Review of 2011

2011 has been an adventure. It's been a long year (for nice reasons) and many things have made the year stand out. Here are some of the significant events:

Baby

Our baby, Lily, was born in April. To say she has turned our lives upside down has been an understatement. The first four months of the year was spent preparing for a baby - buying furniture and other baby stuff, painting a nursery and adjusting the time I spent at work. She arrived two weeks late. Then suddenly she was here! Starting a family really makes you consider your priorities and, although the amount of work you have to do doesn't decrease, you have to work differently to make the most of your time with your baby. I look forward to all the year ahead with my family.

Car crashes

My wife and I have both had (relatively minor) car accidents this year. Mine really scared me and it's not something I ever want to experience again.


Knee injury
I injured my knee in April when playing football and it's not been right since. I had an arthroscopy in August when a lot of my cartilage was removed and a tear to my ACL was identified. My consultant has said that he doesn't think it needs surgery but my physio wants me to seek a second opinion. It's really affected my fitness and it's annoyed me.

Changing year groups

At the start of the year I was beginning to feel settled in Year Three. At the end of the year I'm beginning to settle in Year Four. I've also moved classrooms twice. I've found the teaching year to be quite challenging.

I've realised after writing the above, that I feel fairly organised now. Things are settling down and I feel ready to make 2012 a successful year.

My favourite song of the year

Maroon 5 & Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger

My favourite film of the year

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (to be fair, I've only been to the cinema twice all year. However this film was superb - the perfect ending to a brilliant film series.)

My favourite TV shows of the year

The Apprentice & The Young Apprentice and Boardwalk Empire.

Teachers' 2012 Blogging Challenge

After reading about the 50-day blogging challenge on @nicwwfc's blog, I thought it might be fun to try arranging a similar challenge for teachers. There's no way, however, that I could blog every day for 50 days, so I've decided to have a 52-week challenge!


The idea is that each week you write a blog post based on the theme for that week. I'm going to try to publish mine on Sundays.


2012 Teachers' Blogging Challenge

Write a blog post each week based on the following themes:

Week 1: Introduce yourself
           
Week 2: Make a bulleted list of every lesson taught this week
 
Week 3: Your favourite lesson when you were at school – what is it like to teach it now?
           
Week 4: A funny story from your classroom experience
           
Week 5: Your favourite film
           
Week 6: 5 attributes that you admire in your colleagues
           
Week 7: Your least favourite lesson when you were at school – what is it like to teach it now?
           
Week 8: Your opinion on one of the latest education news stories
           
Week 9: Your favourite ICT tool
           
Week 10: Your favourite song
           
Week 11: List some of your favourite bloggers
           
Week 12: How are your New Year’s Resolutions going?
           
Week 13: A photo of your classroom
           
Week 14: A letter to your MP about education
           
Week 15: Your favourite food
           
Week 16: 5 inspiring people that   you follow on Twitter
           
Week 17: Your career plan
           
Week 18: Something you would like to learn to do
       
Week 19: A description of your best lesson this week
       
Week 20: Your favourite TV show
           
Week 21: Something you learned this week
       
Week 22: A quote that inspires you
       
Week 23: Your least favourite lesson to teach
           
Week 24: A resource you have used from www.teachingideas.co.uk
       
Week 25: A YouTube clip that you find funny
           
Week 26: Something that makes you proud
       
Week 27: Send an idea to http://www.ideastoinspire.co.uk/ and share it your blog
       
Week 28: Things you have planned to do with your class before the end of the school year
       
Week 29: 5 pieces of advice you would give to an NQT
           
Week 30: Your hobbies
           
Week 31: Something new that you have tried this year
       
Week 32: Your favourite lesson to teach
           
Week 33: Give a great way for children to learn their times tables
       
Week 34: A Facebook page that you have liked
       
Week 35: Your ideal summer holiday
           
Week 36: What did you do during the summer holidays?
       
Week 37: A photo of your school
       
Week 38: Your CV
           
Week 39: A smartphone app that you use for school
       
Week 40: Your favourite book
           
Week 41: Comment on three blogs
       
Week 42: Something new that you want to try in the classroom
           
Week 43: The best bit of advice that you've ever been given
       
Week 44: A time saving tip for teachers
       
Week 45: Your favourite possession
           
Week 46: What three words sum you up?
       
Week 47: What would you like to see happen change in the new curriculum
       
Week 48: A resources you have used from www.primaryresources,co.uk
       
Week 49: What Christmas activities do you do in school?
           
Week 50: Things you love about Christmas at home
           
Week 51: What would you like to try in the classroom next year
           
Week 52: Your highlights of the year

Families

One of my favourite tweets of 2011 was from @angelabishop: "Pixar, which #stevejobs helped build, has a staff policy.Leave on time every day cos you can't make family movies if you never see your own."

It really made me think, and I began to realise how relevant this statement is for teachers too. How can you teach children and help them to develop a love of life and learning if you get too busy to spend time with your own family. If ever there was a message to remind us about what really matters it is this:
"Leave school on time every day and switch off from work because you can't teach children about life if you don't make the most of yours."

Image: http://www.ohmyweird.com/2007/05/03/family-love-is-everything/

Monthly Review: November 2011

I have found this month very hard. For various reasons I've missed management time and so have fallen behind with work. I feel like I haven't stopped all month. At least December is now upon us, which is a good time to relax as things wind down at school *sarcasm*. 



Football
Our school house football competition and an inter-school competition have both finished this month. The member of staff that runs the school football team is very underrated. The amount of time that is spent attending football matches after school is outrageous. In our school we will have almost 15 after school football matches this academic year (more if we do well). And this is in addition to running the actual football club. In my school I'm fortunate that the role is shared with a number of colleagues.


Visiting LEGOLand Discover Centre
We enjoyed a school visit to the Discovery Centre in Manchester.


Paternity Leave
I was owed a few days of paternity leave which my headteacher kindly allowed me to 'bank' and take later. We enjoyed days out in Manchester and Warrington. I felt terribly guilty about taking the days now, but everyone has told me that I mustn't, and that I must enjoy them. "You'll never get these days with your baby again."


Not striking
I chose not to strike on 30th November. My reasons for this are not appropriate to be shared here and I will write them in a different post.

Monthly Review: October 2011

This month started badly, with a car accident. I wasn't injured and, luckily, no one else was in the car with me. The car was almost written off but it lived to fight another day. The insurance company have been very good, though. 


Blogging for school
I've discovered Primary Blogger, which is a free blogging platform for schools. I loved it, and I have set up a blog for our year group. At the moment it is just for sharing items of news but ultimately it would be good for sharing work on it. I have also set up a blog for my role as deputy head. This blog is purely for school news so I will be keeping Primary Deputy going as a personal reflection. 


Spinning metaphorical plates
I'm not sure what the start of this year has been so busy. It might be because I'm now a dad, and my priorities have changed somewhat. I've found it very difficult to stay on top of things at school and at home. The half-term holiday was a welcome break!


Senior Leaders' Conference
I attend a conference for senior leaders which I will write about soon! Not only is it a great opportunity to learn, but also it is a real perk of the job, staying at a nice hotel and catching up with colleagues from other schools.


Visiting Lincolnshire
We enjoyed a short break in Lincolnshire, our second short holiday as a family. It wasn't great weather but it was lovely to get away from it all for a while.

Something to remember

Data Handling

We made great use of two of my favourite Purplemash tools in our Maths lessons this week. 


We began by exploring the database on aliens that is included in Purplemash. The children found this lots of fun. They were able to create some nice graphs on paper and also by sending the data through to 2Graph which they used to interpret information about the aliens. Next time we do this we will design our own aliens and then create our own database. I want to link it to our Sci-Fi topic which we will be featuring next year.


We then created designed our own forms for collecting information. We wanted to find out things like our birth month, favourite football team and any other questions they thought were appropriate. We created a collaborative database in our table groups. The children then went to their own computers to enter their info into each database. I was pleasantly surprised that all of this took one and a half lessons and no more. That's how easy 2Investigate is to use!


We then decided we wanted to gather data from other schools. Our headteacher challenged us to find out how our class compares to others around the country in how we get to school. I decided to use a Google Form. I have never used Google Docs before (for no particular reason) and I couldn't believe how simple the process was. The children chose the questions that they wanted other schools to answer and then I used the power of Twitter to send out the link and see how many schools we could get to complete the survey. In the end nearly 20 schools did, from schools all over the country!! We used the data to make graphs and compare the information to our own school.


The maths we were doing in the project was not exactly earth shattering. But the children were enthused by data handling and the idea of working with real data!


I can't wait to use 2Investigate, 2Graph and Google Forms again!

Leadership Lessons from Henry V Part Five: Motivation

Part Five: How Henry motivated his troops towards victory

I recently attended a superb training session on Inspirational Leadership from Ben at Contender Charlie. The messages on leadership were based on Shakespeare's Henry V.
You can find handouts from the course here.

In this final post of a short series, I''m going to share some of my learning from the course.

Henry's most famous monologue goes like this:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility,
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage,
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect,
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon, let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonor not your mothers. Now attest
That those whom you called fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture. Let us swear
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not,

How can we learn from Henry's motivational skills?

• He was one of them - we're in this together! You're problems are my problems.
• He believes in his troops - if you don't believe in someone you don't motivate positively, only negatively.
• He displays real passion.
• He creates a common identity behind which you can unite.
• He honours his troops - he calls them 'friends'.
• He reminds them of the big picture - why they're doing what they're doing.
• He's realistic and says it like it is.
• He uses vivid images, stories and metaphors. These can be worth far more than data.
• He chooses his moment to inspire.
• He also uses some negative motivation skills by saying if we don't do it well, this could be the scenario we face. The choice is yours.

Leadership Lessons from Henry V Part Four: Henry's Dark Night

Part Three: Henry's Dark Night - or the night before the battle.

I recently attended a superb training session on Inspirational Leadership from Ben at Contender Charlie. The messages on leadership were based on Shakespeare's Henry V.
You can find handouts from the course here.

Over a series of posts I'm going to share some of my learning from the course.

So, in the play...

Landing in France, Henry achieves some early successes before setbacks lead to his 8,000 exhausted men being surrounded by 40,000 mounted French troops. The French offer Henry the choice of surrendering (and paying a huge fine but he and his troops being spared) or fighting the following day on the field of Agincourt and being killed.

Like so many leaders before and since, Henry faces his own dark night of the soul. He confronts the possibility of failure and the crushing loneliness of his responsibility as he faces a decision that could lead to most of his men lying dead on the field of battle and his vision destroyed. It's a night of soul searching which is a metaphor for leadership in general.

http://www.mentoringforchange.co.uk/leadership/henryV.php

Henry's night goes through the following stages. I've tried to describe how the lessons can be applied to leadership.

Visible Leadership: A leader should always be visible - particularly when facing a real challenge.
Private Truth: If you reveal your inner truth publicly it can have a damaging effect. Put on a front.
Time Alone: Take time out to think when necessary. Spend some time with your family.
Listen To The Troops: Without taking it personally, learn the views of your team. Have the strength of character to accept criticism.
Unload Burden: Where do you go to unload the burden? NOT in the staffroom. You need the chance to vent off, but shout at the car, not at a person!
Acknowledge Shadows: Fully recognise the challenges that are faced. Keep it real.
Core Values: Come back to your core values - your vision. This is what matters in the end.
Inspire Troops: Inspire the team - go for it!

Delegation

I recently read 'How Successful Head Teachers Survive and Thrive' by Professor Tim Brighouse. It's available here. It's a really interesting read about the key tasks of being a headteacher and ways to manage the job.

There are nine levels of delegation:

1. Look into this problem. Give me all the facts. I will decide what to do.
2. Let me know the options available with the pros and cons of each. I will decide what to select.
3. Let me know the criteria for your recommendation. which alternatives you have identified and which one appears best to you with any risk identified. I will make the decision.
4. Recommend a course of action for my approval.
5. Let me know what you intend to do. Delay action until I approve.
6. Let me know what you intend to do. Do it unless I say not to.
7. Take action. Let me know what you did. Let me know how it turns out.
8. Take action. Communicate with me only if action is unsuccessful.
9. Take action. No further communication with me is necessary.

Being consciously aware of this spectrum is a helpful guide to the need for extended professional development for others - or oneself.