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1st competition entered

edited May 2006 in - Writing Tales

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  • yes, this is a success to me! Until now I have only written fillers, letters and presented written papers at work. Today I finally entered a competition and let others read my work. I entered the TES columnist comp. I feel it was not my best work as I entered my first draft as otherwise Iwould have never done it. The title is naff and it could do with some work. Here it is, please tell me what you think!

    PLAN YOUR LIFE

    What did you do last night? What do you do in your spare time? What have you achieved in your social life? What am I going on about? I hear you ask. This could be the Ofsted of the future, could it not? After all the government is now focusing strongly on work/life balance within all careers especially that of the teaching profession. Millions of pounds are being spent on ensuring that all educational institutions are writing work/life balance policies that they all obviously adhere to.
    The questions that all managers now dread are ‘could I have a workload monitoring meeting? Or Could I meet with you to work out a way of working more flexibly? As managers, you know the answer to these questions is ‘Yes, certainly, when would you like to meet?’ All colleges want to make the institution a happy and stress free place to work.
    It must be remembered that our students will follow setting a good example of work/life balance. If the students see that we can successfully manage our life balance, they will see how they can manage both their studies and also achieve their goals at home, whether they are to be a domestic goddess, part time Olympic champion or sex kitten.
    Anyway, let us now look at the consequences of developing the provision of effective work/life balance for all the staff. Well, it will obviously have to be monitored. It will need to be graded monitored and we will have to assess the impact assessment on the progress within the college. So, maybe Miss Beccles, the life coach, will accompany Ofsted. She would monitor each person and make sure that not only do they have CPD files but also personal work/life balance action plans. These would be monitored and it would be essential that all personal targets be met.
    To make these plans work, effective time management is essential. It must be remembered that the DFES have helped with this. There are lots of resources online. No creativity is now needed when planning your lesson. It is simply an admin task of picking out the correct lesson that meets the criteria of the students’ inspirations, vocational goals and learning styles. Remember it also has to be differentiated at the right level and their goals must be met within the timeframe set within their individual learning plan.
    In conclusion, now that we have been helped so much to manage our lives, let us have a vote. What would you prefer to do?
    A) Go home every night and moan that you are too tired to go to the gym, cook or learn a new instrument. You then slob out in front of the television with chocolate and wine.
    B) Adhere to your work/life plan and become the next Nigella Lawson or whatever it is you have always aspired to be.

    Answers on a postcard please! I am sure you would all love to say B) but let us be realistic, what would we have to moan about then. Anyway, as it can be seen my work/life balance is now perfect as I have now met my aspiration of being an author.
    WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO?
      
  • I enjoyed it salwrite, and it does make you think.
    My critiscism would be that there are a lot of word repititions close together in the early paragraphs. Work/life balance in the first para, students in the third. Small things but they stand out.
    Work/life balance is repeated so often that I was beginning to wonder if you couldn't have used another word sometime, or abbreviated it.
    What's a CPD? Could the full term of the abbreviations been included in brackets?
    I think the title was fine, not naff.
    I especially like the closing paragraph, it winds the piece up well.
    Congratulations on entering. As you said it was your first draft, so I'm sure you would have picked up those things I felt needed work.
    Hopefully you will get a range of opinions and can look at it again. Perhaps adapt the idea for a practical article.
  • thanks for that. It has been helpful. I can see the word repetition now. It just goes to prove you need time away fromit to appreciate and be able to review your writing.
    I need to look at ways of using vocabulary more effectively. I had been using these words to emphasise keywords within education at the moment
  • Glad it was of use. I'm sure education has its own set of words and language which you will be aware of, and use. When I was a young civil servant (20+years ago)it took weeks to learn all the words and terms, and abbreviations used.
    Like everything in writing, we need practice.
  • Well done, salwrite for entering the TES comp. 'No creativity is now needed when planning your lesson' - doesn't this take some of the enjoyment out of teaching? I'm not a teacher though I visit three schools regularly for assemblies, so I'm very interested in education and schools.
  • yes I work in a college and I came in to the job to make a difference and try to make maths fun. On Friday we are playing a version of Deal or No Deal where they have to answer exam questions and get prizes I havechosen to suit their personality. I will get no thanks for this from the college as it takesso much time. They are more worried all admin is correct. Our inspection report is out which was good but now we will get back to admin. Our admin support have good work/life balance and work flexitime. Most have Fridays off so guess who does the work!
  • Hi Sal - well done with your entry.  My criticism would be:  line 2: you have said 'what am I going on about?' I hear you ask.  Should it not be, 'what is she going on about?' I hear you ask. 
  • thanks, again something I did not think when writing. I would really like to use these tips to enter a similar comp. This is helping me to focus on maybe just trying to enter these sort of comps first then maybe look at styles within short story writing. Now where do I find another  columnist comp?
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