It’s the start of a big adventure for me. A year of leave so I can take some time out. But a new start implies that there were some farewells and I’ve just been through a big one. The day before yesterday was my last day at JMSS where I have taught for the past 5 years. It’s a school that I helped to build from scratch and where I was fortunate to lead the mathematics team and take a lead role in professional learning. It’s a unique place; specialist science/maths/technology school with open plan learning spaces and where team teaching is the norm. We worked hard and I’m so proud of our achievements but I was not prepared for the farewell.
I was completely overwhelmed by the wave of love and support from my colleagues. There was a speech from the newly appointed Head of Maths who's been there with me since the start. His speech was funny, kind, and showcased the best of me and the things I’m famous for. Number one on that list is delegation. I call it building capacity, they call it getting someone else to do the things I don’t want to do. We’re both right of course. There was a song, with words that fitted me to a tee, sung by a band of mathematicians and an associate mathematician, called the Farriss Brothers (a story for another time). There was a hand drawn piece of artwork that captured, in caricature, all the past and present members of the mathematics faculty with me sitting on my ‘throne’ in the centre. I didn’t want to let it out of my sight, such a precious gift. There were chocolates, books, bottles of wine, hugs and kind words. There was a surprise night out where the mathematicians and the associate and an athlete who doubles as my adopted son, played a game where we had to solve puzzles to get ourselves out of a couple of locked rooms (Exitus). It’s how you have fun when you’re a maths geek. There was also eating and drinking and laughing, lots of laughing. And throughout all this there was a lot of honesty and a lot of stirring mixed with a few tears, and that’s just how I like it.
When a colleague (a mathematician) asked me how I was going I said I was humbled, that I didn’t expect what they had done for me. She said surely I knew how much people cared and appreciated what I had done for them. I said I guess so. I wonder why it’s so hard for us to admit we deserve the accolades. I love being a leader in a school, I love leading a mathematics faculty that is innovative, creative and knows how to deliver a curriculum that retains the rigours of our subject but that interest students, and I love working with teachers to keep on learning to be the best we can be. I have taken care of the teachers that I work with and they have, in turn, taken care of me. Together we have taken care of our students.
So now my year of leave begins. I’m stepping down from leadership for a while to be a maths teacher in a country school. I’ll be relearning the art of teaching in a non specialist school. It will include teaching in the junior school again. I’m sure I’ll be learning from those around me and I hope to bring something to the table to share with them. Then I’ll be travelling, to New Zealand and Canada and I’ll be open to new opportunities and making new connections.
I’m new to blogging; this is my first post. I'm not sure what to expect but I hear the words of Dan Haesler (@danhaesler) ringing in my ear as I sat in his session at the Love Learning Conference this year, “just put it out there”. So here it is; a blog that will be in part a reflection of how I got to this point, a chance to keep in touch with family, friends and colleagues new and old, and a place to share some thoughts on education, especially maths education, from my teacher seat. I'll try to give a hint at the start of each post what theme it will take, just in case you want to bail out early!
