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2015 was a year – not a good year, not a bad year just a year.  Lots of change, lots of life stuff that probably doesn’t need to be shared in a blog and a general feeling that I won’t be sad to see the end of this particular year.  Before pondering the year to come, it is worth reflecting on the goals I set for myself for the year just gone.  The first task I set for myself was to remember the importance of the act of teaching and the impact it can have, to remain committed to the provision of an education that meets the need of every child.  In some ways I have struggled with this one as I didn’t start properly teaching until September.  I don’t think I have forgotten what is important to me but I do think I have had fewer opportunities to put it into practice.  I wanted to say yes to new experiences and this one I really didn’t.  I retreated back into my shell a bit and whilst I think I have learned a lot in my new job, other than that, this one really didn’t take.  My third goa

I read an excellent and insightful blogpost from Chris Chivers (@chrischivers2) today. In this post, he posed and answered four questions: • What got you into teaching? • If you are/have been a headteacher; what was your motivation? • What would you do to improve the current system?
 • What keeps you in teaching? I enjoyed his post so much, I thought I would try to answer the questions myself because this time of year seems right for reflection. What got me into teaching? My answer to this question is awful but a lack of something else to do. I was on the verge on finishing university, couldn't afford to stay on for further study and didn’t have any burning career ambitions. I had spent a lot of my uni days working on play schemes and enjoyed it so thought I would try teaching. I had flirted with the idea of primary school teaching whilst doing my A levels but a degree in Psychology and Philosophy seemed better suited to secondary. So I applied to do my PGCE, was prett

When I tell people that I will be spending my Saturday at ‘yet another education conference’, I tend to get one of two responses.  Either people tell me they are jealous and would love to hear about it on my return or I get mocked.  So every now and then I wonder why I do it.  Why give up precious time, my time, to go and think about school?  And then I go to #rED15 and I feel inspired by the speakers.  And my brain starts imagining all of the great things we can do.  And I meet people who think the things that I think.  And I learn so much, and meet so many incredible educators that it is all worth it.  And then I start looking for the next one. But before I start looking for the next one, a moment please just to reflect on this one.  Because #rED15 might be the best Research Ed event I have attended yet.  I do not know how Helene and Tom do it but every time they exceed my expectations.  As always, the worst thing about the conference was the impossibility of choosing the right

I have attended #EducationFest for the last four years now.  Year 1 I went on my own.  Year 2 I took a friend.  Year 3 I gathered a few like-minded colleagues.  This year I met up with 9 former colleagues who had been released for a day each and made contact with three people I love to follow on twitter. Where am I going with this?  Every year I attend this event, I reap incredible benefits from the experience (more on that in a moment) but every year the event also grows and exceeds my expectations and with every year that passes I see more and more brilliant colleagues attend and feel inspired by their attendance.  If I had my way I would shut the school down for two days and just take everyone.  It will be interesting to see what the impact of the Thursday/Friday as opposed to Friday/Saturday scheduling was.  Honestly I think it is easier for teachers to go to events like these when they do not incur tremendous cover costs for schools but either way it was, once again, amazing.

I have spent the last four days at two very different educational events. The first was the Inspiring Leadership Conference in Birmingham, the second Northern Rocks in Leeds. The two events were entirely different but completely brilliant and all credit needs to go to the organisers. I will blog in more detail about what I took from the events but the combined impact of them was a nagging thought. On Thursday, I heard Steve Munby speak on the subject of invitational leadership and it was nothing short of inspiring. He talked about inviting and embracing challenge, accepting robust and transparent reporting on schools and their performance (among many other brilliant things). I also heard Brian Lightman speak and he presented us with a list on Conservative manifesto pledges which we have been told will happen. Like it or don't like it, he said, but be glad for the certainty because when you have certainty you have action. Schools and school leaders know the challenges facing them a

I have spent the last term working on a CPD structure that aims to deliver 3 things to the staff in my school. I want it to enable staff to continuously develop and improve their own practice. I want it to enable staff to be developed so that they are ready to take on leadership opportunities. Finally I want it to allow staff with an interest in academic study and research based practice to have the opportunity to explore this. More than this though I want staff to feel like they own the structure and within in, find ways in which they can be invested in, feel developed and feel valued. The first part of the creation of this system was interviewing all the teachers in my school about their thoughts on professional development. It was an interesting and, in some cases, an enlightening opportunity. One of things that is found most disappointing was the number of teachers who are full time teachers in the classroom but felt like they should apologise for this, that their desire to teach

For the last 5 years or so the main focus of my work has been the professional development of teachers.  Until 5 months ago, I was living the in the West Midlands and I was overwhelmed by the numbers of quality CPD available within a short drive.  TLT (Southampton is closer than you might think), NRocks, a variety of ResearchEd events, TeachMeets, etc.   A number of the staff at my school began enaging in these events and most would argue that this style of CPD by teachers for teachers is the best type they had. But I don't live in the West Midlands anymore, I live in Devon.  And despite the clear evidence of excellent practice that goes on I can't find a forum that gives teachers the chance to showcase their practice and network and connect in the way that the events named above do.  I want there to be high quality CPD events with access to inspirational thinkers, teachers and leaders available to my staff and the staff of every school in the South West and at the moment, wi

 I have a confession to make.  Despite this being my third ResearchEd event, I am not a research lead (don't tell Tom Bennett), yet I keep crashing these research lead events because they are just so good that I know they will benefit me.  When I started my masters a year or so ago, I found a passion and interest for doing research (and it occurred to me that my education truly had been wasted on my younger self).  It awoke in me an interest to read and write and research and hypothesise, and then I had to stop my masters studies and I found ResearchEd instead, which is trying to find ways in which teachers, educators, all people in schools, can become research engaged. And I think this is important.  I am not sure I am in a context where suggesting that a research lead should be appointed would be approved.  And yet.  I still feel this desire to pursue this and find out more about it and read the work of other research leads.  It is interesting, inspiring and exciting, and to pa

At #TLAB15 Mark Steed (@independenthead) spoke about his performance appraisal system which is founded on an emphasis on the 'why' prior to developing the how and the what.  He urged us, if we had not already done so, to watch the TEDtalk by Simon Sinek on 'Starting with why - how great leaders inspire action' and so I did (the talk can be found here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VdO7LuoBzM) and it got me thinking about my current role and my next steps. For those of you who don't know, I moved schools in January and have moved from a very challenging context to an incredibly successful school where I found myself at times wondering what it is that I could do that could possibly make something so good any better.  Having watched the talk, I feel as though I have had a little bit of an epiphany - I have been thinking far too much about the what - what should I be doing? What action should I be taking? I have lost sight of the why I do what I do,  It therefore

I had wanted to attend TLAB15 ever since I read the twitter feed from those lucky enough to attend TLAB14.  And I have to say I was not disappointed.  The day was incredibly well organised with a range of different workshop talks to ensure universal appeal to the audience.  I always think the measure of a good day of learning is characterised by two things - the energy and engagement that you feel whilst you are there and the impact it will have on your practice once you get home.  So that's how I will structure this reflection - the thing or things that really engaged me and what that will mean in my current projects that I am working on.  I will include my usual disclaimer - apologies to any of the speakers in my interpretations are inaccurate/do not reflect the points you made - this is just my take on it. Keynote 1: Sarah-Jayne Blakemore @sjblakemore This was an incredibly interesting and engagement talk by Blakemore which reminded me of my days of studying Psychology and h

So I am feeling pretty happy with my commitment to #well-being even if I haven't been as committed to writing about it as I should have. Here is a short blog about my story so far... #Connect I am really happy with this one. I have been in regular contact with lots of the people I love since up and leaving my old life. I am also pleased that I have spent much of this month in my new role having a sit down chat with every teacher at my new school in terms of their PD requirements. This has been invaluable in getting to know people. I also make time to lunch with staff and students in the dinner hall every day. #Notice This is an important one. I try to reflect on each day and find the best bit in it. I enjoy the short drive to work, taking in the beauty of my new surroundings. I notice when my boyfriend is home and try to avoid working so we can eat together. I am also noticing the little details at my new school and trying to learn the tricks of the trade in the little detail

I have been thinking about writing a post on this for a while but find it a harder post to write than most and there are two reasons for this.  The first is that last year I watched one of the most promising teachers I had seen in a long time experience burnout and decide to leave the profession (a decision that not everyone understood and that some people were disappointingly unsympathetic about).  The second is that I got myself into a bit of a workload pickle last year where I very genuinely could not get my head straight.  Stress is not something that is always tolerated in schools and I felt pretty weak at the thought of having to say out loud that I wasn't coping, but I really wasn't coping.  And it wasn't particularly about the job or the workload or the management or any of it, I was just exhausted and a bit poorly and I was just working and working and working and I lost sight of the other stuff. I have always been a bit of a workaholic since I started teaching