Friday Funny

XKCD

A useful meeting!!

We had our regular termly technicians' meeting with the Head of Science yeaterday. My HoD was there too, because as from Easter next year he is taking over as HoS and so will be managing all 3 technicians, not just me.

It was quite a productive meeting for the most part. We highlighted the fact that since we switched to iGCSE the number of practical lessons has really increased and we are starting to get a bit frayed around the edges at times. It's been agreed that we are going to be more strict about requisitions being handed in on time. This has been a grumble of mine before and hasn't really improved over the past couple of months so we will see if a stern reminder from HoS changes anything. At least we now have his backing to refuse late requests if we are already swamped so that is a step forward.

The other main outcome is that teachers have been reminded that pupils should put equipment back where they got it from, and that teachers should be checking that everything is returned at the end of the lesson. Again this is something I've mentioned in the past so it will be interesting to see if anyone takes it seriously this time!

Trips

The CERN trip went very well, all things considered. Travelling abroad with 30 teenagers is rather stressful, and feels a bit like herding cats at times, but to their credit they managed to be at all the meeting points at the right times and we didn't lose anyone.

Next on the agenda - Rome. The trip to the Vatican Observatory heads off in under 3 weeks so we have to finalise the paperwork for that.

It never ends!

CERN here we come

Tomorrow we head off to Switzerland for our 4th annual visit to CERN. I'm looking forward to it, but as always I am at the stage now where I am terrified that something will go wrong and it will be my fault.

We started booking flights etc pretty much as soon as term started, in September, but it's really difficult to pin down some of these kids and their parents. One lad's family seemed to feel that his passport was in some way classified information and were incredibly reluctant to give us the details we needed to confirm his flight. Another lad has decided that, even though his parents filled in all the paperwork, he doesn't actually want to go on the trip.

My eternal nightmare for every physics trip is that we will turn up to the airport and find that not everyone has a plane ticket, or that I've booked it for the wrong day. At least I'm not responsible for booking hotel rooms. HoD dealt with that, so if we don't have enough beds it's not my fault!

New Toy

I'm so happy! Yesterday, along with an order of batteries, magnets and all the usual stuff, I got this:

Can you guess what it is?

It's my new soldering iron kit. Isn't it beautiful?

I've needed a new soldering iron for ages and when I saw this kit, I just couldn't resist. It has 3 different sized bits and even a desoldering pump. Can't wait to get soldering. :)