I miss Robert Palmer. I love his music; from Vinegar Joe onwards I loved his voice and style. I am listening to one of his albums as I write this and thinking about school as ever.
I often tell people that our school team is settled and we know each other well. We have worked hard on our shared journey with the young people and families, with associated professionals and with each other to try and make our school right for our young people. It is a journey, not a destination and sometimes we take all sorts of detours but, in the main, we do have a clear “road map” with our agreed developments and our collaboration with each other and others. However, last session saw us lose three probationers who had worked with us for a year plus two longstanding members of our established school team and it made me think about the dynamics of our school. I have to admit I wasn’t particularly fazed by the changes in staff until a few people began to sympathise/exclaim about the effect that would have on the school. To be honest it hasn’t affected us greatly, thanks to the strength and unity of everyone involved; especially the young people and parents and our school based team.
What it did was put into focus that time marches on and we had people who were no longer there to “always do what they always do.” Suddenly the support team had new members who didn’t know the bell system, the door that sticks or the way the wind can knock you off your feet in the playground. It struck me that these are the little details that are in the fabric of the learning community that is our school. Yes, we ensure that new staff members know about our learning priorities, we have programmes of development for all our staff that support our learning and teaching strategies, we evaluate our performance, support and challenge our young people and build our relationships with the community. What can be forgotten are the little foibles of the school – and these can suddenly come to the fore.
Simple things like playing on the large grass area – when does it stop? How do we safely access the grass? These are all new things to new staff. Where do classes line up, is there a set line order for entering and leaving the building? What do the bells mean outwith break times? Yes, over the start of session these procedures are explained and practiced. No matter how organised we think our information list is something always pops up that “we just do” and someone new doesn’t know about.
We said hello to several new pupils this term after our October break and I was reminded about the start of term with our new support and teaching staff members. Luckily for our new young people there are always plenty of willing helpers to show them where things are, routines at lunch and break and such like but it is something that can’t be taken for granted; everything is the same but new! There is also the shift in dynamics where a new member of the group- be it children or adults either immediately enhances the group or, occasionally, and usually with the children, they ruffle a few feathers. Change is difficult and managing and supporting a new member of the community is really important for everyone. Knowing where to step in, where to support and where to step back and let new relationships develop is not always easy. Sometimes it can show a new path; sometimes it highlights potholes that we’ve been used to side-stepping. Either way as Robert sings it does take every kind of people and the mix we have in our school reflects the wider community and supporting each other as we learn and progress is just as much of our learning journey as numeracy and literacy.