Three boys kidnap the ashes of their best friend, Ross, after his funeral to give him the send off they think he would have liked, but crash into disaster after disaster.

It’s wonderful stuff. I loved how the story slowly unfolded to add detail onto detail of Ross’ life, but through the eyes of his friends. He wanted to be a writer, but was pressured to do well at school. He was bullied, but stood up for himself. Gradually the secrets unfold to reveal the true tragedy.

I thought the interaction between the boys was spot on. They make a strange trio, but it’s interesting how the dynamic between them operates, now that the connecting corner of their own little square has gone.

Plus, it’s very complementary to school librarians – what more does a book need?

The project continues and it’s intriguing. The pupils are meant to be creating an itinerary for an imaginary trip to Japan, with each member of the group creating one of five pages, plus a contents page and a map.

What’s so interesting is how the pupils are approaching it. When asked, they’ll say, I’m doing mountains / food / sumo or whatever their chosen topic is. They have found the whole idea of fixing a task to a location incredibly difficult to work into their thinking.

Discussing the issue with the PT, we tried to figure out what the problem was, and came to two conclusions. First of all, the commonest kind of investigation is researching a thing, but we were actually asking them to plan an event. It requires a different kind of planning and organisation.

But we also wondered if there was a deeper issue: maybe we were asking them to do something totally alien.

All our lives, we went on days out with our parents. As adults, we’re used to deciding on destinations and researching different places for things to do while there. Some of our pupils have never left their home town. They’re not used to exploring, so why should they be expected to

So, we’ve been working towards building this idea of tourism into the whole investigation. We’re going to change how the topic is introduced. I’ve got a massive collection of Scottish tourist leaflets in the library. If I could find a handy Japanese tourist office to provide me with a similar collection for japan and let the class loose on them with a map, then that might help. They could subsequently research their ideas in more detail, but it might solve the biggest problem we have right now. A collection of Lonely Planet type travel books might work.

Of course, not every group has this problem. I was approached today by a pupil with a different dilemma. Her group had identified a temple they wanted to visit in a specific corner of Tokyo, but she couldn’t find a restaurant nearby “and it can’t be sushi again”. Good old Lonely Planet suggested street stalls selling grilled chicken or noodles, and we were sorted. Wonderful stuff.

Of course, I don’t expect this level of in-depth detail from everyone, but I am very happy that we’ve got an investigation that demands synthesis and thought. We just need to sort out the kinks.

Caught the end of an item on Radio 4 t’other day as I was going home. So far as I can tell, the two guests were discussing the need for an ‘acceptable’ accent when applying for jobs. According to one speaker, hotels would not want someone a receptionist who would say,  ”Can I ax you something?” instead of “…ask you something?”

The response was illuminating , but not particularly useful. The other guest claimed that this particular example of swapping consonants originally came from the slave plantations, whose overseers who would often have come from Ireland or Scotland. It seems ironic, he says, that black people were still being prejudiced against for speaking in a style they picked up originally from the people who abused them. Fascinating, but I don’t think it addresses the issue.

In any case, I can’t comment on ”ax” so let’s look at Scots instead.

Husband was constantly told to “speak properly” by his mum. She is not anti-Scots language, in fact I’ve learned a fair few sayings and words from her, but she remains happy to stand by that as a way to get on in life. I was very lucky that my own parents were so interested in Scottish culture of all kinds, so while I was also told about “proper English”, I was aware that there were such things as dialects with their own vocabularies.

Language changes. It is ridiculous to attempt to freeze it in time. That’s why dictionaries need updating. There is no “correct” language, but there is definitely a contextual use of language and I think people should be more aware of using different languages at different times. Most folks wouldn’t be surprised if an applicant turned up for an interview in jeans and a t-shirt, then didn’t get the job. The clothes would be inappropriate for that context. And if we can use clothes  to project an image, why not change your language to suit the occasion as well? I’m not suggesting that the accent is changed, but the language can be tidied up, so give the right impression.

This is particularly important in school. I allow pupils to use textspeak on the blog specifically to make this point. As a blog, I would argue that textspeak is contextually acceptable. The same terminology would not be acceptable in most other written work required for school. Rather than prevent it all together, why not give them the opportunity to practise?

Photo by Tochis @ Flickr

This time, we’re asking groups of pupils to create an itinerary for a week’s school trip to Japan, which gives them five days to plan for.  We started the groups brainstorming today which demonstrated vast gaps in their knowledge. As they reported back, I mindmapped their information and organised it into four really broad areas: geography (including environment), technology, culture (including history, sports, festivals etc) and economy, just to give them a broad starting point. This was useful for sparking new ideas.

We’ve put the assessment criteria online, asking for a contents page, a map and five places to visit. Each person has to create one page, for they’ll also be marked on the groupwork, and each group will also mark their members according to how well they helped the group.

Photo by Jean-François Chénier @ Flickr

What I like is that there’s so much space for individuality, decision making and synthesizing information. Pupils can investigate an area that they’re particularly interested in, but they can’t just choose, say, sumo wrestling and copy lots of information out. For one thing, there’s not going to be a lot of  time so they’ll have to gather basic information asap. I won’t allow printing of information either.  Secondly, they’ll need to find out where the sumo is taking place, mark it on their group map, and tie it in somehow to their group itinerary.

Some groups are discussing using various methods of  transport around Japan, others are selecting five different locations to go sightseeing,so there’a already a lot of individuality happening.

And then, I also had to explain to one group that this was an imaginary trip, and we weren’t really going. How do you deal with that level of disappointment?

Last year at uni, I had an inclusion assignment for which I tried to develop a module which would raise awareness of inclusion and equality. Collaborating with a colleague, we drew up lessons to analyse stereotypes and get pupils to think about their own reactions.  Unfortunately I found suitable resources incredibly hard to find so I ended up handing in a report full of good intentions but lots of excuses for all the inaction.

Well, the module springs into action this week, and it’s looking good. We decided to move from a very general equality agenda to a focus on disability rights. Naturally I have my own interests here, but I had also found some great video clips from the Disability Rights Commission back in December, which sparked the idea for the investigation.  About a month ago, I discovered another great DRC film called Talk, which is still available from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The icing on the cake was a report by Cerrie Burnell for the BBC which examined prejudice against disability in the media.

The investigation starts with a series of six very short case studies covering different disabilities.

• I use a wheelchair and it’s difficult to get around school.
• I’m trying to get a job but employers don’t want to know because I’m partially sighted.
• My supervisor is always making nasty comments about disabled people. I’m scared in case he finds out I’ve got diabetes.
• I have dyslexia and want to go to college but my friends say the lecturers won’t understand my learning disability. I’m worried that I’ll fail.
• A group of  girls have been making fun of me because I’m deaf.
• My brother has autism and sometimes says and does strange things. I don’t like it when people talk about him and say bad things.

They’re deliberately short to encourage the groups to read through them all quickly, and select one that they would like to work with. Their task is to “make life easier” for the person in the case study in some way. That could mean a poster campaign, an invention, writing a story/poem, creating a presentation; it’s entirely up to each team.

I’m excited that it’s getting started, and curious to know what the kids will make of it. Unfortunately, I’m not likely to see the results in person since my timetable is already so busy.

It’s been interesting re-reading Hunter Davies’ book recording his walk along Hadrian’s Wall in 1974 to see how things have changed since then.

First stop is Wallsend. In Davies’ book, Segedunum fort is still covered by terraced houses. Now the fort has been excavated, and an award winning museum stands beside it.

Later on his wander thrugh the suburb of Benwell, Davies tops to see the Vallum gateway and Temple of Antenociticus. There’s a great explanation and pictures on the Roman Britain.org website. Nowadays they look pristine. Davies complains about the rubbish chucked all over the place. Looks like the kind of place that I’d love to go and spend hours poring over but husband and children drag me away after five minutes. Thank heavens we’ve all got cameras now: they’d have something to keep them occupied!

Gorgeous piece of piano music on Classic FM this morning, which reminded me of the theme tune to Beatrix Potter (sung by Miriam Stockley).

It was called Wind in the Grasses, by Helen Habershon, and was played by John Lenehan. It comes from an album called Found in the Rain. You can hear bits of it on Helen Haberson’s website.

Left at lunchtime on Friday to go along to Daughter’s school show (really funny and well produced), and discovered The Envelope from uni waiting for me at home. Got good comments for my final assignment so I’ve now completed my PGC APS. I’d love to continue, but the cost is just too much, for now anyway.

Anyway, I’m feeling quietly chuffed and proud of myself right now.

I loved the video for the Children in Need single. Me and Daughter sat and screamed excitedly at the telly:

“Thomas!”

“Wombles!”

“Scooby!!!!”

“Pingu!!!”

“Chippy Minton!!!!!”

“Who?” asks Daughter, (guess I didn’t bring her up right).

I think it’s a phenomenal piece of work, getting all these animated characters together. Peter Kay described it as “joyous” and I couldn’t agree more. It’s put the biggest smile on our faces and it’s going to be a DVD single!!!! Hurray!!

But where was renowned first bass of the Grumbley and District Choral Society? (You might know him better as Ivor the Engine).

Another interesting and (mostly) fun week. In-service on Monday I was introducing more staff to Glow, working on Health and Wellbeing outcomes and planning for literacy and numeracy. Plus I got a good start on the restart of the Junior Fiction stocktake.

It’s been a relatively quiet week for classes, so there’s been time to help pupils with their personal statements for UCAS, which involves a lot of editing and a lot more persuasion and investigation. Pupils find writing nice things about themselves so difficult. I also had time to work with various departments on forthcoming investigations, with the associated searching and evaluation of resources, updating the website and of course, the inevitable timetabling.

By the end of the week I’d managed to complete the junior fiction stocktake, got loads of orders in and  even managed to work on the Librarians’ Glow training in January. And then I was asked for input regarding various new projects, which look really interesting and worthwhile.

Naturally, there were problems too. I was trying to train pupils on the library catalogue, but it decided not to work. Seems to be a problem whenever we get an update to the software. And we’re still having problems with classes trying to log in. It’s really frustrating for pupils to see people on either side working away, when the network is refusing them access for no apparent reason. But all of this is being documented, and people are working on solutions and ways around the problems.

Life is pretty good right now.