was my favourite. We were blown away by how good the food was - all freshly prepared, from scratch, by students ranging in age from 11 to 16. We all agreed that the presentation was restaurant standard, and the tastes and smells were an absolute treat!

So a fantastic day. Tomorrow I get to spend some quality time running around taking photos, and hopefully I can eat some more delicious food and maybe get my hands dirty down in the art faculty.

Talking of food, it's time I went and made some tea.

Thanks for comments yesterday - I hope that I didn't come across negatively - my view of the world was coloured slightly yesterday, but I hope that the sentiment of being grateful and appreciative of what I have came across. And sorry mum for putting that picture up!!! I found it in my camera bag - Rose had given it to me!