What is mindfulness?

Read an interesting piece this morning Here

Interesting to read views around the monetisation of mindfulness. Also some examples of businesses using it in a non mindful way 

Currently, mindfulness is unregulated in the UK as it's not a medical service in the way that seeing a psychiatrist or a counsellor is, but it's still a service that can support vulnerable people and therefore a mindfulness teacher has a duty of care to ensure the safety and confidentiality of participants.

I'm hoping to develop my practice and ultimately take classes/sessions and would ideally provide at no cost.  Employers have to take care of their employees ( well I'm not sure they HAVE to, but the good ones do) and money is put aside for CPD in many organisations. Wouldn't it be great for mindfulness to be recognised as a great way to support people . Prevention better than cure and all that. 

Rather than pay lip service and offer a one hour mindfulness/yoga session every now and again or just as a one off so that it can go into the HR folder, why not investigate providing regular sessions for staff to support their wellbeing . Within the working day.

Being part of a group of around 80 mindfulness teachers nearing completion of the MTTC run by Christopher Titmuss and his daughter Nshorna with support from mindfulness teachers from the US, Germany and India is a real.ptivilige and I'm excited to see where we all take our mindfulness practice moving forward. 

What is mindfulness? Something worth exploring.

"Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it."

- Sharon Salzberg

Hello again

 Goodness it has been a LONG time since the last post - and several jobs have been and gone. 

I may, or may not write about those at some point.

In the meantime, along with my teaching I love to read and with a daily commute of 90 minutes have embraced audio books. So , this blog space will now be used to review some of the books that I have read. 

I'd love to write one of my own one day ( well I have one  in my google drive that I'm really not happy with so I will rephrase that as I would love to write a decent book of my own one day). 

The esteemed author, Stephen King, in his autobiographical book 'On Writing' repeatedly referred to his love of reading, and the copious amount that he has and still does as one of his biggest influences that I dream that my love of reading may perhaps help me to become a better writer.

In the meantime thus begins my reviews. Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year. 2017. To blog or not to blog? To Tweet or not to Tweet?

As I scroll through my timeline I see a wealth of teachers pledging to blog more regularly, weekly or otherwise. I feel slightly in awe of them and wonder how they manage to find the time to write so regularly and look over at my own blog and berate myself for my lack of posts.

It’s easy to feel disheartened when there are so many great blogs out there (see  http://blog.feedspot.com/teacher_blogs/ for a list of top education blogs around the world) and  http://www.teachertoolkit.me/2016/04/03/101educators/ ( Teacher Toolkit’s list- the most followed education blog in the UK)

BUT , and this is the important thing, IT DOESN’T MATTER if you blog weekly, monthly, randomly (or not at all!) What matters is that you do what works for you. I have a blog to reflect upon things that I have done and it is so interesting reading past posts and looking at how I have made changes or improvements to my teaching.  Unless I have something to say that hasn’’t already been said, I don’t tend to blog. So I don’t make lists of educators to follow or influential blogs but like to think that some of what I write will strike a chord with others and perhaps give them food for thought.

When I take part in forums on twitter (my favourites are #PrimaryRocks on Mondays 8-9pm, #ASEchat Mondays 8-9 pm #uikedchat on Thursdays 8-9pm and #SLTchat on Sundays 8-8.30pm ) It’s easy to think that this is where it is all happening- and a lot does happen in them for certain. I have met some amazing people as a result of twitter and had opportunities that I may not have come across otherwise.  And lots of those people aren’t on any lists but have so much to share and I am delighted to have the privilege to have met many of them as well as to interact online with them.

However, it is worth keeping in mind that the vast majority of teachers aren’t even on twitter; and that many of those who are don’t use it regularly. I have run several workshops about the benefits of using twitter which have resulted in teachers joining, but most of the teachers I work with don’t use it at all.

Here’s my list of why you should use twitter- I’d love to know yours.

1)      Fabulous networking tool (especially if you teach in a small school)

2)      Great way to share ideas and resources

3)      A sounding board where you know people will give their opinions

4)      Fast way to hear about policy changes (saves trawling through the almost-impossible-to-navigate gov.uk website)

5)      Ability to communicate with educators across the country and beyond

6)       Quick access to some excellent blogs about education

7)      Great way to keep positive through the changes

Why do I think teachers don’t use twitter?

1)      privacy issues- accounts can be made private, but this is an understandable issue for many

2)      spam spam spam- I don’t find this too much of a problem- I just block and report

3)      time- always an issue. Twitter is so different to facebook insofar as you can’t possibly ‘catch up’ on what has happened since you last logged on- hashtags are a fab tool to search for interests and it’s a case of going with what is happening at the time.

4)      Negativity/arguments  It can be all to easy to limit one’s followers and following to those who always agree with you/have the same outlooks . it can also be easy to get drawn into some , shall we say, scratchy discussions. For me, I follow a range of tweeters and don’t generally get involved in scratchy discussions- but it is always interesting to see a range of ideas and points of view. If someone doesn’t want to follow me, or I don’t want to follow someone then so be it- I don’t waste time worrying about it. I stick to positive tweets and sharing good practice which has worked well for me so far .

HAPPY NEW YEAR .  I’m planning to keep trying to persuade colleagues to give twitter a try- that’s my first NY resolution. Bring a friend to twitter.

Who else it up for this?

PSTT- what's it all about?

PSTT

Nope, I am not trying to get your attention ; PSTT is the Primary Science Teacher Trust (formerly known as the Astra Zeneca Teaching Trust)

Read all about the trust, their work and history here

I was thrilled to become a part of this fabulous college in 2012. This year I was lucky enough to be awarded one of the Primary Science Teacher of the Year awards alongside many other teachers . All sharing the same passion and enthusiasm for developing science teaching in their schools. What a fabulous group of people to be associated with.

The recent conference, held this year at the rather splendid University of Manchester, was truly inspirational. You can read about the conference on the above website, but I thought I would share some of the more memorable parts here. The conference was so packed that it has taken me a couple of weeks to reflect on the wealth of information shared.

The conference kicked off on Monday morning (after a very enjoyable dinner at a local Italian restaurant on the Sunday where the new college fellows had a chance to meet) with an introduction from Kathy Schofield, college director and a virtual appearance from Professor Dudley Shallcross whose vision to grow the trust to reach across every school in the country is gathering momentum.

We heard about successful projects from existing fellows such as Growing music at Shaw Primary ( see here ) funded by the PSTT.

New members then had a chance to share what they are doing in schools- so many fantastic ideas going on in schools across the country; a side of teaching that is all too often overlooked by a negativity driven media  (IMO) andnot enough time given to share and celebrate the fabulous work that is happening in our primary schools.


Following lunch, we were treated to a key note speech by Tony Hughes from Huthwaite International  (here ) "Logic is not persuasive. Neither is being right!"  where he talked about how to recognise verbal and non verbal signals. To be honest the hour he was given wasn't really enough  - a whole day, several days in fact could have been taken up with this. However, there was certainly lots of food for thought. Only two pm and already so many ideas to take away and build on!

There were various workshops going on and I had to choose which to go to; I plumped for the Making it Practical option. This was led by Tara Mawby (website ) and was full of great ideas.
My favourites were odd one out starter questions to get the children thinking . For example I am going to try one with my class following our earth in space topic :

Really like the idea that there are so many possible answers; great way to encourage children to be confident about having a go.

We also looked at how to use easily available pocket money toys to stimulate scientific enquiry.
 This was a great way to make me think outside the box when it comes to our resources. The new, slimmed down , curriculum gives so much more time to devote to working scientifically. Pocket money toys such as the above can lend themselves to so many activities. Children choose an object adn come up with a question that they could then test out.

I then went to a workshop which focused on KS1 (but everything could go across both KS1 and 2)
This was run by Pam Waite and was FAB. One of my favourites from the session was this ingenious way to make a Cartesian diver:



and this way to make branching databases with children more accessible: I often use objects to make these but had not thought of doing it on quite such a grand scale; fabulous way to do it!

 

Goodness me- and this was just on day one!
Day two to follow

Going part time...

Well, my new job share partner was appointed today and I can now start to think about how my practice is going to change when I become a job share partner from September. I am incredibly excited about this new direction in my career; I have made the decision for a wide variety of reasons and am really looking forward to this new phase in my teaching.


Having worked almost exclusively full time since qualifying this will be a huge change to me. Since making the decision last year to change my working pattern it has reignited my passion for teaching in a way that I hadn't expected. Maybe that whole work/life balance juggling will finally become achievable...

When I first thought about making the move to part time I talked to family, friends, colleagues, my union rep and read anything I could find about it:

http://k6educators.about.com/od/professionaldevelopment/p/jobsharing.htm

http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_6766191_job-share-teaching.html

http://www.nasuwt.org.uk/TrainingEventsandPublications/NASUWTPublications/Publications/Parttimeworkandjob-sharearrangements/index.htm


Will it stop me trying new things? Certainly not; in fact I see this as such a positive step. Having talked to other job sharers I look forward to the future with excitement. I know that it will take some getting used to ; I  will have to stop referring to the class as my class for a start! I hope that it will make me a better teacher; communication with my jobshare partner will aid reflections and we can teach to our strengths.

There will be pitfalls along the way I am sure; but I am determined to make this work. Twitter has been such a useful resource and has introduced me to a wealth of new ideas. I will try to get as many of my colleagues on board as possible to  enrich our knowledge of what goes on in the wider teaching community. (Being in a small rural school is rather like being in a bubble at times). I hope to use the blog to reflect on my new working pattern.