Powerless!

This morning at work, we had a Year 9 SAT exam in ICT. This involved two classes logging on to some bespoke RM-powered piece of software, which I have spent the best part of a week setting up.

We did it last year too, and it was a mess. The software was horribly flaky and slow, kids got confused that the word processor “emulator” wasn’t an exact replica of Word, and the 50 minute exam took almost two hours.

This year, however, things were great. 25 minutes into the exam, and not a single problem. No crashes! No freezes! Hurrah!

And then we had a power cut.

Not just any power cut either – oh no. There’s a field next to the school where they’re building a new housing estate, and some clever sod drilled through the mains cable that runs across it.

This was at 11am this morning. It’s now almost 3 o’clock, and there’s still no sign anything is being done about it, aside from people in reflective jackets and hard hats huddling round a hole tutting a lot and sucking air in through their teeth.

Which is great, since we’re a fully electronic school. Registration, whiteboards, lesson plans – the lot, all computerised. And we’ve got no power. Excellent.

On the plus side, there’s literally nothing I can do at work. Thank the lord for internet access via mobile phones, eh?