Summer Reflections on Well-Being #Teacher5aday

My original post on #Teacher5aday: Because We Are All Worth It set myself a series of mini challenges around my own well-being.  An update at Easter, #Teacher5aday – Latest Update from @LeadingLearner, was about my attempts to connect, exercise and volunteer.

I think things must be going quite well as, I’m so relaxed and laid back, this is the longest I’ve gone without blogging in the past couple of years.  It’s been four weeks.  This summer has also been the calmest I can remember with no massive project – not a multi-million pound capital building programme or a multi academy trust to set up – anywhere in sight.  Having said that I’ve managed to decorate a room but a three day project doesn’t really count when you’ve been used to those that literally last years and years.

In terms of #Connect I had a great day at Northern Rock 2015, meeting up with loads of great people, some for the first time and others are becoming good friends on the tour.  I’m off to ResearchEd in Glasgow at the end of the summer holidays and it would be great to meet up with some more people there.  The habit of meeting up with my mum, dad, sisters, their husbands and some of my nieces or nephews at a coffee shop for a drink and natter is starting to happen more frequently.  The rowing machine is still near killing me so in #exercise speak it must be doing me good.

#Notice

In my original blog I wrote, I’m so busy being a human doing I forget to stop and be a human being.  To be honest I’m not doing great at stopping all that much.  Mum and dad always thought the greatest success teachers had at my infants was actually nailing my backside to a seat long enough do something worthwhile.  Though I would argue I was already doing something it just didn’t fit in with the teacher’s definition of school work.  From ants in my pants to nowadays my thoughts continually leaping around like a box of frogs.  I’m off for a hearing test this summer – it will be interesting whether they can diagnose selective hearing or not fully paying attention.  After years of running around – physically and mentally it’s difficult to stop and be.  There is a danger that I am missing the beauty in the World and the beauty of being fully with a person as something they say sets off a trail of my own thoughts.  #Notice is still very much a work in progress.

#Teacher5aDay (http://wp.me/p3Gre8-Cz)

#Learn

After the best part of a year I’m beginning to understand and hopefully get to grips with my new job though it is still odd.  I’ve set myself a set of things to work on as part of my reflections as part of DERTy Leadership.

Click on me to read the full DERTy Leadership Blog Post

At Easter I mentioned I was reading a number of books and have half finished “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek, “The Chimp Paradox” by Prof Steve Peters and “Teach Like a Champion 2.0″ by Doug Lemov.  I’ll return to them all at some point and finish them but I think my restless chimp has got the better of me.  The Doug Lemov book sparked an idea for a professional development Teach Like a Champion programme next year.  It will be voluntary, run for teachers from across the trust, primary and secondary together, and start with us discussing the first set of routines described in the book.  Teachers will need to look at their own routines and then through a lesson study style approach seek to “perfect” them by attempting to determine what impact they have.

“Finnish Lessons 2.0″ by Pasi Sahlberg, “This Much I know about Love over Fear …” by John Tomsett and “Teaching: Notes from the Front Line” by Debra Kidd have all been read, enjoyed and used to challenge and support my continually evolving schema of leadership in education.  It’s very much part of a horizon gazing and horizon fixing process.  I’ll continue reading blogs and articles and hope to visit a number of schools this year.  I’ve almost got one booked in for next term and hope to be doing a bit of peer review with a colleague or two as a way of getting an external and independent set of eyes on the Trust and its academies.

I hope you’re enjoying the summer break and your well-being reservoir is slowly being refilled.  Feel free to use the link below to set up your own well-being plan: