We are back and on our way for another busy session! I am listening to Brian Kennedy, an Irish singer/songwriter. I saw him a couple of times over the summer, playing in Glasgow and in the Fringe and really enjoy his songs and chat. He has a brilliant song Get On With Your Short Life which everyone should listen to and I am sure I’ll come back to it at some point during my blogging. However, just now I am listening to Sunday Morning which is appropriate because it is Sunday morning and I have just finished reading and commenting on the first class blogs of the new session and as always I am amazed by how quickly we are all settled in and routines, learning and engagement are to the fore..
I choose to work on a Sunday morning because it suits me. My BFF in Australia and I Skype each Sunday morning and blether for an hour then I do anything I have to do to be ready in school tomorrow. I talk about life/work balance a lot and at the beginning of a session I always remind folk again of how easy it is to just get caught up in being busy all the time. I look at it, in the main, with regards to juggling everything that goes on in a busy school. Things take planning and organising; from the Lunch Buddies to the thematic planning. It doesn’t just happen. We all have to plan, but be flexible, know where we are going but keep our eye on other routes, get to know our new class, if new; become familiar with the routines and procedures of the school. As well as planning and organising the learning and teaching within each class, staff and children play roles in all aspects of school life; ECO work, The Garden Gang, focus development areas and Professional Update. When it is all set out in a list it can be quite daunting and that’s the secret- not being overwhelmed and having that flexible balance.
I listen to colleagues saying they work after dinner, or on a weekend or some other compilation. Now, apart from Sunday morning, when I claim the computer or my weekly blether to said friend, I balance my work and life according to what is happening. If I didn’t then the “balance” would cause me more stress! I have never been one of those people who have a plan about what they do on certain weeks, or the jobs that must be done at the weekend. In school I very much know what has to be done and timescales that I need to be working in. I get organised but I have flexibility. I am always amazed when folk start flapping as a deadline approaches (or passes) and it is something they knew had to be done. Plan ahead! I smile as I write this because the awfully clever DHT is undertaking a post-graduate programme and his planning has taken on a whole new meaning!!!More of this as the session progresses! I am lucky enough to spend most of the summer break in rural France doing little more than reading, walking around beautiful towns, busy markets and eating too much! But it makes me think about how attitudes change- you are on holiday so spending the day doing nothing more than reading a good book is perfectly acceptable. Every August I try to keep a bit of that attitude as I start the new session. We have the important dates sorted for the session way before the end of the last. We know when things need started, checked, completed by but we also know that one of the best bits about working in the school is things are different every day.
Yes, we are incredibly busy and already we are muttering about all the little things that need to be sorted out to support the learning and teaching but we also keep reminding ourselves that we have people out with school who are important to us too. Sometimes, when listening to the young people in school talking about after school activities several nights and busy weekends I do wonder if we need to slow them down too (though from personal experience I do remember being amazed at just how a seventeen year old son can slow down to being immobile at times! Seven years on I can say that it did pass but at the time I had my doubts). I was speaking to someone who told me her eight- four year old mum felt guilty if she wasn’t “working” around the house every day. We do seem to do everything at speed and sometimes I think we need to just stop and enjoy relaxing on Sunday morning like the song says; church bells ringing, children playing and looking at the architecture (it’s a nice song); and actually I think that we need to build that in to every day somewhere and especially let the children do this too and not always look to plan every moment – so now I am off for another coffee.