Monday brings a reflection of the week gone and my word, what a week last week was.

If you didn’t already know, we had Ofsted in. I don’t have much to say about the experience, except it was stressful, frustrating, exhausting and tough. I did lots of teaching (as a student, I’m slightly different to the rest of the staff in terms of observations) and a lot of helping people out. I have very mixed feelings on Ofsted, but those thoughts are for another blog post in the future. There were some positives from the inspection, and some areas to think about. The one thing that is sticking out to me the most however is the absolutely incredible spirit of the brilliant people I work with. The amount of enthusiasm, effort and sheer joy we have every day for our school, our kids… it’s incredible. Find people you love working with, and it will make even the hardest of weeks bearable.

Besides Ofsted, there’s not been much going on. I went on a behaviour training day at a local primary school, situated in one of the most deprived parts of Newcastle. It’s always interesting to go somewhere else and see how they work there, so to see somewhere with similar issues to my own school was brilliant. I took away a lot of ideas and things to think about from the day – for me the best kind of day.

Yet again I’m poorly. This is week 3 of being poorly. It’s exhausting and just frustrating. I want to be better again, but I guess that’s not happening. I’m just hoping that it will all be OK soon!

I want to take a little minute to say thank you to anyone who took time this week to check in how I was. A massive thanks to Mr Johnson for asking me every day, it means a lot. I’m not great at looking after myself and finding ways to swich off, so to have people telling me to do so and checking how I am makes a difference.

So yeah, last week was hard for a multitude of reasons… Christmas in primary schools is lovely though. 

Thanks for sticking with me!

S x