It’s been really nice not having to write something about every day, I’ll be honest. Having said that, my evening routine of writing before bed is missed and, now that I’ve had a little break from blogging after last year’s effort, I want to find a happy medium where I’m writing because I have things to share.
There has been plenty to share so far in 2014, as it happens – lots of little news events that have gone on. The year ahead contains a Winter Olympics, a Football World Cup and a shaken up Formula One season (in that the rules governing the design of the cars have changed dramatically this year). This year is also the 100th since the outbreak of World War One. It’s hard to use the word anniversary, as that implies it is a good/happy thing to remember.
I will be sharing the new F1 cars as they appear – they don’t start being unveiled until the end of the month – but commenting on form will, frankly, be pointless. Red Bull may, read that carefully, may not actually walk away with things. However, the opposite could also be true as they have excellent resources to develop new cars. Time will tell.
In other F1 news, Michael Schumacher had his skiing accident just before the New Year. It was massive news as it is clear that he his facing the fight for his life. Little has been released about his condition in recent days after his family wanted less media intrusion. The press in this instance have been fabulous in respecting those wishes – there is little point in repeating very similar statements day after day after all. One article I read, by the former F1 doctor Gary Hartstein, explained the usual processes for dealing with such a traumatic accident. I can’t link to the article as it’s from a website, however a similar one is on The Guardian’s web site here. What is clear is that he is in real danger and there lies a long road ahead for him and his family.
Elsewhere in 2014 so far, we have only been out geocaching once, last Sunday, finding four local caches to complete a series we began over 200 days before! No day so far has been a calendar gap, but this coming Friday is.
At work, we are having a push on developing writing skills with the children. This has lead to a dramatic alteration in my day to day routine. The majority of my lessons are now either literacy or numeracy based; with boosters for grammatical knowledge, writing skills and basic numeracy drill filling the afternoon. It is a far cry from a broad and balanced curriculum and it’s surprising how well the children have taken to this input. I expected to have to deal with a bit of an uproar from this. I have made it clear that it isn’t permanent and all the other subjects will have time dedicated to them later on – I will block out afternoons for art, science etc. later in the term so that I maintain coverage. This is a necessary step to make clear how important their skills are in both subjects. It also allows me time to carefully refine my teaching to their exact needs too.
What else…? Oh, yes. World War One. Operation War Diary has been set up with over 1.5 million pages of unit war diaries just waiting to be discovered. The crowd tagging website will allow these diaries to be searched by date, event, place, personnel to name just a few once the project is complete. It’s well worth spending some time doing. In other World War One news, the amazing story of Henry Tandey VC is revealed in a new book. He changed the world forever. Find out how here.
Finally, as I’m sure you’re well aware, time is like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff… so with that in mind, the BBC Future team have produced this interactive infographic which shows the journeys of each of the Doctors, from First to Eleventh. Have a play on doctorwho.tv.
Until next time (hopefully not too long), have fun.
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