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.

My old secondary school principal once said: "if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". For the past few years, we have used the first day of the school year as an opportunity to share our vision for the school year and to get buy-in from staff. We were fortunate our school review took place at the end of 2019 and provided us with some solid feedback and a clear direction about where we needed to focus our energy and efforts for 2020.

In a previous post, I wrote about how I am currently tracking the activities and work that occurs each day. I started this task as I wanted to see what I was doing each day and where I was spending my time. Whilst I went into each day with a plan, I was noticing that the day rarely went to plan. I was frequently being interrupted from my work and wanted to see if there was any pattern or theme to these interruptions.

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.

Close friends and long-time readers of this blog will know that Student Voice and Student Leadership is a passion of mine.

Most schools have some form of student body; be it a student representative council, student leadership council, a junior school council, a student congress, or student voice – the names for these organizations are varied, but ultimately, there is a group that represents students within the school.

But… Why is such a having a student council important? And what sort of things should we be working on? I mean, they raise money and stuff, but how can we move to that next level?

School holidays has been a great time to clean out and catch up on all of the blogs I have in my Google Reader.I stumbled across this TED Talk by Drew Dudley the other day through a post on Lifehack: Top 20 TED Talks that can improve your life.

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 ?