I’ve been at my current school for 6 years now, and will be moving on at the end of next year. During those years, I have held three roles concurrently and in those roles I have built quite a number of tools, systems, solutions, which means I now have somewhat of a dilemma – how… Continue reading How do I leave it behind AND take it all with me?
Fun with the weekly menu planning
A few years ago we bought a beautifully simple pad of menu planning sheets. Month at a glance, had a little tear-off piece for writing down the shopping list, no dates so each sheet served for any month. It even had a magnetic strip on the back (or we stuck one on) so it lived… Continue reading Fun with the weekly menu planning
Planning and the Planner, Part 2
You might want to read Part 1 first for this to make sense. It turned out that assessment wasn’t the issue at the core. In reality there wasn’t a core, but a mishmash of understandings and histories and experiences that were getting in the way of common understandings. We were learning that when you ask… Continue reading Planning and the Planner, Part 2
Planning and the Planner, Part 1
One of the priorities that quickly surfaced when I joined my current school was the need to document our curriculum. We had the default Understanding by Design (UbD) planner which Jay McTighe had left us when he ran a workshop here a couple of years before my time, but we hadn’t yet successfully documented our… Continue reading Planning and the Planner, Part 1
Terry Pratchett’s advice for writers
I recently finished “A Slip of the Keyboard” by Terry Pratchett. It is a collection of his non-fiction writing. So wonderful to hear his voice again. I don’t think I ever actually heard him speak, but that voice in my head as I read the book was the same voice I remember from reading the… Continue reading Terry Pratchett’s advice for writers
Listening
I am a problem-solver. As a school leader, one of the hardest things I had to learn to do was to stop solving problems. I thought that was my job. People come to me with issues, I listen, analyse the situation and determine a solution, then propose it and help them carry it out. That’s… Continue reading Listening
Welcome
“We do not write in order to think, but think in order to write.” This phrase keeps bouncing around in my head. I first recall coming across it in a book entitled “Write Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day” by Joan Bolker while I was working on my Masters dissertation. I never did stick… Continue reading Welcome
Writing to Think 