Tuesday was being held at the Woodlands, a smart hotel on the outskirts of Morley. First, however, I needed to drop David off at his before & after school club (today of which was going to be a during school club as well!)

I went via the school, where we found a small posse of staff outside breaking the bad news to arriving parents. It transpired that when the Head and Deputy arrived late the previous evening (after the meal) the building lights were randomly turning themselves on and off and there were unpleasant sizzling & humming noises coming from the main intake which was in a small building near the boiler house. They called the electricity board who confirmed on inspection that it was a serious fault and they would have to disconnect the school building. Now the school had no power, the phones were off, the batteries for the emergency lights were flat and the only thing that still worked was the fire alarm which fortunately had a 72 hour battery backup. Electricians were expected and hopefully power would be restored later in the day.

At the hotel, we had four candidates to interview. I hadn’t been party to the late interview prep the previous week (as I was between Governorships) but it had been decided that the five panel members would each ask two open questions, the candidate would give a brief presentation of the way forward (based on seeing a PANDA analysis the previous day, a document that gives key metrics for school makeup and performance in various ways) and they would be given the opportunity to ask any further questions of provide further info.

As the morning passed, the weather came and went- torrential rain followed by sunny periods. A pink open-topped Volkswagen also arrived with a number of pretty girls in it posing for photos, related to the pretty in pink breast cancer awareness campaign. I had seen the Herby before- the Hotel apparently used it for wedding cars, as did the two Rolls Royces in a car-port outside. Someone also recognised one of the girls- she was the non-fat girl in “Fat friends” who had also been on Corry a while back.

We deliberated the candidates over lunch and gradually came to a concensus- the best man for the job was a woman. We eventually broke up at about 3pm and would be taking our recommendation to the Governors that evenining. When i say we- that excluded myself, as Karen had an event on so I was babysitting. The school confirmed that the power was now back on and that the school would be open again on the Wednesday.

The job being a good ‘un, I had a pleasant evening post- David’s bedtime unwinding and watching some telly. I was vaguely tempted to ring up a fellow Governor to confirm that our recommendation had been accepted but decided that it could wait…

My ompuer is layng up- as you cn se.

More school i crisi once fixed

Ian

The above term is apparently the defcon 5 of the educational world- the next one up (or down) from special measures, where Ofsted decide you are in deep do-do. It is also an appropriate term for the results of a disaster due to scope creep, something David’s school found itself in this week.

I was in David’s school on Monday, in order to assess various people for position of head teacher. Our first day was straight-forward- we watched four assemblies, mingled with the candidates and the staff during a buffet, observed them talking to the school council, assessed a written test and in the evening shared a table with the prospective heads and rhe senior management team.

During the first assembly, the hall lights seemed to be flickering somewhat- it transpired that the school had been the victim of some sort of power surge and several things had packed in, including the photocopier, the burglar alarm and the IT Suite Server. During the course of the day, the burglar alarm bell box went off based on its battery going flat and the main control panel no longer charging it. In the evening, after the meal, it transpired that the boilers were also U/S and that the school had no hot water. I queried the consequences of this, as it struck me that it it would of course mean no heating but also the inability to wash up after lunch, but hardly a showstopper. (Lack of hot water in the toilets wouldn’t bother the boy pupils of course). Some members of staff were of the view that the school should close as there was a worry that the surges might re-occur and threaten the safety of the pupils. I argued rather strongly with that- surges were generally either down to lightning or neutral faults and as the school was from the 90s and had regular electrical checks the risk of fire was negligible, that is what safety protection systems were there for. This didn’t entirely convince the non-technical in the face of several systems that had failed and my explanation that fuses and circuit breakers were damage limitation rather than total protection went straight over their heads. the decision was made- the school would close to pupils until further notice. Needless to say, this went down like a lead balloon with Mrs. Grey who argued that the staff rarely consider the consequential grief that working parents have to face.

Of course, it also potentially caused two of the interview panel Governors issues with childcare but we both pragmatically pointed out that it shouldn’t a major factor in making the decision. So we went to bed having wined and dined looking forward to interviewing the four candidates on the Tuesday, off-site so not influenced by school problems…

We went to see Fiddler on the Roof last night at Wakefield Theatre Royal & Opera House. It is a rather splendid little Matcham Theatre but I have always felt it is not one of his best, mainly for the comparatively coarse fibrous plasterwork.

The show was performed by Wakefield Youth Musical Theatre, an organisation I knew nothing about but would now highly recommend, the performance was absolutely cracking. I also noticed that some of the ensemble hailed from our local Woodkirk High School which has a big reputation for performance art.

Two things detracted from the performance slightly- the noise of the fans in the followspots in the Gallery and the stifling heat up there in the second half. Let us hope their refurbishment includes adequate ventilation.

It is quite comfy up there, the benches having been replaced by fixed seats on every other row, although they are a smidge too upright on the backs. Whilst it is the second circle, it is no higher than many dress circles in later Victorian Houses and other than seeing a bit too much floor, is still a worthwhile seating area in the house.

I was muttering the other day about an ASDA CD that was a complete set of cover versions without admitting to the fact at all. Having listened to all five CDs in the car, I’ve now decided that it is mostly Cak and so I took it back for an exchange. I swapped it for a 100 song 4 CD compilation that definitely is originals. Whilst they said no-one had complained, I noticed that there weren’t any of the original series on display. Withdrawn from sale, perhaps?

I mentioned they were ASCAP and wondered why. It turns out that it wasn’t ASCAP, it was MCPS, the mechanical copywright protection society that looks after library-style music. I was puzzled as to why i would have mixed them up, then I remembered that I had been involved in an ASCAP awards ceremony many years ago. It took place at the Banqueting House in whitehall, with famous Rubens paintings on the ceiling, which annoyed the Celebs as they had to smoke out in the hallway. I was stationed out there with Dinner Jacket, talkback headphones and access to the House Light Controls so I got to chat with a couple of familiar faces during the evening.

I also got to fix the PA system as well, the techies were all tied up with doing the sound, lighting and audio visual so I sorted out a dodgy speaker cable that had come adrift behind the set. I also noticed that they had cocked up the awards certificates and were just giving people anything with a quick aside that they’d sort it out afterwards. (I remember this was standard stage management for Kenton School prizegiving as well!) The evening finished with an “impromptu” singalong from the famous Lieber & Stoller duo, joined onstage by the likes of Billy Ocean and Phil Collins.