Success Diary

@IRIS_Connect keep a Success Diary to focus on the positives. These are priceless to me. #ukedchat #nqtchat pic.twitter.com/G3e5ZL7UrT
— Kelly McDonagh (@MissKMcD) January 29, 2015

I saw this tweet and thought - brilliant! It was intended for NQTs, but I'm inspired. I'm definitely going to do this.

Work-Life Balance

I love this blog post about Work Life Balance by Ezzymoon. It has got me thinking about what my own personal work-life balance policy would be.

Mine is pretty similar, but for family reasons, there are some differences:

• Arrive at school by 8am and leave between 5 and 5.30pm.
• At the most, work 2 hours on Sundays and have the rest of the weekend to spend with family and friends.
• Work no more than 2.5 hours each night at home during the week. (I tend to do this late at night after having enjoyed some family and chill out time).
• Do not reply to work emails outside of working hours.
• Spend at least 20 minutes in the staffroom each day eating lunch and socialising.
• Have a conversation with at least 3 different adults per day during working hours.
• Go to sleep by 11.30pm each night during the week.

When I become a headteacher I will insist on my team setting themselves their own limits. How can we teach children to have lives if we don't have lives of our own?

IMAGE: http://wardteachingjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/work-life-balance-how-do-you-stay.html

Be happy, live long

Spotted in The Week (27th October):

"People with a sunny outlook in middle age are likely to live longer than their grumpy peers, a large-scale study suggests. Levels of happiness among over-50s were found to have significant impact on the onset of disability, walking speeds and the incidence of coronary heart disease, even after factors such as gender and education had been taken into account, reports the Daily Telegraph. In fact, the link was so pronounced that psychological well-being could be used to predict which patients are going to develop serious health problems in their 60s, said the report from the ongoing English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. 'The difference between those who enjoyed life the most and those who enjoyed life the least was marked,' says the team, with the former 'more likely to still be alive nine to ten years later than other participants."

So I guess the message is - enjoy life whilst you can!