Nurture1516 Reflections and Hopes
2015 was an interesting year professionally, but as always, it is only possible to grow in and enjoy my school work with the support of family and friends, so that is where I will start.
2015
1) Both my parents have suffered through cancer this year, and have fought positively against it. My dad was lucky to have a tumour whipped out, and a month later you wouldn’t have known anything had been wrong. My mum had treatment for breast cancer over the year, and finished the year having her long waited for hip replacement. Through all this, they have both supported me and my boys incredibly, readily volunteering to do extra looking after so I can attend meetings, conferences, teachmeets and Christmaths! My husband puts up with me saying I want to go here or there for maths teacher meets, whilst he’s busy working somewhere across the country. I am just as lucky to have parents-in-law and friends I can call upon to help. That morning when my car wouldn’t start and I had a friend from school come over to pick me up after walking the boys round to a friend’s house to take them to school, all on a moments notice. For everything I accomplish professionally, I know I have an incredible group of family and friends with me in my life.
2) School life seems to have changed rapidly for me this year, mostly due to the confidence I have developed in what I do. I’ve always questioned myself, and am sure I always will, but 2015 has seen me believe that I can be good at what I do! I mentored an ITT student for the first time, which was fantastic to be able to support someone through their early development towards QTS, and now I am being recommended as someone for NQTs to come in and observe to support them in aspects of their teaching. I love this, as I think it’s so important to share practice with each other, as a classroom can be an isolating place to be. The best part is sitting and chatting through strategies and experiences, and I always take away something to help me too out of these sessions.
3) There has been change in our department during 2015, which can be quite nerve wracking in not knowing what to expect. My job share partner left, but my old head of department, Faye, came back off maternity leave so I was so excited to be able to job share with her. Without Faye I would not have been given then opportunity to start my NQT year 7 years ago (long story!), and she definitely saw me through the lowest moments when I didn’t think I’d make it. She has become a special friend, so I was gutted, but very pleased for her, when she also decided to leave at Christmas. I haven’t met my new job share partner yet, something to look forward to next week. We also had a new head of department from September, a change filled with anticipation for a new start for the department, but also the anxiousness in what changes might be brought to a supportive team. I need not have had any anxiety as our team continues to flourish together under our new leadership, with new life and guidance being injected into our practice.
4) I’ve obviously started dabbling a bit more in the blogging and twitter communities, which has opened a new lease of passion within me for my subject and profession. Having chance to read about other teachers experiences and practices is having a profound affect on my own practice, and the generosity in the sharing of research, and particularly resources (to which I think when on earth do these fellow teachers get the time to prepare all of this), is awesome. With visits to conferences, I have also had the opportunity to meet some of these amazing sharing tweachers (and yes, you are amazing in what you do and share), which only inspires me more to be better at what I do.
2016
1) Starting in the same place, my first hope is to improve my work/life balance. I want to do more with my maths and teaching, but I need to work smarter. I’m so keen to provide the best learning experiences in the classroom, that I use most of my 2 days off (being 3-day part timer) preparing lessons. I wouldn’t be able to spend this much time in preparation if I was full time, so I need to do better. This does not mean I want to change what I give to my teaching, but to work smarter at preparing. The idea of being part time is to keep the weekends free for my family, but so oftern I’m spending a Sunday afternoon, running into the evening, getting lessons and resources finished off and ready to use. In 2016, I hope to keep to the weekend is for the family, and spend some of my 2 days off on revitalising myself! A toughie for me, but more than worthwhile.
2) This academic year I was enrolled in the Middle Leaders Programme run by our local schools consortium. I’ve started to find this a little overwhelming, but totally fulfilling and quite am enjoying the new experiences. During 2016, I have my school wide leadership project to complete, hard work in itself, and then present my work and experiences to the leadership team. This programme has given me the confidence to think of where I may head next in my career, so I am now thinking about looking for lead practitioners roles in the future. I’ve also not had the opportunity to teach A’Level and do feel at best rusty, but at worse, unworthy, when A’Level maths is discussed. So this year I hope to brush up on my A’Level knowledge and skills, and particularly take any opportunity with the introduction of mechanics teaching at our school.
3) Change is always just around the corner, and I look forward to the gradual changes being made in our department to make us better teachers, and to help us guide our students into being better learners. But this year, change is huge with the new GCSE, grading and assessment systems. Our department were criticised last term in the lack of levels attached to pupils work in their books, with the point that without the levels we weren’t showing progress. I’m pleased to say that as a department we agreed we stil wouldn’t give pieces of work a level, but without whole school guidance on assessment without levels, we are having to use our own system, taken from the scheme of learning and assessment resources we are using for KS3. I find this lack of whole school thinking difficult, but do hope our leadership team are getting it all sorted in the background ready to surprise us in the New Year. Similarly, the insistence on giving a grade to our year 10s is troubling me. We have to report working at grades four times a year, but without the knowledge of the grading of the new GCSEs, I can’t help but worry I’m picking a number out of thin air.
4) I do hope to blog and tweet a bit more this year, and contribute more to a community that has provided me with so much inspiration, information and resource. I know that many of my resources I use with my students are taken from the generous folk that share on TES, or their own blogs, and then used as is, or adapted to suit my students. I need to start sharing more, making sure that I’m sharing my resources I’ve created, rather than keeping them on my own hard drive! For resources I’ve used and/or adapted, I’m trying to ensure I save the originator in my file names, so I remember where it came from and can link accordingly to the orginal sites if I blog about how well it worked with the students.
Well, thats my nurture1516 done! The process of writing has been very cathartic and I now have my 2016 hopes in black and white, rather than a swirl of thoughts in my head. Will press publish and look forward to another year of hard work and continued improvement in all I do!
MathsZest 