Not Monday

Yesterday was a funny old day because I had a Fleet Heads meeting from 8am and after a debrief with Mrs J and the lovely ladies in the office my day was very bitty with lots of important things but I didn’t find time to blog as well. Actually I forgot about my blog until I got home then decided it could wait until today. I am sure that everyone had far better things to do with their time than read my ramblings on a Monday evening.

A big decision at the moment is heating on or heating off. I am quite stingy in that I don’t have my heating on until the 24th December ready for Father Christmas visiting. I felt a bit chilly on Sunday so decided to flick the switch and treat myself to a bit of warmth. Mr O wasn’t in so he didn’t know I was being so cavalier! We replaced our boiler last year so I was expecting everything to just fire into action and warmth to permeate upstairs and down. Yes, you have guessed right, that didn’t happen. The radiators came on upstairs but downstairs was still like the North Pole. I did a little bit of looking at the boiler and the timer, googled and then bled the radiators just in case, but alas no heat. I have a marvellous local heating engineer and he duly came out yesterday and replaced a different old bit in the airing cupboard. This morning my alarm went off and I woke up sweating because the heating was well and truly on. It is going off again because it is far too hot and it isn’t that long until Christmas Eve.

School is obviously a place of learning all sorts of different things and it’s our job, alongside yourselves, to prepare children for the future. There are so many jobs now that people can do at home virtually and all they need to do is plug themselves in and technology does the rest. Parts of my role are very much like that and I am indeed plugged into my laptop and three screens right now. I could quite easily spend all my day locked away and not see another soul as I work on policies, legislation, emails, more legislation, getting ready for meetings, more emails, telephone calls, Teams meetings, being accountable to the governors, HCC, the Department for Education, and so my day could go on. All the things that I have to do are essential but I honestly could never see a child at all. I am the custodian of log books from the first HT at Tavistock and some of the entries really make me smile. Here are a couple:

July 11th 1972. Due to illness of her 7 year old son Mrs J Lennon was absent from duty as Supervisory Assistant.

Thursday 5th February 1981

Mrs A Norris, Deputy Head Teacher was unable to report for duty having lost her voice as a result of a heavy cold.

Perhaps I should add writing a log entry to my list of things to do so that in years to come the HT will look back and chuckle just as I am doing.

You will have seen or heard me outside one of the gates in the mornings letting the whole world know what is on the menu that day and wishing a cheery good morning to every single person who passes by. I think the children do think I cook the lunches! To me that is the most important part of my day. Not cooking the lunches but welcoming everyone. I think the children love to see me in the mornings even if they don’t speak and parents are definitely grateful to be handing their children over. I could call it the human touch and it actually does me an awful lot of good as well. I am more than happy to be in my own company and could be called a bit anti-social because I don’t go out as much as I used to, but I always want people to feel welcome. I met with a prospective parent yesterday and her parting words were that I was the friendliest HT and gave the warmest welcome to her child. I can’t imagine being anything else because children are precious things. They are very young at infant school and even our Year 2’s who have to ‘set an example’ are only 6 and 7 years old. Being made to feel welcome and know that you belong somewhere is vital. I wish all the meetings that I have to go to were like that because there are honestly some not very happy faces and if you aren’t part of the ‘in-crowd’ you can be virtually ignored! That is for another blog.

Wellies, armbands, rafts and lifeboats are needed so take care out there!