Will he do it?

Every year I mumble this promise to myself under my breath. In this week of every year I make my honorable oath to remain true to what I say in ... this week of every year.  I silently swear that it will happen, and try with all my eyes-closed-tight might to bring it about.  I see the words loom large in my mind's eye, and use this image to build their strength and meaning.   I don't let anyone hear it until I have built up my own conviction.  Parts of me hear it though; my knees hear it and high five one another; my feet hear it and dance - of their own accord - in silent joy to the theme of the Hallelujah Chorus, and my back groans and creaks a yell of apoplectic whimsy.

Once I have a little more confidence, I start to rehearse saying it to others.  I even develop something of a self pitying grimace to accompany the phrase in the hope they will take it more seriously.  I start by sharing it with family members, who, much as they do throughout the twelve month, ignore me with unadulterated disdain.

So I try it out on friends and neighbours, who know me not enough to gauge my levels of seriousness.

Then I try it out on colleagues and children as if they may proffer just a note of interest.  I clasp my hands together, and look not enormously dissimilar to Richard III - auditionees, keen to impress my earnestness.

Yet none of them seem to register my honour.

Perhaps the words seem feeble, or non-commital, but I do not see how their meaning can be lost.  Yet, as I say the words with passion and conviction, none seem to believe me.

So, this time I must compose myself.

Take a breath.

Believe in the power of what I have to say.

Know that I am right.

Never falter from the virtue of my cause, as I say out loud:

"This will be my last camp!"

There.  I've said it.  It's out there.  Couldn't take it back even if I wanted to.

I'm sorry...what?

What was that?  You don't believe it?  You think I'm making it up?  How can you think that?

Oh, I see.  Apparently I said it last year, and then after water sports day told everyone to ignore me.  Is that right?  And the year before that after I got all those kids to the top of the climbing wall.  And you think I'll do it again.

Well, we'll see about that.

You just tune into the blogs every night next week from Exmouth camp and we'll see who's right, shall we.

So there.

That is all, until next week.........

What's in a word?

Well, that was an interesting Monday morning: news of the OfSTED blitz hitting Bristol, and how they were good enough to accompany it with a less-than-positive press campaign.  Here we are, less than a week into a fortnight of waiting on phone calls and wishing colleagues the best of luck, and it all seems a bit ... unnecessary.  Unpleasant.  Ill-conceived.  Not nice... oh, that's two words.  Apologies.

Because individual words are important.   As a Head, I've always preferred Senior Leadership team to Senior Management Team; always referred to it as a school improvement plan as opposed to school development plan.  It may seem pedantic, but I think this is just the time for pedantry, because there is a world of difference in the use and intent of certain words and phrases, especially when imposed.

How may times have I stood in front of assembly and suggested, urged, implored using the word  "friend"  instead of something more profane.  I am very fond of using the three little words model - try it.  Which sounds better:

This is fantastic  or    Must try harder

That's all mine   or    You go first

 Go away loser     or      Can I help?

Want to play?       or      No you can't

Well?  It's over simplistic, but ever-so-true, and easily transferable to other situations and contexts.

Because words, small, individual nuggets of language are important.  Their application, context and intent convey massive emotional meaning, and only through very deliberate usage may we achieve our best with them.

Yesterday's meeting at the M-Shed (nice venue, that) was, in many ways, a meeting about words.  About distinctiveness, about selection, and about shared purpose.  Sadly, the word "default" was employed repeatedly, and it should perhaps not have been.

On our table (the one at the back - you know who you are) we discussed how and why we had elected / selected / decided to remain as "LA maintained schools".  There are two crucial issues here, and I wish I had the intelligence to have realized it at the time:

1.  Why did we take this brave stand (because we did, and it was not, despite our humble and modest protestations, because "It's what we did"), and

2.  How did something so marvellous get such a cruddy name?

There are many political, socio-economic, theoretical and philosophical answers to question 1.  As per usual, mine is simple and heartfelt:  I proposed to the governing body that we remain a community school because, if we wanted to incorporate the Children's Centre, work with the Greenway Centre, the Ranch, the community forum, etc, and maintain service for the community of Southmead at the core of everything we do, then the best way in which to do that was to be proud to remain a school within the remit of the local authority.  Many governor debates take hours, or weeks; this one took a second - we remain a community school, and proudly so.

So, how did we get the altogether mediocre moniker of "maintained"?  More pedantic (there he goes again) bloggspotters will spout the Education Act XXXX at me, but the question is merely rhetorical.  Let me put it another way.

You wouldn't call a Fun Park a Maintained facility (although I have been to "leisure" centers which would defy trade descriptions).

My wife and many others would cry out in alarm if the Mall or Cabot Circus were suddenly deemed little more than a maintained venue.

Was Mona Lisa's smile simply maintained?  Okay, I'm stretching a point with that one, but what I am trying to hint at, not very intelligently, is the value of the simple, single, essential word.

Our wonderful schools could be called maintained; I fully understand the terminology and phraseology and its origins.  But its no real compliment is it?  Nor does it encapsulate what we are about and what we seek to achieve.  Furthermore, community school has a better ring to it, but does it go the whole hog?  Does it envelope and package the entire truth and nature of what we get out of bed for?

I would set out a different suggestions.  I believe we should be called "Proud" schools: proud of our decision, proud to work with the local authority, proud to serve the communities we are privileged to serve, proud to be part of this wider group of similarly proud schools, proud to welcome and build friendships with schools and settings of a different nature, and proud of the work we do.

Or how about "Blue Sky" schools? Never stopping to consider the limitations or conventions which seek to inhibit the amazing progress of our organisations and the individuals therein.  Relentless in our drive and aspiration to provide something truly special for our brilliant young people regardless of little hindrances such as crippling deficit budgets.

Maybe "seeker" schools: not schools which place Quidditch on the curriculum, but schools who are always looking out for the next drive or initiative which will push them into the next stage of their development, you know, that thing we're always seeking.

Perhaps one word is not enough.  Perhaps we need a whole new lexicon.  Whatever it may end up as being, I just wanted to nail my colours (claret and blue) to the mast and say openly - I'm very proud of our position as a school which openly celebrates its relationships with the authority, and revels in its partnerships, both within and beyond, that improve and enhance the quality of experience and opportunity we offer our children on a daily basis.  It's quite simple really.

That is all.  For now.

PS The only words in this blog that offend the squiggly red line of the spell check are "Quidditch" and "OfSTED".  Just FYI.

Now you too can be part of the monitoring and self evaluation process...

Many of you will be thinking that this is the point in the term when I bang on about "I can't believe that this is the point in the term..." about where we are in term.

Well, it is.  And I can't.  Job done.

Therefore, instead of boring you e-rigid with superlatives about how magnificent and super-dooper everything has been, and blah blahdy blah, I thought I would instead use this opportunity to bring you all into the arena of school improvement monitoring.

I could give you my usual "this is a list of what the children have been doing" wrapped up in some unsuitably, toe-curlingly crass format.  But then, who couldn't?  I could rave on about some point that has caught my eye, such as I am now closer to 6000 hits then 5000, but that would be self-fulfilling and, if I'm honest, a little showy.

So, hey everyone, I have an idea! (Hmmm, was it me, or was that a bit too much Cliff-Richard-Summer-Holiday-esque, Miss Lee?)

This week I have started the final major piece of monitoring of the year, where I look closely at the quality of learning on a daily basis in as many ways as I can.  I observe the incidental stuff that goes on outside the classrooms and outside of the lessons, and look at the provision for individuals and for groups.  I also (and this makes me unpopular with some elements of authority, so, who gives?) I look at the care our children receive, and the attention to detail offered by the staff.

Therefore, in this blog, I do not intend to list all the work done by the children.  Instead, allow me please to provide a snapshot of the work I have seen being done for and on behalf of the children.

Over the course of this (not yet complete) learning week, I have been privileged to observe:

• The improvements made over 24 hours by a teacher who really cares;
• Children delighting in being offered so many sporting opportunities, and desperate to improve their skills;
• Very young children having sophisticated narrative built around their play, whether through creative dialogue or searching questioning;
• An assembly which challenged older children, delivered almost entirely via rhetorical questions - could you do that?
• Children who do not like loathe and detest writing (and for whom English is not a first language) thriving and excelling in writing lessons;
• Individuals who find lunchtimes difficult receiving specialist provision from adults, and year 6 (and a year 3);
• Less able learners successfully grappling with extremely difficult maths concepts due to the resources provided by a teacher (who skillfully refused to help them further), whilst...
• Extremely able learners were pushed far beyond the boundaries of their chronological age;
• Very young learners mastering the technology which will doubtless pervade every aspect of their adult life;
• Children as young as 5 mastering the phonetic patterns normally the domain of 7 year olds;
• The delicate care and nurturing direction offered by our better reading partners, and the children's feelings of success as a result;
• Young teachers dicussing, almost debating infinitesimal points of progress for children in other classes;
• Extraordinary care, on the verge of angst, being dedicated to ensuring the quality of EYFS journals;
• The exquisite care placed into the preparation of our new books from colleagues;
• The creation of yet more wonderful display work, which covered science, D&T, art, and so much more.

Furthermore, at my desk this afternoon, I have been an active (and passive) (and curious) (and, let us not deny it, downright nosey) participant in conversations covering an upcoming KUW theme week, the few points at which our APS progress does not represent that for an entire year (at term 5 end), the link between our communications strategy and our new IiP bid, the radical improvement in the behaviour and learning attitude of two boys who should, do and have always known better, how well yesterday's basketball tournament went, what our double bassists will be performing in their assembly, and what I'll be having in tomorrow's chip shop run (although, a big star to Mrs B who had already guessed, recorded and costed my order).  My last job today was to "tidy" my desk, which generally means rearrange the paper and dust.  This evening, tidying meant creating two piles: not-particularly-important stuff, and certificates for tomorrow's praise assembly.  Who wants to guess which was bigger?  

Normally one for a pompous and self important ending, I shall sum this one up by saying 

"Well, there's your monitoring.  What do you think?"  

And it is a genuinely meant question.  I would be intrigued to know what your thoughts are on the work that goes on each and every day.  I would also like to simply, but humbly and deeply respectfully, say to every stakeholder - volunteer, governor, teacher, parents support colleague, music teacher, child, lunchtime staff, kitchen, cleaner, pencil sharpener - 

"Thank you."  

Some day soon, please take a step back and witness how much is accomplished, in any normal week, in the name of the community we are privileged to serve.

May the sun shine upon us all, wherever we may be (especially Cornwall, preferably south Cornwall, towards the end of the A30, just past the level crossing).

Until we collaboratively create spectacular things again, that is all.

The top line of this blog is not a joke

Q: Where would you find Stevie Wonder and Vincent Van Gogh battling it out with underwater sea creatures in space?

Now, your initial reaction does not surprise me.  You may well think that I am recounting a subterranean / intergalactic duel between men of sensual impairment-driven hyper creativity and output. You could be forgiven for thinking that someone has uncovered an as-yet-unpublished HG Wells masterpiece waiting to be transformed into a kindle-friendly format.   Well, you're off the mark...somewhat.

Allow me to make your lives, and your guess work, easier.

I am writing this whilst sat less than ten feet from a Roman fort, a collection of 6 feet square rangoli mosaics, an A3 anthology of moon poetry, story maps and recipes for the gingerbread man, whilst today's drumming lessons take place.  Furthermore, in the two classrooms closest to me, some children are writing the most detailed descriptions of the respiratory system I have seen since the 1989  bumper edition of the Lancet, whilst others are creating rap songs about all of the planets in the solar system (it is indeed, "all about Neptune - Neptune - Neptune").

I can see nursery heading off across the fields to tend the plants and crops they have planted in the woods, and year 5 are presenting their speeches on conservation.  After play, our key stage 2 will break down into smaller groups studying photography, chess, eco-care, web design,planting sweet peas, the work of Andy Warhol, alongside the 5-a-side league that has belatedly altered its team names away from Ashton Gate / robin puns.

So, you may well ask, what on earth has all this to do with the abode of the Picasso trigger fish, the largest junkyard known to womankind, a bunch of sunflowers and the pensmith of "Superstition"?  I'm glad you asked.

Far from battling for supremacy in some of nature's most hostile terrains, these topics sit easily side by side in our curriculum for term 5.  Key stage 1 are studying the lives of famous people who made a difference (why David Bowie, Paddy MacAloon or Jeff Lynne weren't in there I will never know #curriculumrevision); years 3 and 4 are tackling space, whilst our older friends dive straight into their eco water topic.  All around me hang / sit / reverberate / live examples of all the creative, exciting, energetic ways in which our curriculum lives and breathes around our entire environment.

Yet a curriculum is only so much.  There needs to be more to make a lifeblood of a school.  Primary schools, macrocosms of this BIG society no-one can quite fathom, need a curriculum of emotion and wellbeing in order to be successful - citizens keep this world safe just as much as academics advance it.  Sometimes, you have to engineer it, but if the foundations are firm and the conditions right, it happens as if by magic.

Already today, I have awarded 60+ certificates, many of which (awarded by people other that regular classteacher) praised children for being nothing more than the outstanding citizens of our school; one class is celebrating their 100% attendance for the week, whilst another curses their 99.6%; a group of children are walking on clouds as they are off to share their lunch with the Princess of Dark-ness on the Golden table; the administrator is chuffed as someone quietly left her a cake on her mouse mat, and the NQT has insisted that today is bizarre hat Friday for the staff.  Lifeblood.  Absolute lifeblood.  When much union-season pontificating has been deciated to "curriculum issues", I'm quite proud to say we have no issue with ours.

Rarely one to dip my toe into the seedy, germ infested pond of politics, I can not stay completely quiet on the thorny issue of curriculum, so shall state simply thus.  Whitehall, in an era of thrift, paid consultancy to the tune of several thousand K to write a curriculum no-one wants.  I could have saved you thousands; my curriculum would have consisted of 1 single sheet of paper, with one of my daughter's drawings in the bottom corner, and some of my son's moshi monster stickers and notes on the back, bearing the legend:

"Do nothing but the very best by the children you are privileged to serve."

That'll be £severalthousand please.

Or let's call it a bottle of wine.  Decent stuff mind, no HoC plonk.

I could go on ad infinitum, but then I would miss the chance to play in reception's new bug hotel whilst wearing the fez my son feels is a sure fire winner in the staffroom.  Therefore,

That is all.

Where did those two thirds of a year disappear?

I am (and yes, I know I normally say it at these junctures, but it remains the complete truth) utterly blown away by the fact that we stand here, on the precipice of yet another break.  It seems only 24 school days ago that we started a brand new term, walking in to a bucketload of new and exciting displays and looking down the business end of a new batch of medium term planning.

Only 24 school days, but oh so much accomplished.

We opened our magnificent library with a visit from the magnificent (don't overuse it now Willis) Thomas Docherty.  He kept everyone of us spellbound for ages, thrilling us with his stories.  We followed that up with  a World book day brimming with character-driven dressing up ... including an immaculately timed visit from a caped crusader.

More and more children are now playing musical instruments.  We would count the exact number, but it just keeps growing!  In term 5 and 6, we are planning even more projects to get people playing, but in a normal week at the minute we have children playing the clarinet, the recorder, the double bass, the flute, the violin, the guitar and the drums.  We've kept it very quiet, but we have now received the music for a certain Colston Hall concert in the summer.

Never one to shy away from giving, the staff and children made massive efforts do do funny-for-money stuff during the week of comic relief.  We were so overwhelmed by demand that we ran out of red noses by the Tuesday.  Almost £200 at the last count, but still not finished yet.

Our relationship with the children's centre keeps growing and growing, with more and more shared projects emerging between the two.  Family learning day at the centre tomorrow (22.3.13) all about growing.  All invisible, but a much bigger and potentially better staff team growing behind the scenes all the time.

After the blips of snow days, and despite the attempts of various illnesses and bugs, our attendance rises and rises.  The top classes this term have, on average, been much higher (99.5% this week - so close Miss Dark's class) and the overall figure for the term is back up in line with terms 1 and 2.

But of course, what is a school if not a place of learning and progress?  And how do I back up all these ludicrous claims without the data to match it?  Well, as it happens, I can.  Our children continue to make impressive and pleasing progress in all areas.  Teachers have just given me the data for the end of term 4 which tells me:

 - more and more children are reaching the national average in reading, earlier and earlier;
 - groups of children are making enormous strides in maths;
 - our targetted intervention for specific pupils in writing is starting to pay off;
 - our APS (average point score) in most subjects and year groups is above the national average, especially for girls.

Not bad for what can only be described as "24 days", eh?  And this is just the stuff you can see and touch and measure.  This does not include the new adventures people have embarked on, the favours we've done other schools, and the Local authority visits we have survived ... and impressed at.

It was a horrible, rainy end to term, so I did not get the chance to see as many as you as I would've hoped, so please forgive me, but accept these well meant wishes for a relaxing and enjoyable break.

Until April 8th, not thinking about the box of paperwork I taking home tomorrow evening, that is all.