I love quotes. I have a huge collection of quote images stored in my google photos and a database in Notion of quotes from books I have read, videos I have or podcasts I have listened to.Throughout the school year, I post a daily quote on our staffroom TV display along with our daily staffing absences & replacements along with staff duties (yard duty, first aid, staffroom) for that day. Sometimes these spark interesting conversations amongst staff over recess and lunch breaks.

Backstreet's back!.... And so is my blog.It’s hard to believe that this blog has been around for 10 years. During that time, it has had a few attempted reboots.

So, why try again?

Since starting this blog, I have certainly grown and shifted locations and roles; moving from classroom teacher, teaching ICT (Digital Technologies), leading teaching and now into my current role as an assistant principal. I noticed that there is an abundance of resources online for teachers, but resources for school leaders and principal class were quite limited and often US or UK focused.

I sit here, trying to reflect on what was the year of 2017. My personality type dictates that there needs to be some order to this process. That it needs to be a logical, methodical process; not some random collection of sunshine, glitter, lollipops and unicorns. I noticed a post from a Tim Ferris somewhere (I think it was his 5 bullet Friday’s newsletter) where he talked about his process for reflection. As a big fan of Tim’s work, I thought if it was good enough for him that it was definitely good enough for me.

So, with my Google Calendar open beside my OneNote notebook, I went through and collated the highs and lows of 2017 in chronological order into my very orderly two column table.

So.....  It's been a while between blog post and, as always, a lot of water has gone under the bridge since I last wrote.

The short story is that I switched schools (again!) mid way through last year to take on an Acting Assistant Principal role and at the beginning of term 2 this year, I was successful in obtaining the substantive role.

The question I have been asked the most often is along the lines of if I like the change; if I prefer one role over the other or if I miss the classroom. I find this a really difficult question to answer as the work and the role is so different.

Several people within my PLN have written recently around the theme of Staff Professional Learning. (See works here by Margo and Edna)  Their articles, combined with conversations at Tweet Ups and Teach Meets (and time to think over the holidays!) have led me to reflect on how I deliver professional learning within my school and changes I would like to implement.

SO, WHAT WILL PROFESSIONAL LEARNING LOOK LIKE ?

With the madness that is a school at the end-of-year, Christmas, and celebrating a birthday, this post is a little later than I had hoped, however, it has given me the time to really reflect on the year that has past and what lies ahead.

2102 has been a hectic year both personally and professionally and it would be easy to forget what has been achieved. As I look forward to 2013 and think about the possibilities, I thought it wise to reflect on what has been achieved from the year just past.

In earlier posts, I wrote about the challenges our school was facing as we continue to grow in size and deal with the issue of timetables and our response to this by moving towards a 7 day timetable. One of the issues I encounted was around the use of calendars (specifically Microsoft Outlook and the Ultranet) to schedule events and create my work program:

Having recovered from the end-of-school madness, Christmas and the New Year, I have enjoyed the opportunity to sit and rest for a few days and catch up on some blogs in my Google Reader. I've really enjoyed reading posts (and posts and posts) from both friends and members of my Personal Learning Network (PLN) about their reflections from the past year and how it has helped them set goals and directions for the coming year. I've always been one to set goals and targets for the year, but have never really reflected on my achievements from the year before. So, thanks to some help from my Outlook calendar, the following jumped out at me as achievements throughout 2011: