Success In Education

Y our time is your most precious resource. I am sure that with your range of commitments at work that it is limited and that you want to be as productive as you can be, but how successful are you? If you are a middle leader the chances are you are juggling your leadership responsibilities with a sizeable teaching load, if you are a senior leader it is likely that you have a broad range of diverse responsibilities and tasks that fill your days; whatever your level of leadership managing your time is crucial to increasing your productivity and maintaining your well-being. Make lists: I have always made lists, ensuring that anything I had to do was written down so as to remind me to do it. However lists can be improved with additional information especially about when you are going to do the task. This is linked to prioritisation; make sure you know which tasks need doing first and when they need doing by. My own lists would contain deadlines and I would prioritise tasks with

Be honest, do you ever get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach as you travel to school, as you enter the building, as you enter your office or classroom, as you turn on your computer, when the phone rings or as pupils come through the door? Those who don't find something else to read, those who do keep going. It does not matter whether you are training to be a teacher or an experienced head, this applies to you. This is about personal courage, about accepting  and overcoming demons, and finding ways to improve your quality of life and in so doing becoming a more content teacher. To begin with you need to realise you are not on your own, whether you are a trainee teacher or a headteacher it is likely that we have all experienced this at sometime in our career and that at this moment in time several of your colleagues share your experiences. Our profession is laden with expectations about conduct and professionalism, about leaving emotions at the school gate, about it b

I've worked with hundreds of teachers, all of whom are very different and so what I write in this blog can never be seen as applying to every member of the teaching profession. I've seen every type of personality and every quality of teaching. Every good teacher makes it work for them in their own way, their personality determines their teaching and so they have their own vulnerabilities. Here's something to think about. Some teachers appear to be able to put on an "act" in their dealings with children but most with whom I have worked are authentic, their relationships genuinely reflect their personalities. So what type of teacher do want working with 5 year olds or vulnerable teenagers? Do you want detached automatons or teachers who are emotionally engaged? I believe that engagement is at the heart of great teaching and to work with children you have to emotionally connect with them. But at what price? I want sensitive, empathetic staff working with the chi