HOW do I know it's half term? Because I've just been able to take a whole hour for lunch and have returned to find that no emails or voicemails have arrived in my absence.

Of course, that might just be another fault in our IT system ...

Whatever, it's been a strange ragbag of a week.

It hasn't been that quiet, actually, because of the storm over the shortage of primary school places in Bristol.

Our run of stories and a flow of comments from parents on the Post website earned me a briefing from the city council yesterday, of which more later.

But there has been other stuff happening too. The only school not on holiday is John Cabot Academy in Kingswood, which has operated a five-term year since it opened as a city technology college in 1993 (although that might be soon to change, I hear).

As always, there's a lot going on there, not least the proposed extension of the Cabot Learning Federation to cover Bristol Metropolitan College as well as Bristol Brunel Academy.

It announced this week that the federation was to be sponsored by Rolls Royce and the University of the West of England, further increasing the university's involvement with Bristol's schools.

We also heard the unsurprising news that more and more mature students were seeking places on teaching and nursing courses at UWE in the hope of gaining recession proof employment.

Tory leader David Cameron has been in town this week too, surprisingly choosing the newly developed Oldbury Court Children's Centre for his visit.

That seemed a little ironic, given that his party's policy is to cut Government grants to Sure Start, which funds children's centres.

On the secondary school front, Marius Frank emailed to let me know that his school, Bedminster Down, along with Bridge Learning Campus, Oasis Bristol, Bristol Brunel Academy (Hartcliffe, Hengrove and Speedwell in old money!), Henbury, Broadoak and Writhlington, were being honoured for their progress.

They've been invited by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust to a dinner to celebrate making more than ten percentage points of progress between 2005 and 2008 in the new gold standard of five A*-C including English and Maths.

As he said: "It's a funny old world: one minute we're on a list of 600 schools that must improve quickly because of National Challenge, and then the next minute we're named amongst 600 of the most improved schools in the country for doing just that!"

Meanwhile, back to the primary situation. The full story is set to go in Monday's Post but suffice to say the council's response threw up some interesting possibilities.

It had been thought that Sefton Park could not take an extra class this September because of possible building work to expand and rebuild the schools, but the builders have now said there would be space.

Could this be a clue to education chief Peter Hammond's long-awaited decision, due on Tuesday 24, as to whether to go ahead with that much opposed development?

Henleaze is also suggested for an extra class, which would make it the first four-form entry infant school.

There is undoubtedly demand in that area for reception places and fewer parents are likely to opt for the independent sector for their four-year-olds than a year ago.

But considering the fuss there was about three-form entry schools over the council's Primary Review, don't expect that one to go through quietly.

Talking of Primary Review, the national Cambridge Primary Review out today makes interesting reading. Its concern at excessive focus on literacy and numeracy would seem to vindicate the successful efforts in many Bristol schools to make the curriculum more enjoyable for pupils.

I could go on, but there are half a dozen more stories to file before the weekend.

Incidentally, this TGI Friday feeling is new to me; it's only very recently that we've ceased to have to work Saturdays. Unfortunately, we're in on Sundays instead so the weekend won't be that long. But at least the sun is shining so let's make hay before the schools go back!

PS In the midst of all this whingeing and wrangling about day to day concerns, there are events that put everything into perspective. The tragic death of John Williams, principal of Oasis Academy Bristol, at the age of 40 is one of them. He worked tremendously hard to establish the school and will be much missed. My condolences to his widow and children and to all who knew him.