The kind of legends a camp is built upon ....

One of the irresistible pulls that brought be out of camp retirement was the promise of the privilege to observe an amazing transformation at source.  I've mentioned it before, but there are few other places, times and experiences when seemingly shy and retiring children metamorphose into something truly stunning and courageous.

I'm talking of course of the transformation from child to legend.  You don't really know its happening until its happened, and the signs become too obvious to ignore.  There's the heroism and daring deeds, but coupled to that, there's a more subtle change: they walk ten feet tall, the look eagerly for the next challenge, they take adults jokes and teases with greater freedom and enjoyment, and you generally start to feel that little bit warmer in their glow.

Today, we have taken our first real strides into the nitty-gritty, business end of camp.  Yesterday was about finding our feet, today was more about getting them very wet, climbing up walls and trees on them and using them to guide us across the assault course.  An early morning call and departure, a coach drive to Dartmoor, and we were there - 7 hours of wall to wall using those yesterday-found feet in ways that are often unimaginable.

So imagine, if you can, the legends that came out of this.  Jack (F), Lainey May, Jess, Harry et al have all seemed to grow a little today in the luminary stakes.  Jess has yet to find an obstacle that will stand in her way; despite the fact she is covered in bruises from hurtling at the climbing wall, she cannot stop smiling, and we have yet to see her move in a way that cannot be described as "skipping with glee".

It will surprise no-one that Jack is being as helpful and self-sacrificing as you can be.  When, however, you hear that he was all of this, whilst on a child-built raft in the middle of a freezing cold lake with, in his own words, "I got a wet bum, I have", then you will know that his fame must surely grown and grow.  Two particular members of the group found it very tough; they found it an awful lot easier due mainly to the big man's presence.

Not everyone is a legend through their large deeds or fearless action.  Some are legends because they quietly and humbly try, even when every bone in their body almost says no.  That climbing wall looked and felt like the north face of the Eiger today to Lainey, but she still got on it and climbed.  And Harry is just making life more fun for everyone else involved.  What more could we ask?

Are these the only legends? No, but we've only had one day.  No-one complained at the fact that we still had a lengthy walk this evening after the coach had dropped us off, even if we were all tired and starving hungry. That was pretty legendary.  Once again, the manners and courtesy of our children in the dining hall was a joy and a source of real pride.  All 40 children built and then climbed on to rafts and went into the middle of the lake - not one fell in. Legend.

That doesn't mean I'm saying that none jumped in of their own accord...

I got a real camp tingle today, again, one I've mentioned before.  I look at my watch and thought "It's 11.40 on a Tuesday".  I then realized I was neck deep in lake water and about to be run over by a raft.  Typical Tuesday really.

Until tomorrow - water sports day, and you all know how I feel about that - and the creation of more and more legends, that is all

Finally broke the news to my knees

So here we are again.  Exmouth camp, with 40 excited travelers.  Having vowed never again on several occasions, the lure was simply too strong for me to ignore.  I needed to be part of the magic again, if only for one more time.

So, having filled the coach with more sleeping bags than Milletts, we set off.  A loud but happy procession down the M5 delivered us to sunny (but not very warm) Exmouth, in all its glory.  I have genuinely missed the place.

But not the zig zags.  I really haven't missed them at all.  Neither have my poor knees.

However, we shall overcome.  It has already been a joy to reconnect with everyone associated with this camp and all the sights, smells and feelings that makes this place so special.  Two sessions on the beach and a fish and chip dinner later, and the first day has well and truly been a cracker.

So, what have we learned?  Nothing too ground breaking yet: year 6 are great at spotting sea life, Miss Stephens is far more competitive than we imagined, and the ever reliable Exmouth menu doesn't change.  And festive onesies look *good* at any time of year.

On major thing we have discovered,. or should I say rediscovered, is how impeccable our children's manners are in the dining room, and what an asset they are to us.  Much more of that to come, one feels.

Therefore, as we go to do the last tent walk around and batten down the hatches, all that remains for me to say is what a good start it has been, and how much we are all looking forward to the next few days.  I intend making good on the many promises I have made recently to throw several people off a bridge.

From this side of the teachers' biscuit collection, that is all.

A new lexicon of love: climbing the mountain of excellence

We have been the lucky recipient of many inspections in my time at Badock’s.  Our last school inspection proclaimed that we were providing a good standard of education, and we were all delighted.  Naturally, we all said “outstanding next time”, because that’s what you do.  But I have been wondering for some time, are we actually on the right bus?

I had the pleasure of listening to Roy Blatchford a few months ago.  A noted education figure, I listened with great interest as he spoke about the specifics of certain vocabulary.  Frequent flyers of this drivel will know that this is a subject close to my heart.  He spoke about schools striving not for good or outstanding (with OfSTED “O”s), but striving for excellence.  More precisely, he spoke about striving for excellence as standard.  He then went on to illustrate this in many different ways.  I don’t mind confessing, I came away from that talk knowing seeds had been planted somewhere overgrown and smelly in the darker recesses of my twisted and devious mind.

I was reminded of many car adverts from the 80s and 90s, which often boasted of certain things that were “excellent as standard”.  I never used to consider how electronic windows would be excellent as standard, but I suppose you would miss them if they weren’t.  My dad only ever had company cars – generally Cortinas or astras which have hardly every troubled the dictionary definition of excellence - and we all thought our ship had come in when he brought a Granada with electric seat warmers.  It’s quite a strange feeling coming home from university for the first time thinking “Funny how dad waited until I left home to buy a new car” and “My bum’s lovely and warm”.  You probably don’t miss excellence until you’ve had something less than that standard, really.

This seed germinated for a few weeks and started to grow into something I didn’t quite recognise.  I tried to crystallise it with some of my reading over half term, including David Taylor and Andy Cope amongst the usual fiction escapism, yet still the shape would not arrive.  I normally come back from the Whitsun break with a SIP pretty much written down.  This year, I simply didn’t.

In sitting / lying down in various places to try and write the next SIP, I couldn’t get the working right, couldn’t find the phrases that would help drive improvement forward.  I struggled, for the first time in a few years, if I’m honest.  I was repeatedly rebuffed by this sense that in getting ready to climb the next mountain, surely you have to be looking at the right one?

Then I read comments from Sir Michael Wilshaw’s speech about the new OfSTED framework.  In amongst all the plans for the way OfSTED will work from here on in, which surely the profession and its leadership can only applaud, he made the point that schools should be striving to be the best they can be for their communities, not the best they can be for inspectors.  Finally, the shadows lifted, edges began to form, the mist evaporated, and I finally saw what had been planted all those weeks ago.

It dawned on me that in striving for the holy grail of an OfSTED outstanding, we were missing the point.  Our attentions became focussed on the badge, and not on the school upon which we would one day pin it.  All along, I felt like I’d been looking at a lovely mountain, but not the one for us.
Scrabbling around for my notes from the Blatchford lecture, I was struck once again by the notion of excellence as standard, and how it could be applied to schools and to learning.  How excellent teaching, every day, should be what we’re striving for, not just teaching that fulfils generic boxes – but actually breaks the boundaries of our own boxes as a matter of course.  How excellent curriculum, underpinned by excellent assessment, could be the cornerstone of the foundations of something really exciting.

One sunny evening, the retractable pencils for which I am famed / mocked went into overdrive, and I wrote about 75% of the mainframe of the next SIP, without once using the word outstanding.  Instead, I was driven on by quotes from Aristotle, from Michelangelo, from some of our greatest educational commentators, Messrs Robinson, Smith and Blatchford included, and from my beloved music.

Is it ready? No.  Is it complete? No, not quite. Is it in keeping with previous SIPs? Not at all.  In it, we make it clear that excellence is our goal, for the quality of teaching, and for the excellent quality of experience we want to bring to all stakeholders.  It talks about ensuring excellence in the delivery of phonics and grammar teaching, which we know is an issue for our children – because excellence for them will bring about excellence by them, if that truly is the standard.   It talks about the excellence we want to bring about for our most vulnerable groups by appointing champions for them who must ensure their best interests are upheld in every sense.  It talks about how various elements of our community can work together for best benefit, and how to utilise the very best aspects of individual tuition for every child.  We want to ensure we can offer excellence for everyone who comes through the door, whatever they may need and whatever challenges they present.

In the words of our chair of Governors when recently questioned, “we want to be excellent for all of our children all of the time, not just outstanding for a few”.

And do you know what? It’s quite a liberating point of view.  I have of course used the new OfSTED documents in order to support our self-assessment, but it has felt a far more fruitful exercise, far more beneficial.   I have used the new framework and its phraseology to help prepare for our core visit this week, and it has been a really good tool in clarifying our thinking towards it, but by no means our master.

It feels very refreshing to be on the right bus heading for the right mountain. It fits.  It’s more comfortable.  It’s an excellent feeling.  It will take a shift in mind-set for some, maybe some of our governors and maybe for some of the community, but I feel it is the right thing to do.

Put it into a different context: we did some recruitment last week, and we never once used the term outstanding.  Some of the candidates did, yet, in reality, they were anything but.  Instead, I sat there, trying to listen (which all my fellow panelists know is not one of my strengths) and thought to myself could I make this candidate excellent? Could they make an excellent contribution to our school, and can they maintain that level?  One candidate got the job with a single answer, and it was all around being brilliant, all the time.  Sounds different, and a little more exciting, doesn’t it.  It also, if I’m honest, rang somewhat more true than “I aim to be outstanding”.

It’s an exciting place to be in, and I’m looking forward to the journey from here.

Whilst I build up the courage to tell my knees and my back that we’re all going on camp this year, that is all.

Little victories - the new triathlon (boxing, fencing, knitting)

I have always been a strange and unusual voice amongst the head teacher fraternity (no, I do not expected you to have swooned from surprise).  There are those who decry it the most difficult job to do, and those who say it’s the best in the world.  I veer somewhere between these two standpoints, claiming humbly that I am extremely lucky to do a job I thoroughly enjoy and pay some kind of service in the performing of it.

I often lecture people when I am asked what’s the difference between being a teacher and a head (which is never) that I think it is quite simple: when you’re a teacher, and a good one, you secure hundreds of little victories on a daily basis that warm your soul – you know the kind of thing; a child conquering a barrier, a brilliant lesson coming off, a colleague commenting on your displays.  When you’re a head, the victories come along far less often, but when they do, they are huge.  In both cases, you need to learn to ride the wave, because if you care about your job and what you do, there will almost always be hard times around the corner, and you need to store up the victories, camel-like, to see you through the negative winters.

Many of my victories as a head will come as no surprise: outcomes, improvements and the successful culmination of large scale projects always put a spring in the step.  Good inset days and staff meetings, and, as I’ve blogged before, the forging of a strong team.  It may seem odd, but I take not a little victory from our staff being snapped up by other schools and settings – is that not, after all, an extremely tall compliment?

But, do you know, I also take enormous personal victories out of the seemingly obvious, and it is only as I’ve got a little older, a bit fatter and a whole lot balder that I’ve come to appreciate it.  Because here’s the big secret, the real  game changer, the greatest victory: every so often, almost without noticing, several things you set in motion a thousand years ago suddenly click and – boom! You have something epic on your hands. 

It happens seldom, and I am in no way so arrogant to think it is all my doing.  However, I hope I was in some way a little instrumental in setting some of these things into motion.  The first head I worked for once told us “You all know when you do a good lesson, you get that warm feeling” and he was right.  It’s the same as a head, only that warm feeling comes along once in a blue lunar cycle, and it gives you a glow that would make ready-brek seem frosty.

It happened to me last night.  It was after school, and we were preparing for the full governing body.  Yet despite the fact that it was long gone 4.00 and school long finished, it buzzed with a vibrancy and activity redolent of 10.00 on a Tuesday morning.  Having delivered my governors stuff to the allotted room and snaffled a biscuit (you always get decent quality at governors) I needed to wander, to see what this pulsating energy was and where it was emanating from, praying it wasn’t the boiler, again.

No, it was nothing to do with any of the nuts and bolts.  Far from it.  In one hall, 6 of our oldest children were enjoying (I use that word loosely) the pains of the boot camp regime at the start of their boxing club.  The music pounded from the system as our learning mentor / boxing coach encouraged our charges to go for “ten more seconds, come on!” in one of the most uncomfortable positions imaginable.  They lasted.  They crumbled.  The groaned.  Then the solitary girl in the pack looked up at me and smiled. 

As I walked out from one building to the other, a legion of three foot high warriors had stormed the playground, all clad in visors and protective armour and wielding swords.  Momentarily, I feared world domination by a group of stealth minion . oompah loompah style ninjas, only to realise it was the key stage 1 multi sports group enjoying their fencing lesson.  The coach put one gladiator through his paces, then stepped back as he faced up to a year one girl, missed his time to thrust and lost the point with a sword to the guts, blood splattering the tarmac and entrails oozing … okay, too far.  Soz, LOL.

From around the corner, on the way to the other hall came some of our previous inmates, splendidly replete in their new secondary uniforms, collecting things from all around the site.  When I say things, I mean teddies, for they were gathering in the protagonists of the teddy bears picnic organised by our outstanding BoBs team.  In the hall itself, 50+ children were enjoying picnic treats and stories, joined by younger siblings, and having a ball.  Yet another triumphant event for our brilliant buddies who never cease to take things to the next level.

As I walked back to governors, feeling the starting salvos of the afore mentioned warm glow, it was further stoked and fuelled by the conversations I overheard in classrooms; colleagues working together on trips and displays, friends helping each other meet the (twenty minutes previously elapsed) deadline for data submission, and just adding greater weight to the meaning of a real team.  As I headed into the governors’ meeting room I thought I had seen it all but I was stopped by a gran I know well.  “Have you seen him?” she enquired.

“No, I haven’t I’m afraid.” I wracked my brains; too old for teddy bears and key stage 1, and not the boxing type, I hadn’t seen him at all.  Gran sensed my confusion.

“He’s at knitting club.” Knitting club.  How could I forget them?  I sent gran down to the library for the end of knitting club, only to see them strolling up the corridor together as a group to meet gran halfway, one of our year 6 girls carrying the box full of knitting club gear, and one of our year 6 boys covered in wool like a naughty kitten.

Governors went well, thanks for asking.  Long, but well; we got the chance to talk about some massive things: assessment, nursery provision, the budget, and an amazing potential vision for the future.  We also tackled some of the tougher issues out there: domestic violence awareness education for key stage 2 – should we place it on the SIP?  Dealing with staff conduct.  Almost three hours, but a thoroughly good and packed meeting focussing on what it so special about our school and where we are heading, and – isn’t this what it’s all about – who we want to be.

I drove home last night thinking three things:

11.  I’m later than I told the babysitter – she’ll be cross.

22.  What’s for tea?

33.  Sometimes, I am so lucky to do the job I do.  Another little victory.  Thank you.

Other than to say it was left-over-bolognese, that is all.

Privileges all round

Regular and frequent sufferers of this emumble will know I am a great fan of songs and, to be more precise, song lyrics.  This blog has been largely inspired by the little known “This Life” by the wonderful (and should be more famous) Kristina Train.  It is a beautiful song all about longing to live and lead an exciting and fulfilling life, then suddenly realising that that is exactly what she is doing.  She sings in the chorus

One day, I’ll call

That life I dreamed of

This life.

Poetic, eh? 

Anyway, its lines struck me when I was, to be honest, struggling to come up with a decent subject.  Attendance is, as ever, a prominent issue.  Recruitment, strategic planning, budgeting all highly pertinent right now.  Chances are though you’d turn away from this claptrap even sooner than usual.

So, what to write about?  It has been bothering me, in the midst of all these exciting projects I’m being invited into, in amongst all the great work I’ve been seeing, all the interesting discussions I have been privy to and the ability to look on in Christmas Eve-esque anticipation at some of the great things happening in education this moment.  Yeah, what to write about…

Then, like a (Kristina) train, it hit me.  Especially now, when the election (only mention, I promise) is reducing education to a we-care-more-than-they-do football, it seems only right that we spend time celebrating what we’ve actually built, and been privileged to be a part of.

I know it has its detractors, but I think the current educational landscape is incredibly exciting.  We have so much to celebrate that we didn’t have a few years ago, yet we never take the time to say how fortunate we are, to be both architects and beneficiaries of the new view.  The different styles of schools has been a previous topic of mine (http://badockshead.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/whats-in-word.html) but I still believe it is an exciting state of affairs; yes, scary and potential confusing, but it has made schools of all styles and shapes thoughtfully consider what and, ultimately, who they really are. 

Never, in my time in education, have schools communicated, co-operated and collaborated so openly, and with such good effect.  It was always somewhere on our wish list, often a long way down, and more lip service was paid to it that real energy.  Yet that has changed, and it is a strong and privileged position to find oneself in.  We now collaborate on teaching, learning, assessment, staffing, training, you name it,  more effectively than we have ever done before, and with far greater effect.  If you asked some of the teachers in  my school to name another school that has had some impact in our own, I hope all staff could name at least three – hopefully our Trym partners, but possibly some of the local schools with whom we work and some further afield who may have shared a good idea. I don’t recall being in that situation before.

When I moved to Badock’s Wood in 2008, there was in the city a little half-soaked sentiment about schools working together.  It was underwhelming, and slightly embarrassing, sending me away from the table for a few years.  Now, however, there is genuine desire and passion to be collective leaders of a system, not individual silos within it.  The lip service has been replaced with action, the sentiment with strategy, and the heads talk as one.  It is fascinating, exciting and not a little humbling to play a part.

Only this evening, I have been to a meeting about our local teaching school alliance, and I was so pleased to be invited, but more than that, I was a little awestruck at the potential of what this team had already achieved, and how far we could potentially collaboratively go. 

However, the most amazing this is this: this is the landscape we have built for ourselves.  Yes, we have had to succumb to certain limitations, and pretend to follow certain rules, but ask yourself this about what we have created: who does it suit better, the politicians who will take credit for it or the children who will enjoy it? 

“Thing is, your life may be brilliant already” Andy Cope

And the impact back in our own schools is tangible and undeniable – we’re all reaping the benefits.  Far from waiting for a (hopefully decent) course to crop up, we can now get on the phone to another head and arrange CPD of far greater value for the very next week or even day.  Teachers now talk to colleagues in other schools like never before.  LSAs lead on subjects and projects in a way unthinkable 5 years ago, but that’s the landscape we’re building.

Our new curriculum, decried and bemoaned by many a Daily Mail reader, is, I’m not ashamed to admit it, wonderful.  We love it, all of us, from our youngest newest nursery children to our most cool year 6.  Why? Because we have professionally, collaboratively and with a great deal of tender loving flair created something deeply enjoyable and meaningful.

Those young nursery children make binoculars and then create tally charts of the birds they have spotted – yes, tally charts for three year olds.  Those most cool year 6 walk from their class to the suite with the earphones and headsets ready to get onto the web and compose music, using some of the most complex coding I have ever see.  In between, year 3 and 4 compose music using notes on staves, performing their compositions on a whole range of instruments, and year 1 and 2 are planning what they would grow in their garden … if they lived in Japan, or the Arctic, or wherever they took their place as a global citizen.

“Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” Helen Keller

I consider myself unbelievably lucky that I am the person who gets to take pride in all this when I show more and more new parents around.  Furthermore, I am privileged (and I have deliberately used that word repeatedly) to be invited and involved in several discussions and projects at the minutes which are all about Badock’s Wood benefitting from exciting and purposeful collaboration. Times have never been so exciting, and we should grab every chance, savour every moment, and squeeze every drop out of it.

Otherwise, aren’t we just guilty of watching a potential “this life” float on by?

Thank you Kristina, I needed a good kick for this one, but what a kick.

Let me finish with a story I’ve always enjoyed.  Henrik Ibsen, a born worrier, was dining with his mate George Bernard Shaw.  Ibsen, as ever, was being all existential.  “But Shaw, what if there is no point; what if there is nothing more; what if life is a really all one huge joke?

“Better make it a good one,” replied Shaw.  Enough said.

That is, quite merrily and happily, all.