#Nurture 1415
Having read a few of the recent #nurture1415 posts I thought it about time I write my own. It has been an eventful year in a number of ways.
Last Year:
1. Last year I moved from Year 1 to Year 3. I have been out of Key Stage 2 for some time, and have thoroughly enjoyed my return. The change of year combined with a new year group partner, and the new curriculum have led me to consider my approaches over the year. I have had the opportunity to experience coaching from a neighbouring Headteacher as part of this process, which has enabled me to grow as a teacher.
2. January was a whirlwind. My husband was taken into hospital after an irregularity in a routine blood test. He spent 15 days in hospital having a wide range of tests, some more worrying than others. He was finally allowed home after no treatment - to this day we think he had had an extreme reaction to a virus. An unfortunate coincidence was that my horse was also ill at the same time. I had owned him for 24 years. For a week I spent my days visiting my husband, the horse three times a day, caring for our two children and working. I had to make the decision to have the horse put to sleep after a week of illness - he was 31 years old.
3. During the Summer term, our school had an Ofsted inspection. We had previously been graded an RI school, and as such approached the inspection with a mix of trepidation and fighting spirit. We were given a judgement of Good by the inspectors. Several factors were highlighted - one being the way our staff as a whole displayed great team work, another being our strong SMSC provision. I am proud to be a part of the staff at Moorside, and the way in which we all responded to the RI judgement from Ofsted. As a team we were determined to prove to the inspectors that we were better than that - to the extent that our HMI now asks us to coach other schools in an RI situation. A large part of the SMSC provision is through our International work, which I am coordinator for. I am glad that I was able to play a part in our positive outcome.
4. Our International work at Moorside has really taken off this year. We are part of an ongoing link with Youfu Primary School in Nanjing, China. This year has seen us host staff and children from Nanjing, and send a group of staff and children to China in February. I was fortunate enough to be invited to be part of the trip this year. This was bittersweet as my husband was due to return to hospital for a lymph node biopsy during the trip. Up until the day before we flew I was still not certain I was doing the right thing.
We are also in the middle of a Comenius project funded by the British Council. My husband was due to visit Seville at the start of the year as part of the project but his illness prevented him from attending. However, staff and students from our school have visited partner schools in Spain, Poland and Turkey, with myself attending the Poland meeting.
Our first partnership was with Pelican Park Primary School in Cape Town, South Africa. This developed into a trilateral partnership last year with a new partner school in Namibia. We hosted two visiting teachers in our home in September - which was a delight. My husband and our Headteacher visited Cape Town at the end of October.
At the very end of the year we had two pieces of excellent news. We were awarded British Council/HSBC Link2Learn Primary School of the year for our International Work. The following week we had notification that our application for a new Connecting Classrooms grant with a school in Argentina had been successful.
5. I am also responsible for leading Science at Moorside, and have been through the Primary Science Quality Mark process this year. I have led Science now since September 2013 and was hoping to use the process to develop my understanding. Due in a large part to the commitment of our staff, we were able to achieve the Gold Award in one year. I would highly recommend PSQM as a way to drive Science and deepen understanding.
Goals for next year:
1. Develop our new link with Argentina. Part of my duties this year will be ensuring that our international links are embedded into the curriculum.
2. Delegate! Next year I will be handing over the responsibility for our African links to a colleague in Key Stage 1. After having sole responsibility for all of our grant applications and partnership projects for the last few years, I know I'll find this hard.
3. Be more organised. I'm a plate spinner. I tend to charge around trying to do everything at once (hence the previous point!). During an assembly a few weeks ago, I asked the children to give my desk a mark out of 10 whenever they come to my classroom. I'm going to try to get 10 as often as I can!
4. Prioritise. So that I can focus on my family in the evenings, I aim to get my head down at the end of the school day and take less home.
5. Walk more. My husband made the mistake of saying publicly in his #nurture1415 blog that he wanted to get fitter and get to know the area where we live better. I intend to make sure that he fulfills this aim so that we can both get fitter in 2015.
I haven't even mentioned the fact that I have started using Twitter this year! If you have got this far, thank you for indulging my reflections. My successes this year have been down to the people around me - many thanks to all of them. Roll on 2015 and the new challenges it will bring!
Happy New Year to you all.
