Kicking over the Ladder

I've come to a decision to kick over the ladder. From my very first day in teaching a ladder was placed before me. The first rung of that ladder is the classroom teacher. Above that, the Middle Leadership rung, with its fork to either pastoral or academic responsibilities. One step further up is the Senior Leadership roles of …

#Relearn: Craftsmanship

Homeric Hymn to Hephaestus  (Greek epic C7th to 4th B.C.) : "Sing, clear-voiced Mousa (Muse), of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) famed for inventions (klytometis). With bright-eyed Athene he taught men glorious crafts throughout the world,--men who before used to dwell caves in the mountains like wild beasts. But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaistos the famed …

Managing Conflict within a PE Department

For most of my career I avoided conflict with my colleagues - those I've worked with, for and managed. Not because I'm scared of it, but because of the naive belief that any conflict meant I had failed. I had failed with my communication. I had failed with my listening. I had failed with my …

Using Leadership Theory in PE

This summer my reading was related to Leadership. Leadership Theory is a hugely diverse topic, with definitions and descriptions varying enormously between authors. What they all agree with is that we can find leadership in every sort of work, project and initiative, regardless of scale, finances or environment. Given the many ways in which leadership operates, it …

PE Philosophy

This was written for and originally posted on PE Pedagogy.   What is a philosophy? Simply it is our most basic beliefs, concepts and attitudes that we have. Our philosophy has been shaped by the people around us and through our observation of them. It is defined by our experiences, our acquired knowledge and through …

Is PRP preventing open and honest dialogue?

I've just completed the performance management review process this year, experiencing my schools new PRP policy, both as a line manager and as someone who is being line managed. These are my initial thoughts on the process: My personal experience: As usual I prepared fully for the meeting as I usually do. I had documented …

A day in the life of a Dosser.

So what is a Dosser? Well a DoS is a Director of Sport. A Dosser is what my colleagues in science call me as they think I'm in charge of Dossing around. (I don't think they should give up their day jobs for a career in comedy.) Today was a pretty tough day dossing around. …

5 key messages to my department for this year.

5 Key messages for my Department Vision As a department we need to be on board at what are vision is for students at Reading School. In all that we do we are promoting an active and healthy lifestyle, in school, out of school and beyond school. We need to move away from just a …