Where Does the Time Go?

 How on Earth has it been 8 years since I last posted? 

Actually, I know the answer to that. 

The first and most obvious answer is that parenthood has been the priority, and as a single parent with one pair of hands, there isn't always a lot of spare time. My daughter is older now, and as a (sometimes helpful) teen, she adds a pair of hands to some tasks. The actual parenting is never easier though! 

Of course there was also the ever-expanding workload in teaching. This eventually ground me down, and in July 2023 I left the profession. I miss the kids and my colleagues. I miss the actual teaching and the 'light bulb moments'. I don't miss the paperwork and inspections, or the weekends marking, or the feeling of dread every Sunday evening and at the end of a holiday. I haven't looked back.

When I left teaching, I also moved North - back to the town I grew up in. I love it here and it's the best move I could have made. However, the move also had its own stresses over the last year or so, and sorting the house out has been a priority over writing blog posts.

I now manage a youth charity and live in the town where I grew up. I live close to my parents, and I am loving being able to see them often. I'm also on the committee of our local volunteer-run theatre. The pace of life is different. It's taken me nearly 2 years to recover from the strains of teaching, but I feel like I'm finally getting my life back.

In the last year there have also been serious health challenges in the family. Thankfully, we are now through the worst, and things are getting better all round. 

Those were the personal reasons, but then we had the small matter of Covid to add to the mix. 2020 hit us all like a train, and I personally feel that life will never fully go back to the old normal again. I find it harder to go out and make plans. I still feel that I need to make more effort to get out, experience things and make memories.

Covid had us shut away for so long that it broke down all the good habits and routines that I had. It's taking huge amounts of effort to re-establish those habits and routines. Perhaps I'll get there sometime.

A lot has happened in those 8 years—lots I could have blogged about, but I lived it instead. Hopefully, now that I have refound my page, I'll blog a little more often, but then I've said that before!

Disney World, Florida 2016

Back to Blogging

I'm back! I have massively missed my blog but circumstances have meant that I had to take it down for a while. However, I can now reinstate it and it feels great to be back. There have been a number of occasions when I have had a random thought or two and thought 'that would be a great blog post' but I just never seemed to have the discipline to jot it down as a draft post.

So, here we are back on-line. I will try to be more disciplined about posting although, I now have a small person running round the house which makes life both more entertaining and more busy, so we shall see!

Blogging, But Not Here...

I realised recently that although I have been blogging and tweeting away, my own personal blog has been left looking rather neglected. It is not that I have had nothing to say, only that I have been saying it in other places!

For the last term we have been trialling a set of 6 iPads in the school. Our year two children have loved them and have created some excellent work with them. The results of our project can be found on the Redbridge Games Network blog.

In the middle of this trial we had a single day subject inspection by Ofsted. The subject they happened to inspect was ICT; the subject I lead. It was a fairly hectic run up to the inspection but we were all very confident of our good status in ICT and I am pleased to say that the inspector agreed. You can read a copy of the report here.

I have also been strongly involved in the fight to keep Redbridge Drama Centre from closing due to council cuts. The council plan to reduce their funding of the centre to zero over the next two financial years (a cut was already made this year) but the next cut may well prove fatal, and we are working hard to make the blinkered council acknowledge this. At the moment they seem to believe that the centre will stay open regardless of core funding from them, being cut. Sadly, this is not the case. The campaign has kept me busy blogging for The Friends of Redbridge Drama Centre and you can see our site here.

Finally, my work on the design of covers for Trifolium Books has continued and we are currently on the verge of publishing a third book. This is also the third author added to our little family. I am thoroughly enjoying the design work and it gives me a good outlet to get creative. I have created a new, fresher looking work website for myself and I will keep posting to my portfolio there.

So you can see that although my blog has not been busy, I have. I've said it before, but I will try to keep this one a little more up to date from now on.

Concerts and Cupcakes

No posts for a while - I have been up to my armpits in 'stuff'. It's taken a lot longer than I expected to get through the heap of school work, and as for the home stuff, well I am only just starting to tackle that!

Still, only 8 days until the freedom of the summer holidays. I am counting the hours. Meanwhile I am trying to acheive the status domestic goddess! I made cakes for my class cake sale tomorrow and for the Roding Players concert last night. My first attempt at lemon cupcakes and they disappeared fast, so I'll make them again!

There is still plenty going on; domestic goddess status is hard to reach with the flat turned upside down. My bedroom is currently being refitted and decorated and all its contents are stuffed into the corners of every other room. At least I know it is getting worse to get better!

At school we still have the dance festival to get through. This year I am putting up 4 dances and starting to think that it was a very daft idea! Then of course there is class 4's cake sale to raise money for The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. I still need to sort out my class assembly on Wednesday and at some point I'll be meeting my new class!

With all of this going on, blogging has taken a bit of a back seat and I haven't even started to get my head around Final Cut Studio yet. Still, hours of entertainment for the holiday!

Classroom Blogs

Wow! What a day! Since catching the blogging bug I have been wondering how I might use a blog effectively in my teaching. So I set up a new blog and a new Google account using a safe email address and password, and then I headed into new territory.

It has been a revelation. I have had a brilliant day and my class loved it too. We hit 3 subject areas with one activity and stretched it over the day giving us plenty of time to actually finish something we started (for a change).

Our class blog could run and run, and the best thing about it is that the children are asking what else they can do with it. What started as a place to share one project is now being viewed by myself and the children as a place to share this term's work.

Looking at the comments widget I know that many of them have already viewed the blog at home. Brilliant! Now when a parent asks "what did you do at school today?" they can see for themselves.

All new to me

I have finally joined the blogging world. Until today I have only thought fleetingly about doing so. My efforts at diary keeping as a kid would suggest that I may only ever be a sporadic blogger but perhaps I am underestimating myself. Time will tell.