The Devil makes work for idle hands

First of all may I apologise to my loyal follower for the non appearance of these blogs over the past fortnight. As you will see from what follows this has been a busy time but I would ask that you see this as creating an embarrassment of riches on which to draw rather than an excuse born of my hectic schedule. I have never been under any illusions regarding the fact that it is the classroom teacher who is both the most important person within a school but also the one upon whom the greatest pressures fall.

Recent weeks have seen a number of different strands begin to weave themselves into a coherent pattern. As a school very involved in offering support and training for others we have just completed a substantial agreement to work collaboratively with another secondary in the county, are working closely with a number of local primary schools and are waiting to hear whether our Teaching School bid has been successful. In addition to this we have been hosting training and visits from numerous other schools keen to see what we are doing and I am in the middle of a spell in which I am giving presentations at eight conferences, the most distant of which takes place in Birmingham.

Currently we are preparing to bid again for capital money for our building project. The deadline for such bids is the end of this month and we are encouraged that we may well have planning approval granted by then, which would be a great help. We are also working with Patrick Leeson, the new Director of Education for Kent, on initiatives that link outstanding schools with those requiring improvement and are also involved in the current discussion regarding the future of the behaviour support service across the county. In addition to this, of course, the key focus remains the progress and achievement of our own students and these months are always the most intense as final preparations are made for public examinations.

The message I take from the above is that, whilst overload is always theoretically possible, for a school or an individual to maintain a level of success it is always preferable to maintain momentum  and, if anything, to have too much to do rather than too little. This year’s admissions data has just been published and Fulston Manor is the third most oversubscribed school in Kent, behind two in Dartford, which suggests that the pace and impetus we enjoy is appreciated by parents and students alike. If my mother was right when she told me that the devil makes work for idle hands I think it unlikely that we have anything to fear from diabolical possession, a comforting thought for those few moments of reflection which even the busiest amongst us enjoy.