Category: Thoughts

It’s a Sunday so I suppose that’s pretty appropriate for a Damascene moment. I was tweeting with Amanda Wilson about her marvellous blog post ‘Do you understand what it’s like to be a black student in a UK School’ and I mentioned that it was going to help me in my thinking. Since the death of George Floyd last year […]

This post was written as part of a series of articles featured on Nourished Collective where the theme is described as ‘the intersection between women’s identities and leadership.’ Unfortunately, I missed the deadline so I am sharing it here. Do visit the Nourished Collective which is a community for ethical teachers and leaders, passionate about nourishing classrooms and corridors,  playgrounds […]

In the present climate of inspection and judgement, you’d think being left off the list would be manna to a school, but what is it like when Ofsted don’t call?   The preparation We know we shouldn’t teach to the test or even have half an eye on what inspection teams may want, but we all do it. So, each […]

It’s Christmas. The time of presents, glitter, excitement and school performances. It is tradition. Tradition is good. Or is it?   THE performance For many primary schools here in the UK, it will be a nativity play of some sort. It may not be the one with all the carols that you see on TV but it will tell the […]

I don’t mean getting rid of Christmas but I have been thinking about presents and I was wondering if there should be a policy about gift giving in schools. Now, this may sound like policy writing gone mad, like in the good old days that if it moved you wrote a policy about it. I don’t mean that and actually, […]

  I’ll make no apologies for mixing metaphors and similes in this piece as I’m not an English teacher and those of you are can cringe away. Like many of you men and women I like shoes, boots, trainers, sandals, flip flops, well shoes in general, and probably according to my beleaguered other half too many, although for my liking […]

  On GCSE results day, it is good to know that in many parts of the world British qualifications are still revered.   Conversation over curry We treated ourselves to a midweek curry as it is still the holidays. Yes, I know I’m retired but doing the governance work I do as well as visiting schools with 100 Word Challenge, […]

  I suffer from AS – Anti-climax Syndrome. I’m no good when school finishes. Yes, I’m retired but still do lots of governance work and then there is 100 Word Challenge Life is so busy. It is a whirlwind at the best of times, but those last few days of the school year are manic. It is the time when […]

I missed last year’s #Nurture14/15 for some reason. I suspect it was because over Christmas last year I was getting myself in a state about my upcoming world trip and just couldn’t focus. That means I haven’t got any hopes for 2015 to review. The wonderful ChocTzar who began this tradition says that we don’t have to stick to the […]

Back at the end of December 2012, what has now become a tradition of review blog posts was born. It carries the tag #Nurture then the date of the year passing and that of the year coming in. So we are now looking at #Nurture1516.Originally, there were rules about how many reflections you should list but as the year numbers […]