13/05/2008 by April First.

Following Friday’s escapades Janice gave me her copy of “The Book of Admin Excuses”.  It was a good move for, within minutes, Dr Havoc Blythe dropped in.  He announced that he had reserved the “best table in the house” at Maison Jules that evening, that Pierre would be serving personally, and that he would be honoured if I would accompany him. 

“I’d really love to come doctor,” I said, as I opened a page at random, “but unfortunately I have a horse running in the 2.30 at Kempton and so won’t be able to make it.”  A strange twitch passed over his face and he left.

At lunchtime the Mr Masamasam, our Bursar went home suffering from spots. 

In the afternoon two work experience students turned up.  They should  have been here at 9am but claimed they “didn’t know what time we started”.  Janice told them to go and help prepare the frog pond for the visit of the Amphibious Disorder Response Unit. 

25 staff off with spots, no teachers in office.  We declared victory and announced a public holiday in celebration.  

At 3pm an ambulance arrived to take away four staff who had tripped over the health and safety manuals Janice had helpfully left in the staffroom doorway.

A letter arrived from the BBC asking if we would be willing to lease the rights to the “Ofsted” alien creatures for the next series of Doctor Who.  Janice phoned the company that makes Primeval and said that the BBC had offered us ££££ for the Oftsed creature – did they want to up the bid.  She also phoned Sky to see if they wanted to include Ofsted in Blake’s 7.   The Primeval company phoned back and asked if the deal included a licence for the Softorque software that kills Oftsed creatures.   We said probably.

Since my diary has started appearing on the blog I have been getting emails asking me to explain.  Am planning a dictionary of common diary terms.

Do you have any stories to share (complete anonymity guaranteed!) Send me your stories, thoughts, comments, anything: April@admin.org.uk

To receive regular news of a somewhat more serious variety about school administration please take a gentle stroll to http://www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html and just click on the Admin option. There’s also news and info on www.admin.org.uk

You can read the whole of the Diary - or to go back over bits you missed - by using 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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12/05/2008 by April First.

Received a call from a private school in Hampshire asking if they could rent out my bathroom as a swimming pool. We agreed a fee.

I returned to the streets with more notices – this time apologising for the damage to the tyres of several cars. The results were even better. Four tyres to examine rather than two bumpers. Average inspection time, 74 minutes.

While strolling back down my street a couple emerged from under their car asking if I had seen the person who had put the notice on their vehicle. I gave them a description of the health and safety officer from school yesterday.

A rather strange story appeared on the news about rumours of alien landings in our part of the country. I have no idea who dreams up all this nonsense.

As I anticipated Dr Havoc Blythe phoned suggesting that as it had been written in my hands, perhaps he and I ought to take a meal out together, in order not to disharmonise the prophecy shown in my hand. I told him there was a 30% chance I might pop by the fish and chip shop later. I didn’t.

At the quiz night at the Toppled Bollard Billy The Dog tried to have Jermaine Haskins Hawgh ejected amid claims of cheating, after Jermaine was found texting questions to an unknown helper. Billy threatened to shut the quiz night down and instead have Elvis nights. Blinky said she thought that would be fun, but we sat on her, and the majority won the night.

A delegation of parents arrived at my house around noon to complain about “my school’s” entry policy. Just as I was trying to explain that it was not “my school” a dozen estate agents appeared in the garden, asking to see me about “my school’s” entry policy. I sat everyone down and gave them cake. Soon after the police arrived saying they had had a complaint about overcrowding in my house. They handed me a list of 175 families who are supposedly staying with me. My statement that I lived alone seemed not to convince them given that there were 45 people in my sitting room. The police asked me to accept a caution. I asked them to accept a cup of tea. We had just about reached stalemate when an altercation broke out between the estate agents and the parents and the police arrested everyone.

Later Dr Havoc Blythe turned up with Derek and they helped me straighten the place up which I thought was kind. I found it rather hard to kick them out, so we eventually went to the pub and played darts against the local police force.

There were two very bizarre looking characters in the corner who sat, not drinking their pints, staring at us. Binky said they were aliens. I thought they looked like Ofsted. Janice reminded me that these were one of the same thing.

Do you have any stories to share (complete anonymity guaranteed!) Send me your stories, thoughts, comments, anything: April@admin.org.uk

To receive regular news of a somewhat more serious variety about school administration please take a gentle stroll to http://www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html and just click on the Admin option. There’s also news and info on www.admin.org.uk

You can read the whole of the Diary - or to go back over bits you missed - by using 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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10/05/2008 by April First.

The deputy head introduced me to Ms Jenkinsonly, an LEA health and safety inspector, and told her he was leaving her in my “good hands”.  Ms Jenkinsonly dropped her hat and coat on the toxic waste notice. Not having been aware that I had “good hands” I spent much of the rest of the day examining them for overt signs of righteousness. 

 Do you have any stories to share (complete anonymity guaranteed!)  Send me your stories, thoughts, comments, anything: April@admin.org.uk

To receive regular news of a somewhat more serious variety about school administration please take a gentle stroll to http://www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html and just click on the Admin option. There’s also news and info on www.admin.org.uk

You can read the whole of the Diary - or to go back over bits you missed - by using 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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09/05/2008 by April First.

Ms Handright emailed in sick, having come out in spots.  Janice put the word around that it probably had nothing to do with the package Ms Handright had brought into the office.   I nurtured Ziggy all day in case he/she had caught anything from Ms Handright.

Meanwhile parents were on the phone within seconds demanding knowledge of the plague which had hit the school.    After a brief consultation we decided to offer them the chance to trade their child’s place at the school for a place in any other school.  We agreed there should be no fee for this service, save the normal £100 facilitation charge.  One parent asked if it were true that the next series of Torchwood would be filmed at the school, and if so how he could arrange for his daughter to be in the series.  Apparently she can sing and dance.

In the interest of efficiency we measured the number of teaching staff who dropped in for a chat during the course of the day: 17.   

A committee of parents has, apparently, raised £25 towards finding Bertram a new home.  We thanked them but told them there was a legend dating back to the foundation of the school which has it that if the school frog should ever leave, the school’s hot water system would fail, so we really couldn’t let him go. 

Ziggy seems to be quite tame and enjoying his (or her) regular round of lettuce.

At 4pm the BBC phoned asking if they could film several episodes of the next series of Torchwood in the school – to which we agreed, stating that the head’s study would be an ideal place for the dare-devil team’s office and headquarters.   They also asked if they could buy the rights to have the Softorque software in the show.  Patiently I explained that anyone could go out and buy Softorque, it was advertised on the internet, but that it didn’t destroy aliens, it simply helped the school keep all its school policies up to date, and thus get better Ofsted grades.

“And this ‘Ofsted’ said the BBC woman.   That’s run by aliens right?”

I agreed that this was exactly the case.

To read previous entries click on the date chart on the right - for the first entry click on “Apr” and go to April 10.  There’s more info for school administrators on www.admin.org.uk

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08/05/2008 by April First.

Ms Handright of modern languages brought the toxic waste car alarm into the office and asked us to deal with it as it had been “left in the corridor where someone might trip over it.” 

Janice proposed that we leave the box on the post table where unwanted teachers linger.  In a spirit of scientific enquiry we agreed to give it a try.    

A large spider crawled over Mrs Marchmount’s desk.  I named it Ziggy and put down some lettuce from Janice’s lunchtime sandwich in case he was hungry. 

For much of the day the switchboard was jammed with requests from parents for updates on the pond, and requests from other schools for information about the ultra-secret Softorque program that has given us the power to get incredible Ofsted results – news of which has somehow leaked out, I can’t imagine how.   

Two headteachers who phoned had clearly become very confused and kept asking me about the help I was getting from Torchwood.  I patiently pointed out that Softorque is a computer program that sorts out the school policy issues and makes Ofsted inspectors happy while Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who, and is a TV programme about a bunch of special agents who go round killing the aliens that roam the streets of Cardiff.   I thought that made it clear, although one of the heads then said, “so what’s the phone number of this Torchwood place?”

I suddenly wondered if Ziggy was in fact an alien.

By mid-afternoon I got the first offer of money for inside information on Softorque.  At 4pm a man called saying he was the doctor, and he needed to examine my credentials.  I gave him the phone number of the education department at the local authority and told him it was Torchwood.  Still, that’s three weeks since the last dubious phone call – an all time record. 

I left a few crumbs for Ziggy in order to celebrate before going home.

Do you have any stories to share (complete anonymity guaranteed!)  Send me your stories, thoughts, comments, anything: April@admin.org.uk

To receive regular news of a somewhat more serious variety about school administration please take a gentle stroll to http://www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html and just click on the Admin option. There’s also news and info on www.admin.org.uk

You can read the whole of the Diary - or to go back over bits you missed - by using 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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06/05/2008 by April First.

Tuesday

Back after the Bank Hol and a notice appeared on the Synchronised Cost Cutting section of the staff room notice board suggesting that the first thing to be cut should be the pond. Immediately a new section on the board appeared calling for the raising of funds to save Bertram. All departments that have found ways of cutting costs in a synchronised manner are asked to donate those funds to the Bertram appeal.

Someone sent out a text message to parents using the system that is supposed to be reserved for checking where the pupils who are not in school actually are, informing them that there was a crisis relating to the school pond – but not explaining why, how, what or anything else.

The talk at lunchtime was all about the Dept of Cushions and Soft Furnishings suggesting the school system as being responsible for the demise of enterprise and experimentation.

We decided to respond by making our office a hotbed of enterprise and experimentation.  Janice changed the light bulb and I cut out an article about Blake’s 7 coming back on Sky and put it on the noticeboard.

By mid-afternoon I had taken 138 calls about the pond from parents. I told them we were trying to raise money to protect the pond and its frog from savage attacks by “certain unscrupulous departments and cushions.”

Two rather disagreeable young men arrived offering to take the pond “off our hands” and confessing after much hearty banter that it was quite possibly a site with development potential.   We told them it was rather like the head – a site of historic interest, and that anyway, all issues of this nature were handled by our agents, Quickbuild and Getout.

It is now quite clear to me that the official school secrecy policy is wrong.  The Softorque program made life infinitely easier for everyone in the school during the Ofsted inspection and allowed us to go up to the top position on most counts.   Deliberately not to tell other schools so that we get all the good pupils and our neighbours get the riff-raff is not right.   Education and is about sharing information and about co-operation. 

I sent a note to all the neighbouring schools telling that that our Ofsted triumph was down to one particular piece of software, and that for a suitable “research fee” I would be happy to pass the details on to other schools that are interested.

April First. 

Do you have any stories to share (complete anonymity guaranteed!)  Send me your stories, thoughts, comments, anything: April@admin.org.uk

To receive regular news of a somewhat more serious variety about school administration please take a gentle stroll to http://www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html and just click on the Admin option. There’s also news and info on www.admin.org.uk

You can read the whole of the Diary - or to go back over bits you missed - by using 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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