Suzanne's+page

To quote Dani in my leaving video from Cape Cornwall last summer - here's to beer, red wine and a little bit of physics. To be fair, there's been an awful lot of physics. At times, more than we could sensibly manage. And if I'm being honest, she misled me on the whole beer and red wine thing. More like coffee, mint humbugs and Wetherspoons breakfasts.

In the last year we've been through births, wedding preparations, almost tears (mainly due to the maths involved), actual tears (mainly of the uncontrollable giggles variety) and no small amount of innuendo bingo and questionable knob gags. It's definitely been a week to reflect on what's been gained (amazing new friends and misguided belief that I can be a physics teacher) and lost (sanity and any recollection of how to do A-Level maths). Back in July 2010 we were asked to look at our hopes and fears for the year ahead and they were mostly realised, some horribly so, but we survived.

When you've spent a certain amount of time with the same bunch of people, it always strikes me that there is a good chance that your paths may never cross again. I really hope that it’s not the case this time, because that would be a real shame. I’d like to think that some familiar faces will crop up on training courses and science fairs. Or even the odd binge drinking event.

It's a little bit sad and a little bit fact of life that it had to come to an end. Whichever way you look at it, it's been a little bit brilliant. It's been a blast. I won't miss the 4.30 alarm calls, but come the new term there will be a slightly Tuesday shaped hole in my heart. There certainly was today. So, for everyone with new challenges facing them - be it new jobs, new children, new spouses or simply Year 9 last thing on a Friday, I wish you all the best. Thank you for making it so much fun.

Suze

Interesting piece on Guardian website today re. practical work in science by Alom Shaha (via Twitter) - []. He's a physics teacher and makes films for Science Learning Centres.

Hmmm, glad to see that I've made a concerted effort to keep this updated - it would seem that I last added to this in September! Nevertheless, without wanting to spoil the treat that is Uncaged Monkeys for anyone seeing it this week, I have been reminded to share this:

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Never fails to move me and inspire me to be a better person...

//P.S. - How many of the films can you name?//

Had to update this while I'm still on a bit of a high....

Just had top set year 11 physics class and we've been looking at acceleration. Previous lesson was spent with them rediscovering their inner 5 year old and working out acceleration of matchbox cars across the lab. This lesson was introducing the idea of f=ma, exactly as we were last week. School has an amazing set of (home made) ramps with built in elastic and already marked out (I will upload some pics). I was basically able to get them investigating in exactly the same way that we did last week and was able to talk them them properly about what they were doing and why. Every student was engaged and knew what they were meant to be doing and by the end of the lesson had full sets of results.

This was the clearest moment yet of why trekking up to Bristol once a fortnight is so very helpful and beneficial. Students enjoyed it, I enjoyed it. Getting up at 4.30 in the morning suddenly doesn't seem quite such a hardship!