A community at its strongest

I have written before about community, and what this means within and around a school.  I imagine that, for many, one definition is around the larger group who not only share in the successes but also pull together at times of difficulty, learning from our collective mistakes and trying to do our best for the most important group within the community: the children.

Our community has been shaken this month by the news no school wants to hear – following our inspection in November last year, we are now in an OfSTED category.  That in itself is bad enough to deal with, but in the current political climate, that brings enormous uncertainty with it, possibly more so than at any other time.

No community needs to be shown how to celebrate its successes; this is something that comes naturally.  I have had several people remind me in recent weeks – from both within our own school community and in other communities I inhabit, such as the headteacher community – that we all have a great number of these successes to our name, and we shouldn’t forget this. So is it not true to say that the real test comes not in how a group deals with success, but in how a community’s collective strength demonstrates itself in times of adversity?

My staff colleagues were immense.  On the morning I broke the news, there was a great deal of anger, plenty of debate and, truth be told, not a little sadness.  However, in amongst all of this was a steely resilience, a determination: we can put this right.  I was repeatedly amazed and humbled by the collective strength of the general “we can do this” ethos, and by the many personal messages I received, in various formats, lending me their unconditional support, and reinforcing what we all know to be true: we need to do this for the children.

At the same moment, the governors received the news.  They too reacted with ire and consternation, and made a comment that has been repeatedly stated in the following weeks: we just don’t recognise our school in the report.  More precisely, they feel that the report ignores the many wonderful things that happen in our school and our community on a daily basis.

Next came the children: yes, I told the children.  I was extremely up front and honest with them, and ensured they were a full part of what was to happen: after all, if we are to engage in the seismic change our visitors demanded, we would need buy-in from absolutely everyone.  Although most children, quite rightly, allowed it to wash over them, year 6 discussed it openly and sensitively, but were equally cross about some of the comments.  “We’ve been here the longest so we know our school” they said.  “And that’s not it” concluded one.

Finally, the parents and the wider community.  This was the one reaction I could not predict, the one group whose response may have been different.  As per usual, I should not have been so concerned, as once again this community, for that is what it is, demonstrated its strength.  On the night we published the report to the parents, a dark, wet January Friday, we received only encouragement, support, and sympathy. 

The comments contained the whole gambit of human emotion:

“You must be gutted”

“That’s not our school”

“We don’t agree”

“You all work too hard for this”.

The following Monday, having had time to read and reflect, I wondered again how the community might feel.  If it had changed in any way, it was how it had become even more supportive.  The entire staff received messages of support and solidarity.  Throughout that week, including the official parents’ meeting, what we heard repeatedly were members of the community stepping forward to make known their support, and their high esteem of the school. 

Therefore, at a time of difficulty and worry, our community has done what it does best, and I don’t know why I am I the slightest bit surprised.  I recall driving home on that Friday evening when the news was out, smiling.  When I should have been on my knees and maybe even out the door, I was left wanting more, as I often do, of being a part of the Badock’s Wood community.

The adversity did not stop there.  During the following week, we got into the mentality of waiting for that day’s big event; nothing happening in school, other than the hard work our children and our staff pride themselves in.  No, we, awaited what the outside world had to throw at us.  Every day, something fairly major leapt up and tried to knock us off our feet.  But nothing succeeded.  When I got the phone call that the press were at our gates, I rushed down there to see what was happening, and heard only parents talking positively and effusively about the school and the community, and how disappointed they all were for the school and for the children.  When the local paper went to press without consulting us, they were quickly bombarded with messages of support from our local community (and some very odd political one-upmanship from members of the wider Bristol community).  Parents and families have flocked to support the whole host of school trips we have been able to arrange for this time of year, and spoke eloquently, knowledgeably and fairly at the parents’ meeting.  Once again, we didn’t shy from adversity, we almost reveled in it.

And throughout this time, I personally and the school as a whole have continued to receive messages of support, solidarity and positivity.  As recently as last week, I saw a very shy parent who I only see when they aren’t on shift work.  We spoke about a whole range of things, this being our first meeting of the year.  Just as she was heading off, her parting shot was “And I read the report – I don’t believe a word of it”.

Throughout all of this month, as the news has spread and settled, the community has been unfaltering in its support, and it’s something we cannot be sufficiently grateful for.  In among all this, please don’t think that we have lost sight of the report and the messages contained therein, far from it.  We are still planning in detail how to bring about some of the improvements needed.  Essential to this process have been invaluable comments and suggestions from our children and from our parent community, another example of how we have all pulled together.

So, we head into the great unknown of what is to come with a great sense of unity, of togetherness, of – it’s not too cheesy to use it here – community.  You may find it ironic, but I am enjoying my role at this moment more than ever, and I know that, as we have done before, we can achieve great things.  And it is not always made this amazing by big, public demonstrations of support – sometimes, it’s in the almost unseen moments.

This morning, the children came into school in the midst of a miserable, mid-Winter mixture of darkness, rain and mist.  As ever, I was out directing traffic in the playground, welcoming the children in, reassuring those more concerned ones that they were not late, we had simply sent them all in.  As my personal thermometer was just reaching freezing and I was seeing the final parents out of the gate, one of them came over to me and leaned in close.  “Do you know something?  It doesn’t matter what’s happening, you are always out here for our children.  We do notice”.  I couldn’t have thanked him more, but then, as part of this amazing community, I knew that it was not needed.  Someone noticed, that’s what’s important.

From a revised view point and a different stance, with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm for the months ahead, if not a little trepidation, that is all.

I remember I remember – the 6th Christmas Blessay

I have little doubt that we will look back upon this year as the time when we had to say some sad and teary farewells to an alarming number of celebrities. I too have had to hold back some tears on certain days, and will expand on just a few of these in the main body of this year’s diatribe.

Not that I am any huge follower of celebrity fads and fashions, as well you know.  Yes, I love my music, and I do worry for the future of TV once Strictly is over and the Bake-Off has packed up and moved, but I have never had a long list of “faves”.  In both my reading and music tastes, I am flighty, I move from topic to topic, author to author, genre to genre, and I delight in the variety.  However, there have been some passing’s this year which have touched very deeply on my conscious, cutting deeply to my precious memory banks, and it is to these which I shall pay some reference. 

However, before we get onto celebrity death, let’s recall that there have been entirely too many non-celebrity deaths this year, and I have been touched by this also – I had been to more funerals before the end of February in this year that I had in total in any other year previously.  Losing two good friends, well within their 60s, put the year into sharp focus, and reluctantly sharing in the anguish of those left behind is something I always find more than a little humbling. 

So, when turning my thoughts to the subject and nature of this year’s blessay, it was an easy choice really.  Some of my other festive blogs have used current events to outline my somewhat tenuous grip on reality, whereas in others I have tried to crowbar in yuletide cheer in any way possible.  This blog, you will be disappointed to hear no less, shall prove no exception.   I’d like to take you on a trip down my own somewhat twisted memory lane, and put a very different spin on how to reflect on this year of celebrity adieus, especially at this time of the year.

Naturally, as you may well be thinking, how on earth will I limit this to just a few, if that’s what I’m going to attempt.  Well, my plan is to talk you through the importance of 4 such people to me and to my background, and to celebrate some of their work, whilst placing it all in the context of the season we find ourselves descending into.

Four deaths from this year have had me looking down the myriad kaleidoscopic lens of my past with greater focus and clarity than usual.  And my point is this: despite the sadness, how much joy is there in the recalling? So, here goes …

I remember, I remember …

As a secondary school student who was still trying to decide what hairstyle I should go for / what musical gang I should join in the playground / how and where to align myself, there were many minefield like conundrums to negotiate.  Music was first and foremost amongst them.  I couldn’t see myself growing my hair and wearing so much black, so being a goth was out.  Equally, I was one of the few teenagers in my school who liked washing, and I didn’t like Iron Maiden, so being one of the rockers was also a no-no.  House music was something I really got into, but being far too young to even consider attending raves or clubs put something of a dampener on it all. 

As I came to slow and sad realisation that I was about to plough my own furrow, I heard another track from Prince.  I had always listened to and been aware of Prince, and had enjoyed sneaking a watch of the Sign of the Times concert video with the older brothers of friends, but I had a secret confession, an admission too grave to voice to this group: I didn’t get it. I had a horrible feeling that although I thought the music of Prince was okay, it was nothing more than okay, and I worried for many nights that I would soon have to file Prince in the same place I still do Bob Dylan and Fraggle Rock – thanks, but I just don’t get it. 

Then, three things happened over the course of a single year which blew my mind, and changed my opinion for ever.

First, on a cold autumnal Saturday whilst I was staying at my Nan’s house for the weekend, I heard a track the like of which I had never heard before.  It ranged from the classical to the balletic, and then had a drum beat most military parades would kill for.  As for the lyrics, they screeched and soared poetically above the music like an eagle.  Only at the very end did the electric guitar arrive, weeping and wailing like it had been shot.  My first ever listen to “I wish U Heaven” by Prince (which, you can guess, I am listening to as I type these words) made me do something I rarely did as a child: I lied to my Nan, and told her I was going round the corner, whereas I actually got the 113 bus to Sutton Coldfield where they had the good record shops, and bought myself my first ever prince single. 

Secondly, I was on holiday in Devon, and was enjoying the last party night in the club house before the interminable trudge back up the M5 to home the following day.  Towards the end of the evening, the cheesy as you can imagine DJ made some joke about “get ready to party like – “ and the rest of the sound fell away from me, as the opening bars of “1999” announced themselves, and the entire room went into some kind of ecstatic trance.  For 4 minutes, the room swayed and bounced as one, and I knew what had been missing from my earliest Prince experiences, leading to my younger confusion. 

Finally, at some point close to or between these two, which I may have recalled in the wrong order if I’m honest, I got to see the man himself.  Only briefly, but I attended a concert with a friend of mine who was disabled, and who was desperate to see him.  However, disabled seats being what they are, we were way too close to the front for my friend to put up with it for any more than a short space of time. 

Still, after several years as a devotee of the Paisley one, it is the slow tracks which mean so much to me.  “Scandalous”, the achingly slow song at the end of Batman, is still for me the best example of a non-Christmas song to employ bells.  “Insatiable” at the late night end of Diamonds and Pearls is the most beautiful song about being part of a couple. 

For me, however, the most poignant song in the whole Prince collection is one about death.  The death of a friend to be more precise, and a tune that, whenever it is selected by the shuffle function on my itunes, forces me to stop and think.   “Sometimes it snows in April” comes from Under the Cherry Moon, and constantly reinforces the unpredictability of life, and all the questions it may raise.  But isn’t that what is it to be human?

Although I was as sad as the next person when I heard the news of Prince’s death, I cannot help but feel a little smug and yet enormously grateful at the fond, fond memories he provided for me through his life and work.  Which continues on and on in our house, with my son and daughter now massive fans of the album that, ironically, contains “I wish U Heaven”. 

I remember, I remember …

I can recall it even now.  Sat there in our lounge, the three of us as ever, watching something my Dad had chosen.  In fairness, that statement isn’t as negative as it sounds, as it was through my Dad that I got the chance to watch a whole host of amazing early 80s TV, such as The Young Ones and Spitting Image.  It was my Dad who got us into watching WWF wrestling long before it ever became well known in this country, and indeed stopped us watching it long before it hit mainstream.  So he was, despite all outward protestations, a fairly decent judge.

However, I had never heard of this woman whose comedy show he wanted us to watch, and so I sat with not a little trepidation that we sat down to watch an hour long show (rare in its own right) by a woman who was married to the Great Suprendo (whatever that meant).

Within 3 minutes, I was hooked.  I couldn’t believe that this wonderful woman could tell these labyrinthine stories and still deliver a killer gag every 20 seconds.  She could take on characters, she could improvise, she spoke both to the audience and to herself, and she could play the piano. 

Those of you of a certain age may recognise that I am going on about the first ever viewing of “An Audience with Victoria Wood”. It was December 10^th 1988 since you asked.   I can recall even now sitting spellbound, unconsciously leaning into the TV to drink in more and more of what this woman was saying.  Those of you who do recall it will of course recall the now-famous song with which she finished the show, and which has gone on to become possibly her finest single individual moment.

However, my relationship with Victoria Wood did not end there.  A good few years later I was a student who was delighted to hear about a new Victoria Wood show about to hit our screens, called “Dinnerladies”.  Once again, I was spellbound by a piece of sheer theatre that was quite unlike anything I had ever seen or experienced before. 

Full of characters you identified with and cared for, with 1000 story lines being played out separately but oh-so-intricately all at once, this was a show that went from strength to strength.  Let us not forget that it also boasted more than a few quite exceptional and heart-breaking / warming Christmas editions, and script writing to die for. 

The news of her death in April brought so many of us immeasurably sadness, but goodness me, weren’t we lucky to have had so much to smile about in our lives, thanks to a woman who defied all odds and almost incurable crippling shyness to become one of the best comedy writers our country has ever produced.

I remember, I remember …

My mum and dad preparing to go to one of my junior football Christmas doos on a Friday night.  You knew it was a dressing up affair because my Mum’s mirror and all her hair stuff came out onto the dining table in our little haven of a flat.  Tea was a chip shop affair (get in!). Taxis were booked and timings made explicit.

Thankfully, I was now beyond the age of a babysitter, so instead of this interminable torture, my mate Neil came around with some videos from his Dad’s shop (which I would go on to work in the following year).  We also had, if memory serves, an industrial bucket of crisps and a couple of cans of shandy.  Surely, that is what is meant by hedonism?

The first video was a trashy horror / sci-fi affair; never completely my style, but it had that geezer from Twin Peaks that everyone was talking about at the time, so all was well. We ploughed through this film and the vast majority of the crisps, with much giggling and hilarity. 

The second video, cracking into the shandy, was a very different affair.  I’d heard of it and seen the posters, but apart from that I had little experience of it.  For twenty minutes or so, we watched Bruce Willis (no relation, no honestly) look all forlorn and hurt as he was spurned at Christmas by his uber-80s missus.  I was getting, truth to tell, just a little bored.

Then the bad guy came on screen, dressed in a Calvin Klein suit and with a beard to die for.  I was suddenly strangely gripped, mesmerised and, if I’m honest, scared as this villain became more and more menacing.  For two hours we were hooked, until, oh-so-inevitably, the bad guy won and the villain perished. 

I was even more amazed when I read the credits to discover that this German bank robber was in fact English. 

Of course, the film was Die Hard, and the actor Alan Rickman.

It was not long after this that I was being unutterably bored by Robin Hood Prince of Thieves when who should pop up as the villain but – yep, you’ve remembered – Alan Rickman, once again acting the Hollywood superstars (including the usually ever dependable Morgan Freeman) off the screen.  Once again I felt humbled at an amazing performance, and not a little pride at the work of this English man.

My wife and I watched the first Harry Potter together when she was heavily pregnant with our oldest son, on the Christmas day prior to his lengthy birth, and will always be a special moment in our family history.

Many years later, as a father whose children still adore the Harry Potter films even now, the sad news of Alan Rickman’s death earlier this year caused sadness to our entire house, and the first three HP films to be watched almost relentlessly for a good month.  I am forced to say, I did not begrudge them a moment. Once again, I was left saddened but openly thankful that we had had something this good in our lives.

I remember, I remember …

Early this year, when the mornings were still opaquely dark, I got into my car to make my journey to work, catching as I did the end of some piece of cheesy musack for which Radio 2 gets a bad reputation.  At the end of the track, the radio plunged into a silence that lasted probably only 5 seconds, but it felt closer to 3 years.  I was imagining something between the death of the Queen and the detonation of something nuclear.  When the silence was broken, the news was different, but no less sad.

“Apologies listeners, but we are hearing breaking news stories that David Bowie has died”.

The rest of the journey was characterised by numbness and disbelief.  Bowie? Dead? Surely the (insert one of his many nicknames here) was immortal, and would outlast us all, bringing out a brand new album once a decade for time eternal?

It would appear not.  The news of David Bowie’s death hit everyone in ways we could not have fathomed.  In our playground, I had some of the deepest and most meaningful conversations I have had with our school community, and the staff split into two broad groups – those who were experiencing him for the first time now, and those who had known and loved him for years.  I fell into the latter category, for a whole host of reasons.

I remember the amazement with which I gawped at the TV the first time I saw the video for “Starman”.  Too young to have seen it on first airing in 1972, I was watching it on one of the various music programmes I would have had available around a decade later.  I recall even now being star struck (pardon the pun) at this incredulous performance, made by a man (I think?) who hugged and teased his group whilst they sang the most wonderful song.  “Let all the children boogie” is still one of my son’s best catchphrases.

Soon after this, I remember seeing the video for “Ashes to Ashes” and cheering and whooping with joy.  As a devotee of Adam and the Ants, I always thought that more men should be dressed as French Mime Artist dolls, especially at the time of a cliff side apocalypse. All joking aside, once again I was simply blown away by a song that was utterly unlike anything else I had ever heard, and I love it still to this day.

I remember, a couple of years later (I think it must have been around the time of Live Aid, so 1985), the spine tingle I felt when my dad played me the song “Life on Mars”.  I didn’t know whether to clap, cry or hide, but I knew I wanted more. Of course, with the advent of the internet, I can now watch the haunting video at the click of a few buttons, but it haunts me still, even at my ripening age. 

I remember getting a bootleg copy of Black Tie White Noise long before anyone else, on something called a cassette.  It did not matter to me that, two months later, Black Tie White Noise came out to very tepid reviews, most people not liking it.  Didn’t bother me, I still love it, probably for that reason, although I‘ve no idea whatever happened to the cassette.

I remember, I remember…that’s the whole point.  I could give you a thousand memories that concern Bowie and his work that put me in a thousand different places at a thousand different times in my life.  When I first heard Hunky Dory all the way through, when I got my first copy of Ziggy Stardust, listening over and over to a latter day cover version of “Ashes to Ashes”, watching him perform with Arcade Fire, being the only kid in my year to have watched Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence all the way to the end, the list goes on.    I could also tell you about the Christmas Eve when Labyrinth premiered, and I was utterly petrified.  (In fairness, this came hot on the heels of the Never Ending Story, so having failed to keep it together when that wolf-thingy leapt out at the end, I was never going to manage a baby snatching pixie king in tights, was I?).

And that is the point of this blog.  Although we may feel sad at the untimely, often altogether too early passing of celebrities and those dear to us, what more joy is there to be had in the remembering?  If it is simply human to be sad, how humanely simple is it to recall, and to take joy in our reminiscing?  Yes, 2016 will probably live in our memories as a time of sadness, but I feel it should be looked upon as a bridge to a wonderful cache of memories for us all to share and delight in. 

After all, isn’t that what makes this time of year special for us all?  If we didn’t have such amazing memories of Christmas and of this period, why would we look forward to it pretty much from the end of summer? Surely, if we didn’t have such a close memory connection to this festival, then the shops would be spending thousands on advertising and decorations for, well, pretty much for nothing.

I know full well that the reverse is also true. There are people for whom this is not a wonderful time of year, and that is because it is generally connected with exactly the kinds of memories people don’t want: bereavement, separation, loss and need.  Please don’t think that anything else I go on to say will belittle the angst some people must sadly feel at this time.  To these individuals, as ever, go my deepest and most heartfelt wishes, and a hope that one day this will change. 

Also, I know there have been other deaths – celebrity and non – that have meant so much to people this year.  The first Children in Need without Wogan was a little poignant for us all.  Again, please don’t feel that I am making one seem more important than the other – how could I?  Whilst I have been writing this torture, the sad news of the death of Greg Lake has been announced – it is solely down to him that I truly, truly do believe in Father Christmas.

However, for anyone like myself who takes great joy in this time of year (and I know my colleagues will find that difficult to believe, but it is true) it is our wealth of memories that connect us and what make us start smiling in anticipation the first time you hear a vaguely festive tune as the backdrop to an advert, generally mid-October.

And where does one start? I remember, I remember …

My first record player

Playing Santa in a school production of Rudolph The RNR

My millennium falcon

Forever waiting for aunt, uncle and two cousins to arrive for dinner

Morecombe and Wise

The start of my book collection

Coins from a pudding

Hating the Pogues when I first heard it

My first Christmas as a husband, as an expectant father, and then as a father

The Two Ronnies

Refusing to wear paper crowns from a cracker

Even now, Christmases still hark back to the echoes of generations and yuletides past.  I still, to this day, receive a huge box of After Eights from my mum which generally doesn’t see Boxing Day evening (and a card from my Aunt with my name spelt incorrectly).  I still giggle when my children return home with their costume requests for their production, which invariably contains the words “party clothes”.  I am still forced to ask: Why one earth do people drink sherry at any other time of year?  And, yes, I still refuse to wear paper crowns from crackers. 

Our memories define us.  They shape and style us.  Like everyone, I have memories that make me sad, and, indeed, some I would sooner forget.  But my festive trove of memories from this time of the year are as precious to me as any trinket or bauble I shall ever possess.

And now, as I get older, and trust me this year I am feeling it more than any other, I find myself trying more and more to be the maker of memories, wishing beyond hope that my children will, in 20 years or so, bore their friends or any other audience with tales of how magnificent are their memories of Christmases past, and how their parents provided them with a host of wonderful times.  If I can achieve that, what a lucky man I am.  I hope to make the graceful and splendid move one day from I remember, I remember to I shall never ever forget ….

Thank you, if you’ve got this far, for making it all the way to the end of what will probably be my last Christmas blessay; they have run their course, and times are, I am always pleased to say, a-changing.  To you all, may I wish you peace, serenity and joy at this time of year, whatever your faith or persuasion.  If this is not your time of year, then I wish you contentment and peace, and a swift resolution to whatever it is that ails you. 

Above all, I hope that you find yourself sometime in 2017 (even saying it makes it sound all spacey!) with a newly replenished and enlarged collection of memories to make you an even more wonderful you.  Merry Christmas to each and every one of you, and the most prosperous of new years to us all.

For this year, and this part of the journey, that is all.

The sight and sound of joy

On this, the last day of September, I look back to the first day.  Firstly, I recoil at the thought of how long ago that seems.  Then I take some time to consider what a good start that was, and how that in turn has led to a really good … start.

Back on (what seems an epoch ago) the opening day of the school year, when the staff all crawled back bleary eyed in to the hall for our opening inset day, we had our usual day of strategic craziness planned.  I took great delight in sharing the successes from last year for both centre and school, and discussed how I planned for us to grow more and more, and achieve more and more, all underpinned by our vision of aspire – achieve – enjoy.

So wide ranging is our organisation now that we do not spend the whole day together – we can be more strategic if we work in specific groups, and therefore this is what we did.  However, as the staff all know, I always like to put an aspect of teamwork and / or new learning into the proceedings – if teachers themselves are not real learners, how can we ever empathise with those we seek to instruct?  

Therefore, the afternoon opened with a sense of forbidding – what idea would he have this year? 

Those colleagues of mine who’ve been on this journey for a while will recall teamwork of insets past: the day I taught them all the ukulele, the group dance, and the radio adverts.  How does one top that?  You don’t, you just seek to develop it.

So, as the shadows grew longer in the hall and new staff a little more worried, I got them started.  Assigning our three new teachers the roles of team captains, I asked the staff to get themselves into teams and charged each group with designing a representation of either aspire, achieve or enjoy.  They had an hour.  Go!

For forty minutes, frenetic energy was all around, as creations took shape.  Odd music made a cameo, thankfully fleeting appearance, and a few minutes before our time the creations began to take the stage.  Aspire took the form of arrows and stars, photographs and positivity, all made from a cone, a rounders pole, and little love.  Achieve took on weightier metaphors, with hearts and brains balanced by maths scales, and surrounded by tempting presents or the rewards of your labours.  Enjoy was more of 2 dimension affair, taking the form of a character full of the wonders life has to offer, and looking like she had the time of her life.  “This is Joy”, her team announced. 

And I thought to myself, you know what, it is, actually. 

Since then, I have been a little overwhelmed with the quality of the start we have made this year, and extremely proud of the work already created.  Our wonderful children are back, and have been for four weeks, and all we’ve had is a really lovely time, thank you.  And there is no secret to it, it’s really quite simple: our children are having a super time because they’re being super – conscientious, friendly, fun, enthusiastic.  In fact, you can see the joy.  (And can I all remind you, I have on more than one occasion penned blogs about how much I want September over and done with…)

Our new staff have all contributed enormously to our school with their enormous work rates, and have already established themselves as super team members, evidenced not a little by today’s feast of a Macmillan coffee morning.  Thanks to Miss Beeks organisation, two tables in the staffroom were groaning beneath the weight of all the goodies.  It will come, I am sure, as no little surprise that joy was all around us. 

The governors have been in, working as hard as they always do, and they too noticed it: “it’s so calm” they told us, “so happy”.  When you’re sat in the meeting room trying to negotiate the minefields of the budget, it makes life so much easier when you can hear coming, from outside, the sound of dedicated, hard working children failing to allow any of the challenges they encounter to dampen their amazing spirits.

All of this means that you can literally see and hear the joy. 

And this is none of my usual hyperbole, no lily gilded to make a crass point – it’s scout’s honour.  Not that I was ever a scout, mind, I was in the Boys’ Brigade for an afternoon because their football team was short, and I had to tell everyone my name was Sunil Plaha, but anyhoo.  No, you can literally hear and see, sense the joy around the place.  It’s abundant, it’s everywhere, and it’s great.

Once again, I am left to ponder the true nature of what it is we do, and to consider are we actually looking in the right direction when we set off on the year’s journey.  We set of with laudable goals about targets and standards, about quality and about improvement.  We never set out with the target to make the school more joyful, but that’s what’s happened.

And the irony is, would we have actually achieved it so well if that’s what we’d had planned?

So, sat here at the desk in the corridor surrounded by too many pieces of stray paper and the remnants of a certain (secret recipe it will go with me to the grave) cheesecake, I have no feelings about September being over and done with.  Far from it – I’d do it all again given the chance. 

And its all down to a character called Joy – after all, that’s what we said right at the start – “This is joy” – and, boy, were we right.

Excited for the year ahead, and once again humbled by the efforts of the adults and children I get to spend my days with, that is all.  

It may be the wrong bus stop, but hey, that's cool

At this point in the last two years, having reached the eve of another year's conclusion, I have written what some might have considered whinge pieces, wherein I have decried the drop in our standards and generally bemoaned to anyone who will listen how we are so much more than that.  (I have noticed recently how some others, who clearly were not prepared for the joys this year had to hold, have taken up the baton.).  However, I am sure you will all be relieved / delighted / ecstatic to know that you will hear no such wailing or gnashing of teeth from yours truly this year. Oh no, no, no.

At the zenith of last year's leavers' assembly, with only minutes left on the year's clock, I told those still capable of listening that my plan next year was to put it all right, to do more than we've ever done before, to be everyone's "How did they do that???", as opposed to everyone's train wreck.  I even told the assembled throng, when they were all edging towards the door marked holiday, that I couldn't wait to get started.  How they must have dreaded that sentiment.

I sit here now, pondering how to bore the school community through tomorrow's leavers' shindiggery, and am delighted and, in all honesty not a little relieved, that tomorrow's message will be based on a different sentiment ... although may have a fairly familiar outcome.

It is with much joy and pride that I shall tell the assembled throng tomorrow a message of such importance delivered with such startling simplicity that they will wonder if they have misheard.  My message will be simply this:

We did it.

In the year where the powers that be threw the rule book out of the window and ramped the expectation up to a Spinal Tap like 11, we did it.  In a year where the school faced its most severe scrutiny in my entire time here, we did it.  And, in a year where once again the Education Gods decided that, if there were curve balls to be thrown, Badock's Wood should be the target, we did it.  We did it all.  Every key stage.  Every indicator.  Every set piece.  We did it.  And then some.

In the face of massive external pressure, when messages coming out of central government were getting more and more confusing, we did it.  At a time when schools could no longer cling to certain world-acknowledged truths, we did it.  And we did it well.

For those of you who have not followed all our mutterings too closely, you are perfectly entitled to ask, well what is it that you claim to have done?  And you have every right so to do.  Allow me to tell you.

We have improved our outcomes in every single indicator, including having improved outcomes at the end of key stage 2 even though the world has been told by now-deposed Secretary for Education Morgan that the tests were incomparable to last year.  We have moved from being the school people were glad they are not, to the school they phone up and say "Could you tell me how...?".  (I'm not joking - two such calls, and one in the utterly-startled flesh.  Their flesh, not mine.)

We faced highly uncertain challenges, believing passionately in our own brand of teaching and learning, even in the face of external (and one constant nagging source of internal) pressure, to do what we know instinctively to be best for our learners,   In the shadow of an ever looming inspection which never materialized, we did it.We took on a few nay-sayers who almost sounded as if they needed us to fail.  We saw off the advances of several academy chains, chatting us up to be part of their gang.  We did it all.

Most importantly of all, perhaps, is that we achieved all this by being us.  Not accepting this was our lot in academic life, but taking pride in who we are and what we do and what we know we can collaboratively achieve.  At a time when most schools become introspective, we worked even harder at our external partnerships, such as with our amazing friends in the Trym partnership, and our unbelievably talented colleagues at Elmfield School for the Deaf.  We didn't shrink from new projects, we embraced them, launching several whole school initiatives, all of which have borne fruit.
We did it being us.  Being Badock's.  We did it our way.

And that, I think, is the thing of which I am most proud.

And to all of my colleagues in the wider educational world who are either celebrating their results or, dare I say it, bemoaning their fate, I would invite them to look at it like this: we may have traveled this altogether, and we may have ended up at entirely a different bus stop to the one we set out for.  But either way, what a journey.

To my colleagues in the microcosm that is Badock's, may I offer my humble apologies for being a harbinger of doom and, let us not beat around the bush, a bit of a git at times, and can I offer my heartfelt thanks to you all for the unbelievable shift of work you have put in from the first second since 9.00 last September 1st.  I am proud of what we do, and I am proud of who we are, and I am proud of what we achieve as a team; more than anything, I am proud of the team I am fortunate to be a part of.  Thank you all so much.  Although I want you to do as little as is possible over the summer that is school related, feel free to spend some time on the beach / in the pool / up a hill rehearsing that sentence we're all enjoying so much: "Our school is above the national average".  Guess what I'm going to say to you all next...

To our governors and our community, you have put up with a lot, but you have given us your unswerving faith and support, and for this I cannot thank you enough.  If it is of any reassurance, I am now almost beginning to think that it might be time I grew up.  Almost.

To our wonderful, wonderful children.  Never stop being you, or who we are all so proud of.  I hope that, in turn, we have done you proud, and you can appreciate all that we have done for you this year.  To our year 6 leavers, spread the word - you were part of something special.  You did it.  My word, how you did it.

To all of those who wanted to see the public fall of Badock's, and took too much pleasure in our low points, we'll talk it over soon.  Very soon.

Finally, to my gorgeous wife and beautiful children, I am sorry.  For everything.  I promise to spend the next 5 weeks listening, watching, sharing in everything we do, and not silently rehearsing my next argument / pep talk / assembly. I love you all very much.  The pink book is staying at home.  Possibly.

Nothing is ever, ever straightforward. And isn't that what we all love so much?

From the soon to be unloved kitchen table where I have spent too many hours this year, with a heart bursting with pride and nothing but good wishes, for another year, that is very much all.

More of that homework no-one wants to read ... album of the year

The beginning of July finds me in a self-indulgent mood.  We have completed reports, we have 75% of a School Improvement Plan, and we are well on the way to looking something close to prepared for next year, whilst hopefully finishing this one off in some style.

The first of our results are beginning to hit the deck and I am pleased.  Still the big one to go on Tuesday, and I'm still, how does one put this politely, bricking it, but am more than ready for what comes along.  However, having blogged at exactly this point over for the last two year's bemoaning all of my woes, I am determined not to be that guy this time around.  To put it more simply, fir the first time in many years, I feel content, as opposed to let down.

So what's the topic this time?  How will I avoid the whole "Is it the world's biggest, or is it just standing on a box?" debacle?  Well, the blog I really want to write contains that many expletives and asterisks that my (rubber-band-and-a-calculator) laptop won't handle it without crashing at least twice.  What I'd really like to talk about is the utter futility, crass arrogance and selfish sadness of the actions of a certain teaching union this week, who still appear to think that 19th century industrial actions are effective in the 21st century.  However, for all my faults, I surround my self with people whose counsel I trust wholeheartedly, and one of them told me yesterday to "Man up".  She followed this with a "Suck it up Princess," and so, firmly back in my box, I will instead write about something far more ... pleasant.

A few months ago my late night twitter meanderings alerted me to some very exciting news.  A new Metronomy album was on its way - hurrah!  No, I know I am the last person in the world to say hurrah, but it seemed apposite at that moment.  Okay, I'll delete it.  It appeared that this new offering, Summer 08, would drop on 1st July.

If you have been unfortunate enough to suffer some of my indulgent mumblings before, you will know how much I love my electronica, and, in that field, how highly I esteem the work of Metronomy.  So, I did the only thing a true man would do: pre-ordered it on vinyl for myself, telling my wife it was a "Well done on SATs" present for our son.

It is awesome.  That's my three word review, and I mean every word of it.  What a joy.  Another three worder.  If I'm being honest, it was with a sense of relief that a little dram helped me enjoy the album at first listen last night much, much more than I was expecting to.

The critics have been saying it hails a return to the famous English Riviera Album.  I would agree, but it has huge dollops of Nights Out on there as well.  All in all, I think that it is a joy that someone from the southwest is unashamedly trying to bring disco back out of its faux-velvet lined box of shame in the corner, with several side helpings of it's okay to be a grown up and like this stuff.  And my 11 year old hair bear loves it too, in a very different way to me, which makes it even more special. (BTW, and this is one of many points of reference i this blog for a target audience, it is a joy to introduce the younger generation to vinyl - my son thinks it is, in his words, phat with a ph.)

I have not heard a band do so much so wisely with a bass since Queen, and let's all be honest, with Queen it was all about power struggle.  This is far more about melody, and about complimenting eternal samples that lead you up and up a spiral staircase leading to a loft full of all your greatest memories and darkest thoughts.

Several tracks on this album remind me of everything I love about electronica; a simple, almost hypnotic sample building and building until another synth, or a bass, or a haunting vocal comes in to point the songs direction.  Many of the songs point to disco; one or two of them flaunt it unembarrassingly.  Hovering over it all are a number of techs, spindals, samples and synth devices that would make technology students drool.

I know it's sycophantic (a Prefab Sprout lyric - never forget the sprouts, eh? Also close to a Pet Shop Boys lyric if I recall correctly...) but this really is the best and most complete album I have heard since Love Letters - the last Metronomy album.   It is a joy, from the melancholic lament of Love's Not an Obstacle to the beautifully aggressive Hang Me Out to Dry. I can honestly say, and this is going out to a target audience of blokes my age, but I have not been so mesmerized by side two of a piece of vinyl since I first heard the b side of Actually by the Pet Shop Boys on Christmas evening of 1988.

And no, I am not attempting to get a job as a music journalist.  Although, an occasional review might come in handy if Tuesday goes badly NOOO FATBOY, you promised to step back from that precipice.  And so I shall.  Suffice to say that, school is going well, the profession is once again about to spring a fissure on a tectonic scale, but music and our olive ribbons shall preserve us all.  And a certain album shall be playing on two laptops, two pieces of handheld and a record player for a long time to come.

From the self indulgent side of the keyboard, that is all.