Ever ready...

A simple one this week. Be ready. Be up to date. Plan ahead. Use the strategies we have discussed. Make sure you're putting your best foot forward, as ever.

We're doing it for the pupils, but, also, to prove that the work we put in is as good (or better!) as we know it is.

Let's have a great week.

Click.

Click on this. Then click some more when you get there. Click until you can click no longer. Click. Click.

Click like a dolphin.

Click.

Clarity.

Last Wednesday's meeting was a fruitful and interesting discussion about what we felt outstanding would look like, feel like and sound like. We also discussed potential barriers to achieving this. Please keep in mind that when I talk about outstanding, I only loosely mean outstanding in the death-eating-political-agenda sense. Predominantly, I mean a style of pedagogical perfection and consistency rarely achieved, which secures superb results and improved outcomes for our pupils.

The results of this discussion are loosely pinned to the work room wall for your continual perusal. I'll be stringing the notes from our original discussions up in the room for further thought, too.

This is good.

It means we will sing from the same page of the book, to mix some metaphors. However, it's also vital that we achieve true conceptual clarity in coming months, in order to really nail down what these terms mean. How are we defining engaged? What does outstanding progress look like?

In this week's meeting, we will be discussing some of the key terms which we have identified previously, and ensuring that we have a cohesive, shared understanding of them. Once secured, we can continue our long march to the peak of educational brilliance and attainment. Perfection may not be ever achieved, but striving to be the best that we can, at all times, is an honourable goal, and one we can and will achieve.

Focus.

A positive, yet challenging - in several ways - first half-term is behind us; another long half-term awaits, taking us through snow and ice to the celebration of the Winter solstice and a new year.

There'll be good and bad. Ups and downs. Great lessons and not so great. It will be fun, and it won't.

Regardless, we carry on. We focus. We look to improve. We look to share and contribute. We look to help and support. We keep building what we know is good and right, taking advice from all quarters but trusting our collective judgement to guide us.

We have faith in ourselves and nobody else. We trust our pupils to do their best and we will support them unfailingly in being the best that they can.

Keep it simple, keep it straightforward, keep it effective.

That is all I have to say.