The Start
Tudo Bem?
Having just finished my holidays and wanting to become more reflective in my work and help me work through the day to day journey of an educator I have decided to start a blog. I am a Physical Education Teacher and Head of Year and love my job at a very good school that has given my lots of opportunities. I have just guided a Year 11 cohort through and come off a year as an associate member of SLT, both of these role taught me an incredible amount and looking forward to using those experiences, some good and some bad to help me and others this year.
I start with a new group this year and am excited to see what the Year 9 team can do, I have a group of new students as well as a new set of tutors to work with. I am in the midst of trying to think of our priorities for the year with the year group which I hope to get down and than transfer to our school document. I always feel some of these become redundant after around eight weeks because things move on and have always wanted more of a constant setting of targets and review process based on successes and how people and education develops. Still there are always certain things I want to get right.
Having been on many leaderships courses and drummed into me about having a vision for your work I have always tried to adopt this and have constantly looked to others for inspiration, I am very grateful to say that finally I am starting to understand what they (the wise people) are saying. To me it is all about having a purpose and a drive, knowing this directs everything you do. Not to be too cliché but I did start thinking about Martin Luther King and his 'I have a dream', his vision was simple and straight forward and was a tool to bring people together in one direction. We could see what he wanted and why he wanted to do it. I have been to recent interviews where my vision was steeped in what I thought people wanted to hear as opposed to being my dream. This year I am attempting to keep it simple and straight forward and base everything we do as a year team on this.
I drifted somewhat which if you get to read this blog regularly you will see will happen. I have a few responsibilities this year and juggling them all will be a challenge but I am excited by it. We have a new faculty leader in PE and she has given me the responsibility of professional development and GCSE PE, both of which I am really excited by as well as mentoring an NQT after his successful Harrow First (Teach First). He is a very talented individual and am in doubt that we can create some sparks this year in PE which have a lasting effect. I continue my role as a Head of Year, guiding a team of students and tutors through KS4. I hope to develop further the school's student leadership team which we call the 'Student Government' and give these individuals a chance to lead on activities that they care about and finally I will be conducting the school's activities week.
I have written this list for myself as much as the reader, these are my priorities for the year and hope to use this blog post to document my experiences along each of these priorities, all of which are not straight forward alongside being a teacher and the incredible amount of responsibilities an educator has.
So this is the start...
Good luck to all those starting their school years again, I am as ever optimistic and hope you have all had a great break.
Tom
Having just finished my holidays and wanting to become more reflective in my work and help me work through the day to day journey of an educator I have decided to start a blog. I am a Physical Education Teacher and Head of Year and love my job at a very good school that has given my lots of opportunities. I have just guided a Year 11 cohort through and come off a year as an associate member of SLT, both of these role taught me an incredible amount and looking forward to using those experiences, some good and some bad to help me and others this year.
I start with a new group this year and am excited to see what the Year 9 team can do, I have a group of new students as well as a new set of tutors to work with. I am in the midst of trying to think of our priorities for the year with the year group which I hope to get down and than transfer to our school document. I always feel some of these become redundant after around eight weeks because things move on and have always wanted more of a constant setting of targets and review process based on successes and how people and education develops. Still there are always certain things I want to get right.
Having been on many leaderships courses and drummed into me about having a vision for your work I have always tried to adopt this and have constantly looked to others for inspiration, I am very grateful to say that finally I am starting to understand what they (the wise people) are saying. To me it is all about having a purpose and a drive, knowing this directs everything you do. Not to be too cliché but I did start thinking about Martin Luther King and his 'I have a dream', his vision was simple and straight forward and was a tool to bring people together in one direction. We could see what he wanted and why he wanted to do it. I have been to recent interviews where my vision was steeped in what I thought people wanted to hear as opposed to being my dream. This year I am attempting to keep it simple and straight forward and base everything we do as a year team on this.
I drifted somewhat which if you get to read this blog regularly you will see will happen. I have a few responsibilities this year and juggling them all will be a challenge but I am excited by it. We have a new faculty leader in PE and she has given me the responsibility of professional development and GCSE PE, both of which I am really excited by as well as mentoring an NQT after his successful Harrow First (Teach First). He is a very talented individual and am in doubt that we can create some sparks this year in PE which have a lasting effect. I continue my role as a Head of Year, guiding a team of students and tutors through KS4. I hope to develop further the school's student leadership team which we call the 'Student Government' and give these individuals a chance to lead on activities that they care about and finally I will be conducting the school's activities week.
I have written this list for myself as much as the reader, these are my priorities for the year and hope to use this blog post to document my experiences along each of these priorities, all of which are not straight forward alongside being a teacher and the incredible amount of responsibilities an educator has.
So this is the start...
Good luck to all those starting their school years again, I am as ever optimistic and hope you have all had a great break.
Tom
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