Today I supervised the Selective Schools Test. In NSW there are several selective high schools which are State Government schools to which entry is gained by examination in Year 6. The Farrer Agricultural High School at Tamworth is one such school and it takes boarders so it provides the opportunity for farmers in particular to send their boys away for High School without paying for a private education.

As the test is run by the NSW Department of Education, it requires some local High Schools to provide a class room and support services for the administration of the test.

That is a source of some discontent. The local High School sees this as another school "stealing" some of their potentially brightest and best students. This is probably overstated as the students for the test come from a far wider catchment than just the local area- this time we had students from Bingara, Wee Waa and Barrabra and in previous years we've had them come from Boggabri and Gunnedah. Of the more local students, some of those would be going to private schools if they don't get into Farrer.

But still I can understand the concern of the school, especially if enrolments are near a magic number where they might gain or lose teachers.

In any event, I don't think the school has much to worry about. To put it diplomatically, there was a range of ability amongst the students today.

I got home from that to catch up in a day's work in a couple of hours, which can be stressful. The biggest stress was seeing an item for over $600 which looked fraudulent. It was an overseas item and the description carried the word "Mumbai" making it look like it was coming from India. Neither Margaret nor I could think what it could be, and I was about to call the bank to query the item when I remembered that Tim had purchased a tablet computer on-line and the payment cold only be made by Visa. I checked and this was his item. Phew!

I'm a little stretched but tonight's Worship Team meeting should bring some peace and tranquillity!