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.

An End

Today my Year 12 English students did their exam. Boy am I glad! For the last week and a half my studious Year 12s (and I don't include the whole class in that definition) have been making appointments, writing essays, asking questions and getting prepared the best they can for their exam. Whilst any teacher is more than happy to spend time with those who are putting in the effort and who want extra help, this is a taxing time. I have not had a free period in over a week, and due to the fact that half of my job is administration, things have been piling up. This afternoon was the first joyous free afternoon I have had in what feels like an eternity and my jelly-like brain has switched off well and truly. I am also excited that there is a four day weekend coming up because if I am a good little teacher and do all of my correction (3class sets worth of essays) then I will come back to school next week refreshed, with no work hanging over me and with a three day week ahead. Just the thought of it soothes my aching bones. If I am a bad little teacher however (which is entirely possible given my ability to be extremely unmotivated at times when it comes to correction) then that will be what consumes my entire week next week, a fate I don't really want to condemn myself too.
This is the part of the year that is exciting for me. The time when I get to look forward, identify my goals and targets for next year and start planning and working to bring them to fruition. This is the time of the year when I start to feel like I am really getting things done. The challenge though is to keep the momentum going and to get my teams working towards next year too. I have tried to start early, to set up teams of people to work on particular tasks and hopefully if I can keep them motivated and united we might get a result that doesn't involve me doing all the work. I'm proud of my BYTES team actually because I put out an urgent email this week for them to come up with report comments for their BYTES modules and within a day they had all responded. Due to the fact that I was dealing with Year 12s this whole week, the fact that I didn't have to chase anyone and that the comments were all of a decent quality was fantastic.
Anyway- I'm packing up so that I can leave ASAP after the bell goes. Tonight I am going to have a nice long bath with a nice long book!

Reflection on the Women in Leadership course

Many times I have been meaning to sit down and actually reflect on this course as a whole and what it has given me, but I haven't made the time, until now. This year I made a decision to PD myself crazy. I wanted to improve my skills and capabilities in leadership in particular because this is an area that I am increasingly moving into, and I think that I still have a lot to learn about people management and creating a team environment. So I found this three day, women in Leadership course and got involved. The beauty of this course was that we did two days, then were sent off with homework and reflection time, as well as two-like-minded mentors/peers to keep us on track. Here is what I gained:

• Two new friendships and many more new contacts
• A knowledge of how to deal with the teams you work with and how to manage difficult situations
• Practical activities and procedures for implementing change/promoting teamwork and creating a group vision
• A better understanding of what I value in the leaders around me and the type of leader I want to be
• A Vision of Leadership

Here is how I have implemented the knowledge so far:

• Used a Y chart and some negotiating skills with my Year 11 class to get them all on the same page and better control their behaviour.
• Began working with the BYTES team using the same methods to get them on the same page before we move forward with planning for next year.
• Helped the school rewrite its vision and values statement and come up with core values
• Reached out to form better relationships with managment and peers in the workplace.
• Taken time to really listen to everyone that comes to my door.
• Been proactive in seeking out advice about my position for next year.
• Rethought my priorities and motivations.

Here is what I am hoping to achieve by the end of the year:

• A cohesive BYTES team with a vision for the future and a strategy to get there
• A survivor team (the Year 8 program)
• New curriculum ideas and initiatives for BYTES and Survivor
• A better leadership structure within the programs under my charge
• A large role in the Year 7 redevelopment
• A role in the leadership of change in our school

I think that the leadership course really gave me the foundations to start moving forward with my positions at school. I think it is one of the most valuable forms of professional development that I have done so far in my career but I think there is still so much work to be done.

Holiday Revitalisation

I am horribly slack with this blog. I realised it has been way too long since I have written. Sometimes I think that I have to know what I am going to write about before I start and that there has to be a purpose. If I am going to get better at blogging more regularly, then this thought process will have to stop. I have had an eventful, yet restful holiday so far. I spent the first weekend in Brisbane, bridesmaid dress shopping for my best friend's wedding and we managed to get shoes too which is a bonus. Since then I have read 4 novels, spent two days doing activities (jewellery making and cooking) with my mum's day care children, have been for a walk almost every second day (I need to get the wedding exercise program back in gear - I'm hoping the extra daylight from daylight savings will help me there) I have finished Year 12 SAC correction and have spent two afternoons at school working on a curriculum team structure with my AP. I have done two budget request forms for two of my programs for next year which is something I haven't had to do before so I am glad that is out of the way. I have caught up with some friends, visited my cousin and her new baby and just these last two days I feel like I am starting to relax.
Term 4 should be interesting. Things will really begin to be fleshed out with our new Year 7 structure and hopefully the positions and structure for next year too. There are so many things at the school at the moment that are uncertain so it will be interesting to see how things fall into place. I am excited about the potential new challenges for me next year. I'm not sure how certain things will pan out but I do know for sure that in May I am getting married and then going to Europe for 5-6 weeks which will be amazing. This may impact on my teaching responsibilities though, because 6 weeks is a long time to be missing Year 12s. I think if I am involved in running curriculum initiatives in the junior school then it makes sense that I take Year 7 again and perhaps Year 9 (still not so keen on Year 8s!). I have also been teaching Year 11s for 5 years so I am happy if I have a bit of a change if necessary. It is always at this time of the year that I start looking to next year and thinking about what is necessary to forward plan and what the best way is to start getting things done.
Before the end of the holidays I would love to get my Year 11 correction done but I also have some homework to do from the BYTES program so that I am ready for next staff meeting.
My new term resolution is to write more - lets see how that goes!

I've tried a couple of times to sit down and write lately but I haven't been able to work out exactly what it is that I wanted to say. I have been feeling a bit adrift lately - not sure of what my role will be next year, not sure about my place in the school and how what I am doing is contributing to the greater picture. I love my job and I love all the little aspects that are involved in it (except, perhaps, the dreaded marking)! but lately I have been recognising the importance of being reminded that you are doing a good job. That acknowledgment and validation that we all crave from our leaders is a huge motivator - helping to keep us on track and to keep our spirits up when the chips seem to be down.

There is so much happening at the school next year and I am keen to get involved but wasn't sure about what the opportunities were going to be. Rather than sit around dwelling in the uncertainty (which is something I do too often -see My Fatal Flaw) I have decided to be proactive and to find out what is going on and what my role will be when it all starts happening.

Today I had a discussion with my boss and really told her how I was feeling and she gave me some really positive feedback and concrete details about next year. I feel now like I have some certainty in my role and like I am ready to face the next challenge. For me it is really important to feel like I am moving forward - I don't ever want to sit back and simply repeat things that I have already done so it was important to me to know that there would be more challenges in store.

I feel like I have been revitalised. There are still many details to work out and a long way to go before my role is really fleshed out the way that we both hope it will be but for the moment it is enough.

My Fatal Flaw

There are things about myself that I have always known: 1) that I do not deal well with uncertainty and 2) that I often internalise my stress and instead of going to the source and dealing with it my conflict hating self just stresses quietly without sorting out what it is that is going on. These two things are going to be the things that I will have to watch over my journey. I need to be more patient - not constantly thinking, planning and worrying about the future. Central to this is the fact that I also need to trust more. Trust that I will be looked after if I continue to work hard and do the best that I can. Sometimes I lose sight of this and I feel like I lost sight of this over recent weeks and I am just beginning to pull myself back out of the fuzz. As part of the leadership course I am completing, one of my colleagues suggested that a female mentor would be really positive for my development and it seemed to me to be exactly what I needed. I asked our principal, who was so influential to me as an AP when I first started teaching, if she would be interested in mentoring me. We had our first meeting on Friday and discussed her experience of leadership and how she came to be in the role that she is in now.
Funnily enough for someone who is now a principal, she said that her aspirations were never to be a leader, rather it was others around her who saw her potential for leadership through the relationships she built up with the students and staff. She said she has never been in it for the money, but rather for the outcomes for the students and that the relationships are what she loves about the job and the ability to make a difference.
I think that lately I have lost sight of this as I have been putting pressure on myself to take that next step financially because at the moment money is scarce in our household as we scrimp and save for the wedding and our honeymoon and then a mortgage after that. So instead of focussing on what I love about my job and how satisfied I am to be doing something that challenges and motivates me, I have been getting caught up on the little things- the things that ultimately do not matter.
So one session down and already I have learned some valuable lessons. I need to make sure that I seek out the reassurance I need so that I do not lose sight of the bigger picture and my place in it. It was also nice to confirm that my Principal is happy with the role I am taking in curriculum development and that she feels that I am contributing to the future direction of the school. This is important to me as I work really hard to create innovative and practical applications for curriculum in the classroom on a wider, program, scale and I wanted to make sure that this fitted in with her vision too.
Ultimately I have to get over my desire for certainty. I have to realise that I am doing what I love and for now, that is enough and not to be looking too far into the future, or focussing on the negatives. On the horizon is a new curriculum redevelopment for me to sink my teeth into and it is exciting and has infinite potential at this stage as we research and plan and start to make decisions on what form it will take. I'm looking forward to our next meeting!

Did I mention I don't deal well with uncertainty?

It seems that things are always changing in schools and that is something that makes them such exciting, dynamic places to work. It also makes them the perfect place for someone like me to work (I hate doing the same thing for too long and love a change and to broaden my horizons). Strangely though, although I love change and new challenges, I don't deal well with uncertainty and at the moment it seems that my position as I know it is uncertain. Our school is undergoing a leadership restructure. The proposed structure that was put forward to management committee this week left my position up for discussion and debate. Many decisions about the leadership structure have been made, however the classification of the curriculum innovation position is yet to be decided. There are all sorts of reasons why this position is problematic for the school. This becomes problematic for me too though because I don't really know where I stand and at the moment I am just waiting for a decision to be made about my future. The position will exist, but the debate is about the pay classification of the position and whether it will be classified as a leadership position. I thought that during this leadership restructure this would all be sorted out, however it seems as though it is far from sorted. All I can do at this stage is wait for further news and keep my fingers crossed.