Saturday, December 05, 2009
New Challenges and a little bit of Sentimentality
I have begun the task of clearing out my office. Back in August/September when I first found out that I had been successful in my application to my new school, all I really felt was excitement. Now I'm still excited but as I clear out my stuff from the school where I have spent around 50 hours a week for the last 6 years, I am realising I am having moments where I really feel a bit sentimental and a little bit sad.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
e5 framework
English
Lesson Activitie Wordle
Principles of Teaching and Learning Wordle
Friday, September 11, 2009
I am starting this post with only 30 free minutes and I probably need longer but here goes:
Since I wrote the last post everything has changed. I had convinced myself that my best career option was to stay where I was but somewhere deep down I really felt like I needed a new challenge. That little niggling feeling that I needed to go out of my comfort zone started to niggle harder and I found myself in a situation where a position presented itself that seemed like too good an opportunity to give up. So I applied, was shortlisted, interviewed and got the job! The position title is Staff and Student Leadership: English and Whole School Literacy. It is a leading teacher position at a brand new school currently being built on Monash University Campus in Clayton that is opening next year. Whilst the position only begins next year there is much to be done before then in order to get an English Curriculum developed that will see the students off to a good start next year. The school is 10-12 and is predominately a Maths/Science school so the cohort will be significantly different to what I am used to. It is designed to be a school with cutting edge technology and the teacher with the e-leadership position is innovative and amazing at what he does so I am really excited about the amount I am going to learn. I am excited about the leadership team who I will be meeting in full the first week of the holidays and I am really looking forward to throwing myself in the deep end again for the first time in a long time. To be in a totally new environment with a new team to work with and with a new role and new challenge is something I am really looking forward to.
Having said that, I am sad that I am going to be leaving such a fantastic workplace. I am sad that I will leave behind the first school I worked for; a school that has given me every opportunity to pursue my dreams and goals; a school that has taught me so much about people, schools, teaching, leadership and myself. I will always be thankful that I started teaching in such a wonderful environment because it is partly due to that nurturing that I was able to get this promotion.
Since I wrote the last post everything has changed. I had convinced myself that my best career option was to stay where I was but somewhere deep down I really felt like I needed a new challenge. That little niggling feeling that I needed to go out of my comfort zone started to niggle harder and I found myself in a situation where a position presented itself that seemed like too good an opportunity to give up. So I applied, was shortlisted, interviewed and got the job! The position title is Staff and Student Leadership: English and Whole School Literacy. It is a leading teacher position at a brand new school currently being built on Monash University Campus in Clayton that is opening next year. Whilst the position only begins next year there is much to be done before then in order to get an English Curriculum developed that will see the students off to a good start next year. The school is 10-12 and is predominately a Maths/Science school so the cohort will be significantly different to what I am used to. It is designed to be a school with cutting edge technology and the teacher with the e-leadership position is innovative and amazing at what he does so I am really excited about the amount I am going to learn. I am excited about the leadership team who I will be meeting in full the first week of the holidays and I am really looking forward to throwing myself in the deep end again for the first time in a long time. To be in a totally new environment with a new team to work with and with a new role and new challenge is something I am really looking forward to.
Having said that, I am sad that I am going to be leaving such a fantastic workplace. I am sad that I will leave behind the first school I worked for; a school that has given me every opportunity to pursue my dreams and goals; a school that has taught me so much about people, schools, teaching, leadership and myself. I will always be thankful that I started teaching in such a wonderful environment because it is partly due to that nurturing that I was able to get this promotion.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Another new beginning
This has been a big year for me. I got married, went on a 6 week honeymoon to Europe and saw sights I had only imagined I would ever be lucky enough to see. I have entered a period of relative stability in my relationships and home life and so it seems that things are changing at work.
Just before I left school to get married (start of term 2) the AP I have been working under in my curriculum innovations role, got a new position at a new school, and gave 1 month's notice. This meant that before I even returned from my honeymoon, he would be gone. I knew that due to this, the first couple of weeks after my return would be full of catching up on my behalf - working out what had gone on whilst I had been gone and what this meant for me and my position.
It seems that what it means is a renewal of sorts; a rethinking and reimagining of what it is that I want my role to be. This has been reinvigorating, remotivating and exciting. There is much to be done. I am working on a new job description, imagining what it is that I want to be doing around the school for the next 3 years. I am imagining what the school will look like in a year when the new building is finished, and what the new curriculum that we are intending to introduce at Year 7 will look like. I am meeting with the acting AP and with the Principal about what our visions are for this new curriculum in this new building and I feel like everything is new again.
I am now one of the few people who has worked on this project from the start and this gives me an autonomy that I have not had before in my projects at school. I am able to work with the larger school community to gather ideas, formulate theories and to create something from scratch. Something that I feel will be the start of bigger changes, whole school changes, not necessarily in what we teach but in how we teach it and why. Changes to the leadership structures and to the way we have always done things, not because we can, but because it is time to rethink the things we have always done in the light of where we want to be at the end of the journey.
When we were on our way home from our honeymoon, I started our 'post-wedding budget.' This is a three year plan that I have since realised is almost like a 'strategic-plan' in that it is designed to get us where we want to be in 3 years time, with various milestones and achievements along the way. This is not because of my fear of uncertainty (my fatal flaw) but rather because I believe that if you set goals and a way to work towards them, even if they are not all achieved on time and on budget, you will have come much further than those that don't even dare to dream.
To this end I am also intending to go back to uni. It is something I have always wanted to do but the potential finanical burden was always what put me off. And it never seemed like a good time. I feel like this next three years, with my planning at home and at school, is the perfect time to do it and I happened to find out about a scholarship that is available that will allow me to do it without putting a dent in our 'post-wedding' budget.
Sometimes you go through periods of time where everything seems to just work out for you and go in your favour. I used to think I lived a semi-charmed life and in some ways it is true that I do. I have never had to endure what I consider to be great hardships in life but I have also learned that most of the things that I felt just 'fell in my lap' came after considerable planning or hard work on my behalf but that I never really connected the work with the end product. Now I am at a stage in my life where I not only am ready to reap the benefits of my hard work but I am also ready to knuckle down to the next stage of hard work because the dreaming about what I want the reward to be at the end is worth all the effort that goes into its making.
Just before I left school to get married (start of term 2) the AP I have been working under in my curriculum innovations role, got a new position at a new school, and gave 1 month's notice. This meant that before I even returned from my honeymoon, he would be gone. I knew that due to this, the first couple of weeks after my return would be full of catching up on my behalf - working out what had gone on whilst I had been gone and what this meant for me and my position.
It seems that what it means is a renewal of sorts; a rethinking and reimagining of what it is that I want my role to be. This has been reinvigorating, remotivating and exciting. There is much to be done. I am working on a new job description, imagining what it is that I want to be doing around the school for the next 3 years. I am imagining what the school will look like in a year when the new building is finished, and what the new curriculum that we are intending to introduce at Year 7 will look like. I am meeting with the acting AP and with the Principal about what our visions are for this new curriculum in this new building and I feel like everything is new again.
I am now one of the few people who has worked on this project from the start and this gives me an autonomy that I have not had before in my projects at school. I am able to work with the larger school community to gather ideas, formulate theories and to create something from scratch. Something that I feel will be the start of bigger changes, whole school changes, not necessarily in what we teach but in how we teach it and why. Changes to the leadership structures and to the way we have always done things, not because we can, but because it is time to rethink the things we have always done in the light of where we want to be at the end of the journey.
When we were on our way home from our honeymoon, I started our 'post-wedding budget.' This is a three year plan that I have since realised is almost like a 'strategic-plan' in that it is designed to get us where we want to be in 3 years time, with various milestones and achievements along the way. This is not because of my fear of uncertainty (my fatal flaw) but rather because I believe that if you set goals and a way to work towards them, even if they are not all achieved on time and on budget, you will have come much further than those that don't even dare to dream.
To this end I am also intending to go back to uni. It is something I have always wanted to do but the potential finanical burden was always what put me off. And it never seemed like a good time. I feel like this next three years, with my planning at home and at school, is the perfect time to do it and I happened to find out about a scholarship that is available that will allow me to do it without putting a dent in our 'post-wedding' budget.
Sometimes you go through periods of time where everything seems to just work out for you and go in your favour. I used to think I lived a semi-charmed life and in some ways it is true that I do. I have never had to endure what I consider to be great hardships in life but I have also learned that most of the things that I felt just 'fell in my lap' came after considerable planning or hard work on my behalf but that I never really connected the work with the end product. Now I am at a stage in my life where I not only am ready to reap the benefits of my hard work but I am also ready to knuckle down to the next stage of hard work because the dreaming about what I want the reward to be at the end is worth all the effort that goes into its making.
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