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I took part in a one day Performance Management training session this week. Fellow teachers will doubtless have views on PM, depending how well or otherwise it is done on their schools, but my initial thoughts about having one day to learn all about PM were not particularly positive. My experience of PM at my previous school were that it was done to you for 15 minutes every year and that targets set were sent back to you if management didn’t like them. No-one seemed particularly bothered if you did not achieve the targets, nor were they hanging out the celebratory bunting if you did. So Tuesday’s training session arrived and there was a lot of talk from a very enthusiastic trainer. Candice was certainly passionate about PM and did manage to convert me away from my previous skepticism about a poorly conducted process to the possibilities that can occur when the system is done well. There are always cross-cultural gems of questions that crop up during training days here and Tuesday’s little diamond was one that had the British teachers in the group smirking. Candice, an Australian, asked “I am not familiar with OFSTED. What is the purpose of their role and observations?” That really did silence the crowd. The best retort that came back was “It is a way of making sure that middle class parents are kept happy.”
Good lunch to go with this day as well as some very local-looking snacks with the morning tea break. Chicken sausages wrapped in some sort of carbohydrate material and then covered with various coloured bread crumbs, cut to appear like the Petronas Towers. Curious looking and curious tasting.
As well as learning how to performance manage this week I also learned the gentle art of doing it things the right way. Our shipping has arrived in country, but it will seemingly take an age to clear customs and then get delivered to our house, which is not in the middle of the street. The receiving agents required vast amounts of paper and they can then arrange customs clearance, but they cannot deliver the goods to us. That has to be arranged by someone else. I sense a saga here. Thankfully two very nice colleagues have helped out with the language barrier and made things happen a bit more smoothly, I think.
Pay day was on Friday. Whoopie. Which made me start looking at holiday destinations for next Easter. Our flights budget allows us to consider any of the following destinations: Perth, Vientiane, Hanoi, Katmandu, Seoul, Phnom Penh or Beijing. Decisions. Decisions. But then we could always stay here.
Lexi and I enjoyed meal at Restaurant The Hot Chocolate last night. Food was great. Freshly made pizzas and pasta dishes. Sadly the children’s fussy glands kicked in their enjoyment of the food was limited which limited our enjoyment. Grrrr.