Big news day

I watch Sky News in the morning when I get up. As I may have mentioned before, I'm not a morning person and the encouragement of knowing I just need to stumble to the sofa and lie down again helps me enormously with actually getting out of bed in the first place. At 6.30am in Singapore, it's 11.30pm back at home and they are reviewing the next day's papers. Today there were reports from the Independent about intelligence and race and lots about Sir Menzies Campbell. (Just by the way, I think he got screwed every which way.)

Then when I go into school, I read what's online on the BBC News website. I'll give you the highlights:

Christmas trees in Ballymena - it's going up on November 1st which one would have to say is a more than a little premature. Mind you, I saw my first one in a shop here at the weekend. And people say all meaning has gone out of Christmas! Pah!

Digital switch over - the first town in England has had its analogue signal turned off. Turns out it's only the BBC2 one but still. Back in the 'head we're all still eagerly awaiting the arrival of Channel 5 to the analogue signal.

The great storm - it's twenty years since the hurricane, although this report pardons Michael Fish who was actually referring to another hurricane. He said, she said, I don't care. I think the real issue here is that it has been twenty years! How did that happen?! I remember that? Things that happen twenty years ago are things that I should not remember!

Good school lie - 14% of parents lie to get their children into good schools. The only surprise to me is that it's only 14%. Of course you'd lie. 'Education is potential, bad schools rob children of that potential, ergo I must lie to get my child into a better school.' Nevermind the child's, or for that matter the parent's, responsibility in it all.

Teens take over - another school story. Teenagers ran a school for three weeks for a TV programme. They started out with all sorts of grandiose liberal ideas but then went all traditional and conservative. But they did learn from teaching others.

I had my own news to share with my classes, as I decided that today should be the day I tell my classes that I won't be back next year. I had put it off long enough and if I didn't tell them today then there wouldn't be another chance for a couple of weeks because of exams.

I told my form class first during tutor time. I said 'and the last thing I have is the sad news that I won't be back in school next year, I'm going home'. Then braced myself for the reaction...and nothing. Silence. Absolute silence. I like to think it was the shock. (It should be noted that my other classes were much more vocal in their reaction. My Year 3s went through the whole gamut of emotions. Shock, surprise, disbelief, despair. I tried to focus on the positives - no more Moodle discussions and no more video worksheets.)

But with my form class, after an age of silence this little voice came from the front and said 'but Miss you teach here now.'

Break my heart, why don't you.