Nurture 1415: 2015 - The Year Ahead

I have been toying with how best to write this.  I want the goals to be specific enough that they are achievable but I also want to limit the number I set.  Last year I set a list of 14 and some fell by the wayside.  I don’t want that to happen to this year.  So I have chosen 6, each one based around a theme.  As long I meet the theme I will feel pretty happy.  2015 is a brave new world for me.  I am living in a new house, in a new town where I know no one and I am starting new job at a new school for only the second time in my career.  My default setting is to be a bit scared of life and fear the worst so the overall theme of my nurture this year is to be brave and embrace opportunity.

“Teaching is an act of hope for a better future…the reward of teaching is knowing that your life has made a difference.” (William Ayres)

As I move further up the leadership ladder, I move further away from the classroom, something which makes me feel quite sad.  My favourite part of being in education is the act of teaching and I hope, as I find my time taken by things other than being in the classroom, I still remember who I am, what I love and what is most important to me.   I have spent ten years working in a school where there are multiple barriers to learning and I have a learned a lot by doing so.  Every child is entitled to the best possible deal regardless of postcode and I want to remain committed to ensuring that every child is given the opportunities that they deserve.  The most important thing is learning (Both inside and outside of the classroom).  The learning experience that a child has is the thing that will make the most difference to them and so my first goal is to remember where I came from, remember what I learned and remain committed to ensuring every learning experience is the best that it can be for every child.  Because every child deserves that.  I perhaps should consider writing something either publicly or privately that reminds me of the road travelled so far.   

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might have well not lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” (J.K. Rowling)

My second goal is about being brave and embracing change.  Every year we go to America on our holidays because I like it.  This year we won’t.  We will go somewhere different and try something different.  In a week, I start the new year in a new school and it is, of course, scary.  Which is good because being scared is good and struggle is good.  My new school is amazing and part of my experience will be making a contribution but another part of the experience will be about learning from the exceptional practice of others (and definitely operating the two ears, one mouth rule as advocated by a buddy).  I suspect that I will get things wrong and make mistakes but I think if you let the fear of that hold you back, you may never take a gamble in your life.  So this year I want to say yes to new experiences, learn as much as I can and become a braver person.   

“Learning never exhausts the mind.” (Da Vinci) or if you prefer Gandhi “Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever.”

As my last goal suggests, I want to learn a lot this year.  About good practice and outstanding leadership.  One way I will do that is through the people I work with and the opportunity to build new networks.  But there are other things I want to do too.  I want to keep attending inspiring CPD events (and maybe take some of my new colleagues with me as well as catching up with some former colleagues).  I have already booked in the Times Festival of Education, Northern Rocks, TLAB15 and ResearchEd at Cambridge.  I also want to find some TeachMeets in the Devon/Somerset area.  Most importantly though I want to finish my Masters (currently funding is my only barrier).  I am halfway through and found that it really got my brain switched on and made me think about things in a deeper and more academic way.  If I could get myself back on my Masters programme, I would be really excited especially if I could then focus my dissertation on something that would support my new school.  

“Friends are the family you choose.”

I hadn’t really realised how hard it would be to leave school and, dare I say it, Stoke.  And the reason behind that is really simple.  I have made some amazing friends – people that are more than colleagues – people who have been there for me for the last ten years and who have made a real impact on my life.  The problem is that I am awful at being a friend.  I get lost in a work bubble that means I forget birthdays, I fail to return phone calls (partly because I am a phone phobic), I don’t reply to texts, I forget to buy gifts.  I push my friends to the bottom of my ‘to do list’ and my 4^th goal is to just stop doing that.  I need to find time for the people that make my life better, I need to stay in touch and buy presents and send texts or I will lose some of the most special people in the world from my life and have no one to blame but myself.  

“Don’t forget to love yourself” (Soren Kierkegaard)]

If it’s good enough for Kierkegaard, it’s good enough for me!  This one is not as self-indulgent as it sounds and links quite strongly to the one above.  When I reviewed my 2014 goals, the ones that slipped through the net were the ones that I wanted to do because they would make me better/healthier as a person – so in 2015 I want to find the focus that got me swimming and losing weight last year, I want to find the time to read and to write as I promised myself last year, I want to keep going with the photography (a friend has bought me a copy of ‘50 walks in Devon’ and I can’t help thinking that a walk a week with the camera might be jolly good for my well-being).  I want to keep going with the baseball writing if that opportunity presents itself again and I want to take a class at Exeter College on photoshop.  I learned a lot about myself last year and want to remember what I need to do to keep myself happy and balanced and to be able to ask for help if I need to.  In a post entitled ‘nurture’, this could be my most important goal.    

“If you are in the luckiest one per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other ninety nine per cent.”  (Warren Buffet) or as an alternative “When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.” (Maya Angelou).

Honestly, I am probably not in the luckiest 1% of humanity but in truth I have very little to complain about and I think maybe I ought to do more outside of my own bubble.  I am not sure what this looks like yet but I feel as though I ought to do more.  This is the least focused of my goals but perhaps is one to ponder and remind myself of and see what happens…

So that’s my post… bring on the new year!!