13/12/2008 by April First.

The battle of words between Ofsted and Haringey continued to intrigue us all day, as Haringey claimed that they had not misled Ofsted during recent inspections, and that the records of meetings and emails would show this.

But of course they won’t because Ofsted don’t keep records for more than three months, so that they can’t take responsibility on anything but are free to blame everyone else.

Janice looked up Ofsted on Wikipedia and read out the result:

“Ofsted itself has no legal existence or statutory recognition…”

“Is that true?” she asked.

I admitted I had no idea, and indeed nor to Havoc Blythe when we put it to him.  “But if it is true,” he said, “it would explain a lot.”

“Maybe we could hunt Ofsted inspectors to extinction,” I suggested, and this met with considerable approval.

Some new staff turned up today, apparently recruited by the local authority as replacements for all those who had not returned after the parasite episode.   One of them claimed to be a new deputy head, but he looked to me like the old deputy head without the moustache.  His name, apparently, is Pond.

He walked into the office, clapped his hands (either to get warm or gain attention, I am not sure which) and said that he wanted us to gather all the staff together at 1pm  for a staff meeting of a meeting variety, with the meeting taking a retrospective glance at recent events combined with a forward looking agendaised review to evaluate the current event-crisis and the appropriate methodological analysis of the reform agenda. 

“I suspect what you have said is utterly meaningless,” I suggested.

“We’ll have less of that talk,” he said and walked out.  “I expect you to understand the language of administration in this room of all places,” he added, after he came back.

As befits the management committee, Havoc Blythe, Janice, Binky, Bodger and I stood at the back of the staff room to watch the performance.

At the end of the speech, when Mr Pond asked for comments, Janice said, “You said that as if you meant it.”

“I have an overwhelming desire to expand qualitative awareness without increasing administration, while improving exam results through an as yet undetermined timespan.  This is the starting point.  Let the party begin.”

He then walked out.

“Nearly the weekend,” said Binky.  “Funny things always happen at the weekend.”

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12/12/2008 by April First.

A phone call this morning from the local authority, asking if I would email over a copy of our school’s mission statement. Would I mind doing it NOW said the imperious voice as it was RATHER IMPORTANT. The tone reminded me of Mrs Waggonn, of whom I had not thought for over a term. Then it struck me, the voice sounded like Mrs Waggonn too. I phoned the local authority and asked for Melinda Waggonn, and lo and behold it was her.

“Mrs Waggonn?” I asked.

“Yes yes who is THIS,” she said in that way she had.

“April First, you just phoned me. You used to work here. As a teacher.”

“I know that child,” she said. I stopped. She called me CHILD???

“Can you tell me why you want our mission statement quite so urgently?”

“This is none of your affair, First,” she said. “Just email it over. Unless,” and suddenly the speed of her talking slowed down, giving the impression of a rather large jellyfish carrying a trident and moving in for a kill, “you haven’t got one.”

I said I would see what I could do, and reported to Janice.

We both recalled having a mission statement once upon a time, but there was nothing on the files – although of course most of those files had been removed by the Norman Tradition when they took over the school. So we decided to make one up.

Our mission we decided was to remove incompetence, inefficiency and ineffectiveness from education. It was also to encourage creativity in thought and deed among our pupils, students and staff. No one from our school, (we continued after a moment’s thought) should ever be so disorganised as to have to ask for something immediately, for everything that involved the input of others should be well arranged and well planned.

We supported and promoted the need to deal with those, who through their own inabilities, or their own personal agendas, sought to overthrow these high ideals, and cover their own incompetency.

We then citied the Dept for Cushions and Soft Furnishings (which failed to realise that the Academy that took us over was run by a bunch of neo-Nazi criminals), Ofsted (which Janice inadvertently mistyped as Bedsted and of whom nothing more need be said following yesterday’s revelations), the local authority (for employing Mrs Waggonn) and the newsagent on the corner of my street where the smarmy owner is always asking me out for a date while giving me the wrong change when I buy my morning paper.

That seemed to sum it all up. I emailed it over.

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11/12/2008 by April First.

I have never known a plan move so quickly or go so well.  After my talk with Havoc Blythe yesterday it was quite clear that he agreed with me that we should take immediate action to reign in the wild activities of Ofsted – and it happened.

Yesterday a committee of the House of Commons interviewed the head of  Ofsted and through careful and close questioning got her to confess, what we had long suspected.  That as a deliberate ploy they do not keep their records.  

In fact to our utter amazement we heard her announce live on BBC Parliament that she only keeps records for three months – after that they are destroyed.  As the chair of the committee said in utter amazement, how are they doing these one year assessments that they make so much fuss about.  How can they say that Haringey has actually improved as a result of their earlier enquiries when in fact they have no records whatsoever to judge anything by.

“Smoke and mirrors”, said Havoc Blythe as we sat in his office listening to the broadcast.   “Lies and deceit,” added Janet.

When it was over and we had sat in silence for several minutes Binky said, “Is that it?  Does Ofsted give up?”

“Never,” said Havoc Blythe.  “They’ll pretend it was a minor blip – a point of detail of little significance.”

“And will they get away with that?” said Janice.

“For a while, perhaps,” said HB.  “But only for a while.  Their days are numbered, and they are already in retreat.”

“I can’t believe it was that easy,” I said.  “The battle to regain control of the school was much tougher.”

“There are many more issues to resolve,” he replied.  “The main thing is that they don’t know who we are.”

“But there’s my diary on the blog,” I said somewhat embarrassed.  I wasn’t sure if the doctor actually realised that I had been recording everything here.

“And much jollity it has provided,” he said.  “But Ofsted staff would never lower themselves to read a blog, and even if they did they’d never believe it.”

“They might,” said Bodger, “since it was only yesterday that we were announcing the attack on Ofsted, and then within a day…”

“They’ll take it as a coincidence,” said Havoc Blythe.   “As I said yesterday, the world is disorganised.  Don’t assume anyone knows what’s going on.”

“Except us,” I said.

“Except us,” he agreed.  And as the few remaining staff and pupils in the school (the ones who had no sign of the parasite, no tattoos, and no new trainers) left the building, we broke open one of the bottles of champagne that Bodger had somehow purloined through his physics lessons (we didn’t ask how), and we toasted ourselves – and the demise of Ofsted.

Somehow I feel rather powerful.

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10/12/2008 by April First.

At the management meeting it was decided that we would write to “our lords and masters” (still not formally identified) and announce that as far as we could tell the “rogue elements” they were after were either working in the Dept for Cushions and Soft Furnishings, or Ofsted, or the banks. (The banks in general got a very high rating in the office as being a central part of the “rogue elements in our society.”)

“Do you think,” I said tentatively at lunchtime to Havoc Blythe, “that the people you call our lords and masters could actually be persuaded to allow us to deal with people like Ofsted and the DfCSF in the same way as we cleaned out the Academy bunch who tried to take over our school?”

“Why not?” he asked. “The notion that military intelligence in Britain knows what is going on within any of the great organisations of state is something of a myth. I am sure they know all about Al Qaeda, extreme religious groups, Columbian Drugs Cartels operating in London and the BNP, but I am not sure they have got the slightest idea what Oftsed is. And yet I can’t help thinking that Ofsted is as big a menace as most of the groups they identify.”

“Do you really agree with me that the Department and Ofsted are to blame for an awful lot that is going wrong in schools at the moment?” I asked, even more tentatively. I didn’t know HB was so wholly on my side.

He smiled. “I’m with you April. This school was suddenly turned into an Academy and put under the control of a criminal gang whose prime intent was to get a parasite into the food so that pupils and parents would start taking ever greater risks, and would do their bidding. The entry arrangements are so bizarre we are all telephoned all the time to see if we have a shed in the garden that can be rented so the parents say they live in the right area, and meanwhile it seems possible to move finances in and out of the school on a whim under the eyes of the inspectors.

“None of this is what should be going on.”

He paused and looked very thoughtful. This was a new Havoc Blythe I felt. I was clearly getting closer to him than ever.

“During the second world war – before my time I hasten to add – the British secret services believed that the German secret services were brilliantly organised and were sending across wave after wave of spies. Even when our side started to pick up lots of useless German spies who could hardly speak English, didn’t know where they were or what they were supposed to do, the British believed that these were just a subterfuge to hide the brilliantly trained spies that did get through and who were destroying our war effort.

“Meanwhile the Germans thought that the British secret service were brilliant and were sending through wave after wave of spies who mingled in with the local population, and sent all the Nazi secrets back to Britain so that we knew their every move.

“In fact neither side had the slightest clue what the other side was up to, and the number of decent spies that either side had by 1941 was about four each. Both sides were in fact utterly incompetent, but rated the other highly. The main reason the allies got the upper hand in the end was that we developed a better code breaking system than they did and so were able to hear all the radio chatter before the spies came into the country. Even then there were still many who believed in 1945 that when the war ended we would find ourselves awash with brilliant German spies speaking perfect English who were running our munitions factories and banking system, and whom we had completely failed to pick up.

“It is like that now. Nobody but nobody has got a clue what is really going on day by day in any part of our society. People think that someone out there (“the state” or “MI5” or the TV License collecting people) actually knows what is happening, but nobody does. That’s why everything goes wrong all the time, why the bankers can wreck our economy, why children can be beaten to death by crazed parents, why Ofsted can inspect this school and say the finances are in perfect running order when the Academy owners are taking out thousands a day.

“That’s what this world is like. We believe it is organised, but it is disorganised. And that’s where we come in.”

“Where exactly do we come in?” I asked.

“I haven’t quite worked that out yet,” he said, “but when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

I went home pondering his words. Something in my life is about to change quite dramatically, I believe.

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09/12/2008 by April First.

In a circular to all schools Ofsted are now claiming that they are not to blame if a school or a social service department gives them false information, and they write their report based on these untruths. Thus they argued Ofsted were not in any way to blame for the events in Haringey are late. In fact Ofsted are not to blame for anything! Since they only work on the information others give them they can never be wrong. It is an interesting concept.

It is also an open invitation to all schools not to reveal to Ofsted exactly what is going on. “I think the spirit of co-operation has just died,” said Binky. Janice and I looked at her with some surprise. “I think you’ve been watching too much TV,” Janice told her.

At our management meeting Havoc Blythe said he had had a message from “our lords and masters” (which I don’t think means the Dept of Cushions and Soft Furnishings) to say that our society is under attack from “rogue elements” and “forces of evil”, and that it is our duty as part of the state machinery to ensure that such “back street terrorists” do not get a “foothold” in our school.

I asked how we were supposed to recognise a fifth columnist if he or she turned up and slapped me in the face with a wet fish. Havoc Blythe said that the use of the fish was possibly a giveaway, but after some jollity admitted that he hadn’t got the faintest idea what the message was all about. However we all agreed to be extra vigilant in case one of these urban guerrillas turned up. Bodger aid she was a bit concerned about gorillas but we all agreed we’d heard that joke before, and that he should buy the drinks the next time we gathered in the Toppled Bollard as a suitable punishment for such a poor joke.

On the way home I noted that in Tesco the check out machines not only work out the cost of my food, but also the number of calories involved. As the total got higher and higher so the check out girl started sucking on her teeth and shaking her head. Eventually when all the food (and just a small amount of alcohol) had been passed through I said “are you wearing new trainers?” It turned out she was – and was impressed that I had worked this out.

There was a commotion in aisle five as I was leaving and a gigantic hairy ape like creature, possibly from the forests of central Africa started attacking shoppers.

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08/12/2008 by April First.

Both the bars in the Toppled Bollard (The Theory Café and the Creationists Bar) were busy when we arrived for Saturday coffee, but the Café staff found us a table (as befits our status as regular customers and defenders of their right to exist.)

The walls had adverts for the town’s new underwater croquet centre which caused much interest. 

HB went to order, and Janice and I were talking quietly when our aura of calm was shattered by a sound similar to Orson Welles falling from fifty feet onto a greenhouse.  

It turned out that Havoc Blythe had, while ordering the cappuccinos taken it upon himself to explain to Billy the Dog McGraw (the landlord of the Toppled Bollard) that the banking system had now collapsed and that capitalism was at an end.

We all looked at Billy with concern, as after the opening explosion he bore the look of a man who had just been asked by the cashier at Nat West to lend her a fiver until Saturday.  But he quickly recovered his poise, took a noggin of something special he keeps under the counter and put up a new price list in which the rate for a latte and Danish was shown as four goats and a pheasant, while a G&T would set you back two deciduous forests and a gallon of diesel.    

It just shows, (and most MPs will I think concur with this) that if quick thinking is what you want, the public houses and coffee bars of middle England are the place to look.   

When Havoc Blythe returned to the table he expanded on his thesis, reminding us of the Millennium bug, wherein we were told that our toasters would not work, and the doors to the school would all jam on January 1 2000 because the software could not cope with a year ending 00.  The local authority paid £50,000 to IT experts to have the problem sorted.

Then, he continued, there was the dot com boom in which trillions of pounds were poured into utterly useless companies that never ever did anything and constantly sold nothing.

This crisis, he said, is just the latest scam in which house valuers upped the value of all the houses in the country, and the banks (working in collusion, naturally) went and lent money to people who couldn’t afford it to buy houses that weren’t worth it what was being charged.  Since I gather HB is a long serving member of MI5 I listened to his insights with particular interest.

He continued.  “The banks classified the mortgages they held as A B C or D, with D being very dodgy.  Then needing some cash urgently, one bank reclassified all its D’s as A’s and sold them to another bank.  Then they sold it on, and soon everyone was simply selling house loans rather like the cat that continues to bring dead mice in from the garden and leave them in the kitchen even though it has been told a dozen times that at this particular moment in the evolutionary cycle the market in dead mice is a bit down beat.”

At this, the school’s banker from the Nat West (who had slipped in unnoticed and was sitting next to us) made a sound rather like a Pekinese who had attempted to eat a whole pheasant in one go without taking into account the size of the bird, and crawled out of the building on all fours.  We chose to ignore him. 

“Anthropologists now firmly believe that bankers have a strong herd instinct and are closely related to the lemming,” concluded the doctor.

“But in that case why won’t the banks lend to each other any more,” I asked, showing that I was not totally without learning in this topic.

“Bankers know that the whole industry has been involved in the fraudulent misselling of loans,” said HB.  Since a bank can never do a deal with someone who has been involved in misselling, none of them is allowed under their own articles to trade with another bank.” 

“I am reminded of the snail looking out after the thunderstorm,” said Binky.  We looked at her curiously.  “It knows the world is out there, but somehow would rather not get involved in case it rains again.”   No one knew what she was talking about, so we were back to life as normal.

“So if we could know what next year’s financial scam is we could get in ahead of the game, and make a goat or two on  the side,” said Billy bringing over our coffees and catching the drift of our conversation.

I suspect that HB knows exactly what the 2009 financial scam is, but he isn’t saying.  We stayed on for lunch and I ordered a bottle of wine, for to toast a better future.  Billy charged me four rabbits and a banana, which shows what a decent old cove he really is. 

“How much should we drink?” Binky asked, for a reason that was not clear.

“One glass,” said Janice, “is the regular dose when the economic system collapses.”

As we finished our lunch we saw a tribe of men in pin stripe suits being chased down the high street by a group of red faced shop keepers.   We shook our heads at such uncivilised behaviour.

“Still,” said Havoc Blythe, “it’s less barbarous than hunting foxes.”

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