A Meme for Introverts

I made a meme. That's a sentence I didn't think I would ever write. I am currently writing about interviews for introverts for a longer piece, and for some reason, Liam Neeson's speech from Taken came into mind. I am sure there are a million of these 'taken memes,' but I am pretty proud of this one!

The point I am trying to make is that, when being interviewed, introverts should not try to be more 'extro' but celebrate the 'particular sets of skills' they can bring to leadership roles. Obviously, it helps if they are given the chance to shine in an introvert-friendly process, which is the other part of the piece I am writing.

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Things I have learned since leaving the classroom.

I know in my first post I set out a grand plan for what I am going to write about, but I want to slip this one in first. Here are some things I have learned since leaving the classroom. Parents are right when they complain about school traffic. It is as bad as they say it is. I have found that there are times of day that it is wise to stay off the roads if you live within, or want to get to somewhere within a mile of a school. Its not just primary schools, as I have been caught out visiting a supermarket close to a secondary school at home time. It seems that the children (sorry, young people) are too cool to have mum (or dad!) pick them up at the school gate but not too cool that they mind being collected from the Sainsbury's car park next door. The flip side of this is that, if you time it just right, the supermarkets are almost completely deserted if you can find one that is not too close to a secondary school and get there at about 2:55pm. Mums (or dads!) will be otherwise enga...

I was proud to be the head of a 'woke' school.

I really don't understand people who use 'woke' as an insult. As far as I can tell, it means being thoughtful, empathetic and inclusive, which doesn't sound like an insult to me. When I was a headteacher, my school was very much a 'woke' organisation, and I am proud to say that this was as much due to the attitudes of the children as to the example set by the staff. We had pupils who identified as being transgender, families with same-sex parents, families from many different cultures, and our children quite rightly accepted everyone as being part of our school community. Perhaps the thing that made me the most proud, though, was the fact that when I became the headteacher there we still heard children using the word 'gay' as an insult, but by the time I left my school, that had disappeared entirely. Knowing quite a bit about our families, I suspect that 'wokeness' was largely driven by our children making their own decisions about how they wante...

Wellbeing Wednesday

I would like to begin by clarifying that the title of this post is intended to be somewhat ironic. I have noticed the term 'Wellbeing Wednesday' used frequently in schools, and I must point out that this approach is flawed. Wellbeing should not be confined to a single day each week; for it to be truly effective, it must be integrated into daily routines on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday as well, and perhaps even more crucially, over the weekend! Each Wednesday I am planning to publish a post themed on one of my own recommended wellbeing strategies. They will be strategies that you can use to support the children, to support staff, or to support yourself. They will be achievable, realistic and hopefully fun too! The theme for this week is 'Pick a Team'. I was considering calling it 'join a team' but I appreciate that many of us don't have the time or the inclination to physically do that. If you do then good luck to you and I am sure it will have a pos...

Reflections of an ex-head teacher

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