Golden Ticket

I’m sitting in a booth wearing padded headphones with a posh woman shouting at me about percentage improvement in OFSTED scores.  My ears are hurting. 

“A teacher is planning a school trip to Madrid,” she shrieks.  “How many euros...”

When my brother took children from rural Cornwall to Madrid, they didn’t just lose their euros -  two of them literally lost their shirts to street-wise urchins…

Oh.  My eighteen seconds are up.  The answer box has disappeared – I’ve lost my chance.  Mustn’t let my mind drift.  That’s the third question in a row I’ve muffed. 

I arrive at the end of the first section of my Teaching Skills Numeracy Test seriously rattled.  It was so much easier doing the practice papers, even with Perran walking in and snorting derisively. 

The second section is better.  The problems are more complicated, but they are written down and there’s an on-screen calculator. 

The scary woman has stopped yelling and I can take my time.

I use every remaining second to get this second section in good shape.  At the end, the woman on reception prints off a very ordinary sheet of A4 and hands it over. To me it is not cheap printer paper – it is the golden ticket.  I have passed.