Hot water is for softies

30/04/2008 by April First.

An easier way to read the whole of the Diary - or to go back over bits you missed - use the calendar on the right.  Dates on which there are diary entries are in blue.   Click on April 10 for the first full entry.

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To my horror I found my car was so tightly wedged in by two non-residents in the residents parking zone I couldn’t get out.   We stuck stickers on each car, and I phoned Janice and she drove over to pick me up.

 Four different members of staff (including quite amazingly the head who appears to have been released from custody and who is now taking the credit for our wonderful inspection) entered the office this morning to tell us that there is no hot water in the kitchen.   I checked the head’s wrists but he was not wearing handcuffs.  

On the issue of water various suggestions have evolved including a) setting fire to tables in the canteen, and then putting a pot of water on top, b) canceling school for the rest of the month while we send out for a local authority team who can identify the fault and then identify suitable workmen to put it right c) doing nothing on the grounds that hot water is for softies. 

In the end we decided to pass the problem back to the head, but by then he had left for the day.   We sent our condolences to the kitchen staff and called the police with a missing persons report.

Having announced my full-scale investigation into Dr Strange and his Softorque program, I felt I ought to do something about it.    I asked Janice.  She revealed all, but only on the strict understanding that I don’t tell anyone.

It seems that Softorque is the maker of a program that sits on the internet and stores all the policies etc, which means no photocopying is needed when a policy is wanted - you just download it, and you always know you’ve got the current edition.  I told Janice I had realised that at the end of the inspection.

But it seems, Softorque keeps a record of who looks at what - so if we find that Davinda Fenwick-Greene who runs PSHE has never been onto the program we know she’s never ever looked at the health and safety policy - which could be a handy piece of information next time she refuses to pay her staffroom coffee money.

I told Janice that was all good stuff, but still couldn’t see why it was kept secret.  Janice said that although they make a big show of looking at stuff in the school, inspectors base a lot on the policies, and how quickly people can answer stupid questions like “which academic syllabus covers interpersonal communications?”   Normally schools spend hours searching for the answer, but this program means you just search for the phrase, find it and tell them - within seconds.  Ofsted apparently then give the school top grades.

I asked Janice if Ofsted was really that dumb, and Janice gave me one of those looks that said, “so it is true - you do live in another galaxy”.

So the deputy head was not just anxious to raise our grades with Ofsted he also wanted to stop all the other schools in the county doing the same - which is why the whole thing was kept secret.  Quite simply he didn’t want our competitors knowing our secret weapon.

Thus my learning for today: knowledge is power, and my batteries have just been recharged.

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