I’ve been taking it easy today.  I didn’t altogether take the day off, I’ve got a fair bit done, but I read both daily papers by mid-afternoon, which doesn’t often happen with the bulky Saturday papers.  I spent quite some time finding out more about my iPad, which I bought last Monday in a hopeful burst of exuberance.  It has already proved very useful at meetings, where I haven’t had to take along papers, but just read documents from the screen.

I mentioned, the other day, that I’d had to carry the brown hen out of the porch, when she wanted to sit on eggs and I needed to go out.  We had to give in, she was determinedly broody.  Fortunately, the Sage’s friend Graham, who is leaving for New Zealand tonight, brought 15 fertile bantam eggs as a parting gift, so they have been divided between the broody ones, three or four each, and we will raise a cockerel to join the family as well as some young hens.  We always bring in an unrelated potential father, not wanting ours to become inbred.

It’s typical of this girl that she has neither hidden away nor sat in the hen house, but has come as close as she can to us.  She is unperturbed by comings and goings, but still sharply aware of what is going on.  I heard some squawking this morning, which was probably two of them having a brief altercation, and went out to find her craning her neck, trying to see what was happening without leaving her eggs.  The eggs she had laid were, of course, infertile, so I reached under her yesterday, taking them all away and then replaced them with four of those that Graham brought.

When the eggs hatch, we will put each foster mum and her chicks in a separate coop.  It’s too risky to leave them outside, the magpies would get them.

It has been the most up-and-down couple of weeks.  Last Monday week, we finally were notified that the school was to receive its Ofsted inspection, having been waiting for notification for over a month (we had been told that we were in the pilot for the new regime, but not when the inspection would happen).  We had spent a few days getting ready and the rest just getting haggard.


Then we had the inspection and were told the result, but were not allowed to tell anyone until the findings had been moderated and verified.  That was on Thursday evening.  On Friday came the news about the illness of our caretaker.  On Monday, we had a post-Ofsted get-together among the staff, and on Tuesday, the caretaker died.  Yesterday brought the sad news about Aaron, our young pupil, but the Year 11s were, with the blessing of his parents, going ahead with their end of year prom tonight.  We were still waiting for confirmation of the inspection, we could not be confident of anything and the waiting was nerve-wracking.


Just before 5 o’clock this evening, the Headteacher emailed me and all the staff with the news that the result is official.  We can go public.


If you have nothing to do with schools, it will not mean much to you, but our rural, comprehensive school with nothing apparently remarkable about it, run-down buildings and a lower than average attainment in its incoming pupils has sailed through its Ofsted and gained an Outstanding, the highest evaluation, gained by 10% of schools overall.  Proud?  Yes indeed.  I’m damn proud.  I have read the report, but it isn’t online yet, so I’ll just quote one sentence – “The school is a striking example of an integrated community with everyone working towards a single vision.”


Oh, and a sentence from the letter to the students – “Your school is extremely well led and the staff work together well to support you and provide you with an excellent experience.”


Twenty-three years, I’ve been a school governor, eighteen years at one school and nearly thirteen years at this one (do the math, darling, there was an overlap).  Both schools have always been good.  For the last six months, I’ve known we were outstanding and now we have corroboration.


And yes, we have lots of plans for improvement.