Another Examination

This week we've been staying in school for an extra hour until 2pm to make up for the four day weekend we took at the beginning of the month. For the most part I've been pleased with the change, each period is an extra ten minutes long which helps. Really though when you take the 20 minutes that we lose with school starting late, the ten minutes late back from the first break and five minutes extra on the second break, we are breaking even. Somehow it happens that several teachers are always unaccounted for by the last period though. But we only have one more week until end of term exams that will take almost a month (read: waste almost a month). My grade 10 classes are dreadfully behind but next term I will rectify that. At least I am optimistic about how the grade 9 kids will score on this exam. As I write that I realize that my optimism isn't grounded in reality, nearly everyone failed the last test that wasn't particularly difficult, but optimism is a coping mechanism. I did set the exam for the whole cluster (district) for grade 9 so the wording of questions should be familiar and the content came straight from my lessons. Realistically I do expect about 6 kids could make an A, but even if they fall a bit short my subject should look quite good this term for the grade 9. Last term the grade 9 had 2 of their 9 exams developed by the cluster and as a school we averaged less than 30% on both subjects. I fear the whole school is in for a shock from grade 8-10 with all the subjects coming from the cluster level. I doubt I can get my average above 50% but my standouts will excel.

And tell Uncle Ken to check the mail in about two weeks.