Wow, that went quickly.
It has been a strange year, in many ways. I achieved some of my 2016 pledges to myself and not others. Yet again, I find that I have been more concerned over the well-being of others and not myself, both in my home life and work life. Even my husband commented that the Thank You cards in July and the Christmas cards I received mentioned my support of others. This is not to big myself up in any way, just a comment whilst reflecting on how my year has gone.
Work wise, it has been strange as we have been in a bit of a holding pattern. We have had an Interim Head three days a week (with me as Acting Head the other two days). This has been a very new experience for me, some good points and some learning points, but with added pressure and work as I have still kept up my teaching commitment and my role as SENCo as well as being Deputy.
With all of this in mind, I have been reflecting on this and also the reading I have done this year about teachers being there for the children and leadership being there for the staff, to enable them to fulfill their role with the children. I have already managed to get staff well-being onto the Governors agenda for the first time and will be presenting to them on this in January. We have a poor record of sickness absence (mostly long term and very unavoidable, unfortunately) and I want to get a balance between the strict HR Sickness Absence Policy and the well-being of the staff in order to get the best for staff and children.
So for 2017, here are my pledges:
- to get myself and other staff into as many other schools as I can in order to network and share good practice #connect #learn #volunteer #notice
- learn more about our new staff members, so I can support them to the best of my ability #connect #learn
- to read more widely about schools, leadership and mental health and well being #learn #notice
- to put staff well-being at the forefront of the Governors and School agenda #connect #volunteer
- to look after myself so I can look after others #learn #exercise
- to complete the #52books2017 challenge #learn #connect #notice
- to share a blog a week about pedagogy, behaviour and well-being with staff (started this last month) #learn #connect #volunteer #notice
I have one final pledge for myself, that in hindsight I should have done the first time the opportunity came up 18 months ago (regrets, I’ve had a few, but this one turned out to be one of my biggest, but that tale is for another day).
I will be applying for the headship of the school when it is advertised next term.
toomuchtoosoon 