Tag: results

  • Don’t Judge A School By It’s Exam Results

    This week in my classroom…

    – I sent a child to the office in the morning. She had a 102 fever and threw up. No one could reach her parents the entire day. They never came to get her after school. The receptionist walked her home and the parents didn’t even come to the door to find out why.

    – A previous student from last year visited me during lunch. She told me all about how her cousin was murdered last night. Everyone is crying and sad. They’re going to see the body today. She spent her lunch and my whole lunch break with me just chatting.

    – One of my students and his mother were kicked out his aunt’s  home and had to move into a bed sit.

    – Another student showed up in the same white shirt 3 days in a row, which by yesterday, had turned gray with grime. Thank goodness our school has extra clothes to give him and a shower if it comes to that.

    – A different student’s father didn’t show up to chaperone for our school trip like he said he would. The child was sick with worry because his dad left angry the night before and never came home. He’s still not home. A trip to the counselor helped him out a lot.

    – On the coach to said school trip, another student told me all about his secret money hiding space under his bed. He further explained that he has to hide his money because his granddad steals it to buy cigarettes. He now hides his money in my desk drawer because granddad found his new hiding place (it’s only £5).

    – A little girl asked to grab 2 pears instead of one because she worried her mum was too tired to the food shop again. I gave her a bag of extra food and snacks that the school keeps around. Good thing we give all of our students free breakfast and she gets free school meals from the government.

    – A little boy showed up with a shaved head. He was so embarrassed that he refused to take his hood off his head. Eventually he told me his mum shaved his head because his aunt has nits so badly that you can see the bugs jumping around. He was terrified of the nits crawling into his ears and getting into his brain. A little research together during lunch put his fears to bed.

    – Another student shared that, when her dad gets out of jail, he’s bringing her to a skating rink. We started her a countdown on our class calendar.

    – Her story prompted another boy to share that his dad is going to get his ankle monitor off soon so they can go for a bike ride this summer. Of my 29 students, I know of 5 who have a parent that has recently been or still is incarcerated.

    Keep in mind that these are just the events of ONE week in ONE classroom. Are we actually surprised that so many of these kids can’t read or add? Is it really schools that are failing kids? Maybe schools have to be more than a place to learn for some kids. Teachers are doing more for kids than you can even begin to understand.

    The government needs to stop with the constant testing of primary age children and look at the bigger picture some children need support in other areas other than reading and writing, many need a friend, a role model and a bloody hot meal.

    When a school is only classed as good by the exam results we are failing the children who need the most helped.

     

  • What Type Of Mum Are You? Take The Mum Quiz

    Take the quiz and find out which type of mum you are

    [os-widget path=”/gemmaannpotticary/which-type-of-mum-are-you” of=”gemmaannpotticary” comments=”false”]

  • Teeth Whitening – When to Stop – Don’t be Ross!

    So you want to get your teeth whitened, but you don’t know what shade of white you want; we understand! It can often be a troublesome question with an equally elusive answer. On the one hand you obviously want to go whiter, but how white is too white? Should you be subtle or should you go all out and get the “dazzle your friends in the dark” look? Our answer is a simple one: DON’T BE ROSS.

    We have all seen that episode (and if you haven’t seen that episode and are feeling confused as you don’t know who Ross is, get out from under your rock travel back in time and watch Friends!) where Ross gets his teeth whitened to impress a date. In this episode, aptly named “The One With Ross’ Teeth”, he leaves the gel on for a little bit longer than is instructed and ends up with teeth so white they would blind Jesus.


    Now of course going very white can suit some people but you must take into account a variety of factors and no, wanting to impress a date is NOT one of these factors! 

    Your skin tone and complexion, your hair colour and your eye colour should all play a very large and important part in choosing a new shade for your soon-to-be pearly whites. If you have to don makeup to negate the glare from your gums then you my friend, have gone too far.


    A general rule of thumb is to first start with your skin tone and complexion, as these aspects of your face are of course dominant in setting the rules of colour (as is the case with foundation et al). If you are light of skin then you can go with a whiter shade for your teeth, this is because your teeth will blend in with the rest of your face and will assume a natural position without looking out of place, garish or otherwise ridiculous.

    If you have a darker complexion then we would advise you to avoid the very white end of the spectrum, VITA shade B1 for example. This is because when you have your teeth whitened half of the art is to have them not look like they have been whitened, you want to maintain a natural balance! If you engineer it so that your teeth look unnaturally white, then you will draw too much of the wrong type of attention!

    This being said, we want you to do you. So if you want to get the whitest shade of white then goddamn it you get the whitest shade of white! If you are unsure as to what shade will suit your face and your complex best, your dentist will be more than happy to make a recommendation; they will have whitened a lot of teeth, so they’ll know what looks good and what looks scary! Though of course, the choice is entirely yours.



    That all being said, this is not a good look people!!