Do you tweet? We do!

Do you tweet? We do!

 ‘What are you doing?’ A simple enough question, and one that is the starting point for the social networking/micro blogging site ‘Twitter’.

Twitter allows family, friends, co-workers and organisations to stay connected via mobile texting, instant messages, or on the web. In other words it offers an easy way to stay connected with the people in your life. People can respond with short messages or "tweets" that are under 140 characters to keep their friends, family or anyone interested, updated on their latest interests or everyday happenings. By default, your Twitter profile is public and all your updates can be seen by anyone.

At Hetton School we are beginning to use Twitter as an additional way of communicating with students, parents and anyone with an interest in our school. In answer to the question ‘What are you doing?’ we respond with tweets about upcoming events, news from our work in school, thanks to staff and students or interesting developments. Our tweets have already developed a following with a wide audience including teachers and leaders from other schools, education journalists, Hetton students and people from the local area.

Getting involved couldn’t be easier.

1. 1.      Go to Twitter.com. Click on the "Join the Conversation" button.
2. 2.      Create an Account. Provide your full name, preferred username, password and e-mail address. Remember that the user name is what people will see with an "@" symbol in front of it.
3. 3.      Search for @hettonschool and click the ‘Follow’ button.

Why not check out our conversation and reply with your own thoughts. We monitor replies to exclude any offensive or dangerous comments, but welcome thoughts, ideas, questions and feedback.

Poetry - who knew?

First of all, let me make it clear, I am a Geography teacher - well that is not strictly true. I am a Deputy Head Teacher who occasionally teaches (4 hrs a week), but when I do, it is Geography that I am trained to teach. Despite this I have, like many other teachers, turned my hand to other subjects - mainly History, RE, PHSE etc. Due the fact that I believe we are teachers of children rather than subjects, then I have been happy to do this.

But I digress. My point was that Geography has always been what has rocked my boat, as it were. Well maybe no longer. Since the start of term I have a lesson of English on my timetable – a first in my career. It is with a Year 9 class and the topic I was tasked with delivering – Poetry!!

Now, bearing in mind I was not permitted to do even GCSE English Literature at school (a strange system indeed!), the idea of teaching poetry was daunting to say the least. That combined with the fact that I have never had any interest in poetry myself, could have made it tough going for me and the students. In fact I have always been of the opinion that if someone felt they needed to write a poem - forget it and write either a song or story instead.

At this point in the tale – I have to say I was wrong! Poetry is interesting and has a power in its performance that I had not understood. In researching for my lesson I discovered ‘Def Poetry’ a US network programme showcasing the performance of the spoken word – wow! It blew me away. Unknown ‘stars’ like Gemineye; Taylor Mali; Suheir Hammad; and Oscar Brown Jr delivered their message with such power, emotion and ferocity, that I started telling everyone I knew about it.

All of which leads me to the reason for writing this post – the impact this challenge has had on the way I feel about teaching this once a week lesson. My students had no interest in poetry (not unusual for most 14 yr olds). This meant I had to deliver a similar experience to my ‘conversion’, in order to open them up to the learning. Using some, but not all of the stars I named above (too much swearing for school!), I emphasized the performance aspect and the apparent aggression demonstrated. They got it! They came up to me at break and lunchtime asking whether we would be watching another ‘performance’ next lesson and when would they get their turn to perform their own.

I combined this approach with learning about the links between poetry and rap, reading ‘The Gruffalo’ and writing some auto-biographical prose, and the students stayed interested! These excellent students who have an average reading age of 10 years and had never written a meaningful poem in their life, have now all written at least two original pieces.

In our final lesson of the half term, we set up the room to split into two halves and have a ‘corridor of poetry’ in the middle. The students challenged each other to perform their poems in a stand-off against each other, all to a rousing reception.

It was one of my most proud moments in teaching and made me hungry for more. All this in a lesson I didn’t really want to teach; all this through poetry; all this from a Geography teacher!

Poetry – who knew?

Tenacity, humility and emotional intelligence

The paragraph below is taken from the National College's publication titled, "What’s good about leading schools in challenging circumstances? - Succession planning"

Tenacity, humility and emotional intelligence

Such personal conviction in the rightness of one’s beliefs, tenacity in

advocacy for young people and a resilience to take the pain in standing

by them, was tempered by personal humility:

I haven’t got all the answers.

I project confidence whether I’ve got it or not, but I’m prepared to

admit my mistakes when I get it wrong.

There was the perceived need for high levels of emotional intelligence

to generate trust through building relationships, showing respect for

others, and displaying integrity and honesty:

The quality of relationships is key. Emotional intelligence is paramount:

not just awareness of self but empathy for others.

I think it outlines the importance of leading with emotional intelligence and how it fits in with building relationships within schools.

Poverty affects results shocker!

This is an extract from an article in the guardian:

"A child's social class is more likely to determine how well they perform in school if they are white than if they come from an ethnic minority, researchers have discovered.

The gap between the proportion of working-class pupils and middle-class pupils who achieve five A* to C grades at GCSE is largest among white pupils, academics found."

I love the 'researchers have discovered' and 'academics found' bits.

We have to deal with the barriers that social class, poverty and lack of aspiration cause or our children will never be able to fulfil their true potential.

Cahill for England - at last!

Last night a Bolton player played for England! Not since Michael 'how did he ever play for England' Ricketts, has a Wanderer graced the field wearing the 2nd most important white shirt. Although I feel slightly sorry about the nature of his entrance (Dawson is in my FPL team after all), he deserves his chance and seemed to play quite well. He should (but probably won't) keep his place for Switzerland on Tuesday.

With this and Lee Chung-Yong goalscoring exploits in the world cup, the Super-Whites are at the forefront of international football (maybe). Long may it continue.

Movin' on...

Today was my final day at Greencroft Business and Enterprise Community School. In September I will be taking up my new Deputy Head Teacher post at Hetton School Technology College in Sunderland. I have a certain regret at leaving as I have only been at the school 2 1/2 years, but circumstances overtook me. Greencroft is in a period of uncertainty about it's future and I am not prepared to have other people decide my fate or influence the direction my career takes. It is for this reason alone that I sought a move away from the school. I wish all the staff and students the best for the future. I know you will be successful.

As for Hetton - I am very excited about September! More to follow on that, but for now there is the holidays to enjoy.

Cheers!!!

New GLDG Sessions

We have added 2 new sessions (and re-arranged 1) for the group. Session 5 in our series will be on Wednesday 30th June at 3.15pm. It is titled, 'Schools of the future and extended schools' and will be led by Ed Lott.Session 6 will be the following day on Thursday 1st July again at 3.15pm. This session will be led by our School Improvement Partner, Paul McHugh, and is intriguingly titled, 'Urban Leadership and the role of the SIP'.The final session for the year will be on Thursday 15th July at 3.15pm. It will focus on, 'Creating a leadership development portfolio' and will be led by Ed Lott.I hope to see many of you there.


Check out the GLDG website for more details

A Geography teacher's dream?

I have not blogged about teaching Geography before, but it is what I do when I get the chance to be in the classroom.
There have been natural disasters this year that have formed useful case studies for student learning, but although there are advantages in raising awareness, it sometimes feel like I am taking advantage of people's loss when I use them as lesson material. The Icelandic ash cloud is something different. I can use it to illustrate points from tectonic activity to globalisation, and use different points of the globe where teachers are stuck as references. All that and no one had to get hurt!


In this lesson I have used my fellow Deputy Head's absence (he swanned off to New Zealand at Easter and can't get back) as a mystery for the students to solve. It is free for anyone to adapt.

A year is a long time in technology

It is amazing to think that it is only 13 months ago that I wrote my first blog. At that time I did not use Twitter, Facebook, blogs, I Google, GMail and certainly shied away from the idea of setting up a website.



Although I am proud of what I can now do/have done, it is the technology that deserves my thanks. I never thought it would be that easy to set things up (and certainly not as much fun).



The final point is that what I have learned is not just a part of some desire of mine to become socially connected to an online world, but is having real benefits for my school and my development as a leader.



Now I just have to get others to join the revolution.

Message from the National College

This morning we received a card from the Chief Executive of the National College, Steve Munby. In his handwritten card read the following message,

"Dear Phil and Craig

I have been informed about the innovative and impressive work that is taking place at Greencroft Business and Enterprise Community School - linked to the Leadership Development Group. What is terrific about it is not only that it is developing future leaders, but that it involves 3 schools and is being done in partnership with the local authority and the National College. Most of all, it is an inclusive approach for future leaders whose current roles may be very wide-ranging. I am delighted to hear about about this exciting work and hope that I will be able to visit the school and to hear, first-hand, what is happening. My office will be in touch.

Best wishes,

Steve Munby, Chief Executive"

It is fantastic for our group that such a highly respected leader values our work and has taken the time to write to us.

It feels that we are all at the start of something that is very exciting and can only get better.

Greencroft Leadership Development Group - March Update

After the excellent initial session of the Greencroft Leadership Development Group (GLDG) on Wednesday 3^rd March things have moved on at a dramatic pace.

The website has been developed and can be found at http://sites.google.com/site/greencroftldg/

You need to have a Google username and password but this is easily achieved and it opens other opportunities for more than searching the web. I use it for sharing information and blogging for example. If you have any problems accessing the site let me know.

The site now looks like this…

And features the following sections:

· Message Board

· Discussion Page (click on ‘sign up’ under the discussion board to register)

· Leadership Literature Reviews

· Newsletter links

· Leadership Quotes

· Upcoming Events

· Previous Sessions

Plus many more.

The session will be at Greencroft School (Meeting Room 2) from 3-4.30pm on Wednesday 31^st March. The focus of the session is ‘Leading Teaching and Learning’ and will again be led by Ed Lott.

The existence of the group has also received some supportive comments from the wider education community. Geoff Barton (Head Teacher in Suffolk and speaker at a wide variety of conferences on Leadership including for the SSAT) contacted me via Twitter saying, “Sounds spot on. Is it an in-house leadership development programme for inspiring staff?”. I have also been emailed by John Dunford (General Secretary, Association of School and College Leaders) – see email below:

Sent: Fri 12/03/2010 07:41

Craig,

I am delighted to hear about the work of the Greencroft Leadership Development Group. I believe that leadership in schools is not just for the senior staff – everyone is a leader. So the work of the LDG is vitally important in creating this climate of leadership in which everyone is prepared to take responsibility and be held to account for the work of the school. Where this climate exists, schools think carefully about creating leadership opportunities for students too.

Nothing could be more important for current school leaders than encouraging the leaders of tomorrow. That’s why ASCL has an Emerging Leaders programmes to enable young leaders to carry out their existing leadership responsibilities and prepare for future ones.

And remember – good leadership is 10 per cent action and 90 per cent communication. Whenever a leadership group makes a decision, the next thought must always be: Whom do we tell? and How do we tell them?.

Every good wish with your LDG work,

John

John Dunford

General Secretary

Association of School and College Leaders

If you have any comments or questions about the Greencroft Leadership Development Group please don’t hesitate to contact me via the website, email or post a comment on this blog.