@iknowkellaway

So I was very late to the Encanto party and only watched it last weekend (April 2nd) with my 6 year old son. Fortunately for me, he has ensured we have made up for lost time by watching it every day since then (three days on the trot!), with the soundtrack on repeat on every car journey, on Alexa in the house & even played on phones at bathtime. There is no escape from not talking about Bruno it seems. Whilst watching the film & enjoying the soundtrack, it made me think of the recent training I completed as a mental health first aider . So I thought I'd write about mental health, the thing people don't talk about in the same way ' we don't talk about Bruno' as the film's title hit espouses, and how Encanto's characters reflect us & people we know who might be struggling. It turns out I wasn't the first one to think of this as a quick google search shows . Even if you haven't seen the film, you can see in the picture below that on the sur...

In my last blog, I wrote about tips for being a good pastoral leader . The first tip I gave was to care. Caring is the cornerstone of good pastoral leadership and relevant for all leaders, but how can you best show that you care? For me, it is to truly listen to people. How good does it feel to be listened to? Or conversely, annoying, when you feel that someone isn’t listening to you? Last summer, my epiphany came when I completed a coaching course with Graydin , which taught me how to be a better listener, to ask better questions and through this to empower people to be the best version of themselves. Since then I have had so many better conversations with pupils, colleagues, friends, family and strangers. As a coaching convert, I can see first-hand its strength as a tool to transform people and organisations. I have been lucky enough to be responsible for making Woldingham School ‘coach-like’ by implementing Graydin Coaching methods. Since the start of the year, more than a third o...

Around this time 4 years ago I completed a course on Pastoral Leadership run by Jill Berry (@jillberry) and decided a pastoral role was the right choice for me. Originally I entered teaching purely as I loved my subject (Theology) and had no intention of a pastoral role, but seeing good people in the roles at my school (Woldingham) and the opportunity you have to make a difference in a young person’s life swayed me. I have since been Head of Year 9, 10 and now Year 11 and I love the job. I’m not writing this as if I have all the answers, but as an attempt to think about what good looks like, help me be better and to help people who are thinking of becoming Heads of Year.  So why be a Pastoral Leader? Two main reasons. First, is there another role where you have such an opportunity to make an impact on a young person’s life? You get to help people be the best they can be, empower them to achieve their potential or make a positive difference when they are struggling. No other role ha...

  Teaching tips to thrive online I survived the first lockdown (and still feel very proud of myself for this!) but I didn’t thrive. This time around I really wanted to nail my teaching so I bought and read Doug Lemov’s book ‘Teaching in the Online Classroom’. I thought it was really useful so I’ve tried to summarise the best bits to help other teachers ‘thrive in the new normal’ or at least pick up some easy tips to improve their lessons.  A friend said that everything in here is just common sense… true perhaps but it helps to be reminded sometimes! I’ve certainly found some of these tips helpful to improve my online teaching.  My key takeaways:  Try to keep consistency between old world (teaching in classroom) & new world (teaching online). Do what you did before where possible! Get off to a fast start . Have them doing something straight away (first 3 mins is the rule) or they will sink into a passive role. Like we all do when we join online meetings. If we kn...