Week 10, Term 1

Goals:

To make time for my mental and physical health. 
To carry out all my roles (teacher, HSA director and Across Schools CoL) to the best of my ability. 
To support staff wellbeing. 
To actively maintain a positive personal outlook.

• Visits to the gym this week: Monday night between SAC days because I wasn't stressed about the second SAC day and didn't need to prepare anything, and Saturday morning with hubby.

• McDonald's eaten: One mental-health stop for a Cookie Time McFlurry and small fries after a particularly difficult day. It was worth every single calorie. 

Image stolen from the internet

• Casual sports games played this week: None again, but 5-a-side touch starts next week. It will be a chilly season!

• Books read: I've started to read The Madonna's of Leningrad by Debra Dean. It's only rated 3.8 stars on Goodreads, but I'm enjoying it a lot. It jumps back and forward in time between Marina's experiences in Russia during early WWII and her present life as she struggles with dementia. 

• Teaching highlights: 


• The teaching highlight of my week was the total silence that occurred for about 3 minutes during the Year 9 double-period Reading Comprehension this Thursday. It was beautiful. The sound of concentration. Everyone was engaged in ReadTheory, or answering comprehension questions, or producing a DLO. I have never, NEVER had a Y9 class have complete engagement like that before, and I wonder if it was in part caused by the repeated structure of the reading lesson across 4, now 5, weeks. 

• CoL things:  
• I still need to go and interview Y9 students who made accelerated gains in reading during Year 8, but this Monday/Tuesday they have Y9 camp so alas, that must wait till next term! 
• I continued to visit Primary schools to share my booking sheet, and had my first booking! 
• I'm going to visit Robyn at Panmure Bridge on Monday about her upcoming space unit. We had our first TC CoL teachers meeting with Soana and Russell and established how we will share with staff, and run the cluster 'Create' session at Tamaki College next term.

• HSA things: SAC conferences went fairly well with 7 of 11 parents coming in with 6 of 11 students. One parent is interested in being on the BOT, so that is very exciting. I'm sure they would do a lovely job.

• Teacher well-being support: alas, I was off sick on Friday.

• Gratitude emails sent: one to Graham, to thank him for his amazing work planning the Goat Island trip and opportunity for students to compare Pt England reserve with a beautiful marine reserve. He worked to really short deadlines and planned a large trip for half of Year 10, and kept them safe in the water while they were there. Students (and supervising teachers!) had a fantastic EOTC experience, and I think he is in part responsible for the number of applications I received from Y10 students to attend a Science day at AUT in the holidays! #makingsciencegreatagain Thanks Graham.