to enter to a community where there are shared values and beliefs is an utter privilege. Until we have experienced something diametrically opposed to this we don't always value it.

Is it like the best grandparent job ..... you get to be with children all day and then give them back!

How I'm meant to feel and slightly nervous about being described as inspiring.....

this is actually how I feel......
because I'm very humbled to be asked and I stand before you fundamentally as another human being, a teacher, a leader a mum and newish grandparent.

Wait and add notes from Nikki

getting started is hard..
I have Phd in procrastination List what i do.....
- you'll be thinking of things you thought you'd tackle of over summer and as September edged nearer you slowly realise you'll manage to plan the first two days if your lucky.
We sometimes lack confidence at beginning of year but confidence is a skill not a trait. The more we try and act confident we learn 'the what' of we are trying to be confident at - Confident competency loop.
Holidays are good for some and not for others .... we are not sharing what we did during the holidays.... worth bearing in mind with children.
Today We are going to have a go at practising what we teach.... we talk to children about collaboration and being a team and being kind.... we must model it in all we say and do
if you ask children for questions or comments you want them - yes?
If you ask children to feedback or share ideas you actually want to hear them? If you dont... dont bother asking them... but as professionals we must never lose sight of the discomfort of being the learner. Joining in is important - help eachother - behave they way you'd want your ideal class/child to behave.

Who you are and how you want to be seen important.
It helps with being your authentic self not the self that someone else thinks you should be -
Be you - if you listen to someone else's music you won't dance as long!
Trying to be best version of ourselves just as we would want children in our guardianship to be.
It doesn't work trying to be someone else..... eventually you'll regret not being true to your self ; Ive yet to see a an epitaph that reads 'I wish Id compromised more' - be your best you. You can only do this by thinking about yourself....
reflecting on what matters to you and making sure you are ok.

I stand before you fundamentally as another human being, a teacher, a leader, a daughter, wife and sister a very proud mum and newish grandparent.
Whistlestop tour of who I am.

Angel - the impact she had.

I care about health a lot and have big opinions about food and the food giants who have poisoned our eating habits.

I care about trying to do my bit to protect the future of this planet for future generations.

I care about children being readers because the other option is too worrying and about children believing in themselves and being motivated curious learners in school and out of school.

I value honesty, kindness, openness, joy, creativity, diversity and trust.

I'm interested in food, swimming and trotting, health, psychology, children, relationships, books, design

I learned more abut my professional self in my 7 months in Saudi.
i learned what i could compromise on and what I couldnt....
I have never walked away from a job.... always faced up to challenges....... but when the choices aren't things you want on your life menu you do have a choice.

Its really important to know yourself.... before we try and influence others. Don't come to work in disguise.

SEAL irony....

what do you really care about in your life - beyond close human beings. We are thinking about being part of the bigger academy team today but also our smaller teams - do they really know you.... what makes you tick and what pushes your button..... to know what someone values really helps to know what is a trigger and when they made need support.

what are your values.... often we discover what they are because we can be emotionally triggered when somebodies values conflict with our own..... for example I know dishonesty makes me angry.

what are you genuinely interested in? (you'd choose to do this in your spare time)


Tell a team member..... if you had half a day and could go and do one thing now what would it be...... would your team know this about you? Try and be realistic.

mentioned before about procrastination and how we avoid things. spend a bit of time thinking about procrastination My examples........ cleaning glasses, stewing fruit thats about to go off, descaling my nespresso machine, sorting out old running clothes, grooming the dog..... all the time m inner voiceis saying 'you are stalling lady...I'm still here.... this big job still needs doing'.


Heard of 5 second rule? Useful strategy that we are going to apply to help us get going and operate as a team.

very simple and went viral after Mel Robbins talked about it on a TED talk.

We spend so long inside our heads thinking about what we know we should do what why we can't do things, justifying putting them off, talking ourselves into not being good enough and then the opportunity is missed...... 5 second rule helps you shut down the habitual inner talk; helps you to be more responsive to when your head calls you to action....
works both ways in 5 seconds you can talk your self out of something and in 5 seconds you can activate yourself.
We should encourage each-other into action and celebrate those who lead by trying and putting in effort.
Try and be disciplined about two following activities: avoid attention switching "Daniel Levitin' Read extract p16- importance of

Move - its annoying but its good for you - prolonged sitting is not good for you.
Explain 54321

A1: how do you procrastinate at home?
Identify someone you don't know
54321 - go tell them.
A2: how do you procrastinate/avoid at school
identify someone different

most of live with the misconception that we have 'no choice'. Often heard script 'I have no choice - I have to go to work'.
In the first world countries we have an abundance of choice that we don't notice because its always been there

- for women to vote
-to live with whom you choose
-food and drink choices
-to travel
-to free speech

Living in Saudia Arabia - experienced the restriction of liberty to leave a country.

In reality we do have choice - one of the choices we have made is to work with children - it is a high value role.
When you cross the threshold to your school each and every day we are saying to children and to eachother I have chosen working here.

I had been a head in a very challenging school... the levels of deprivation were one of the highest in the country.

The needs of the families will be familiar to many of you. Toxic trio - domestic abuse; mental health and substance abuse ...... it was tough.

But some of the staff were tougher - they were cliquey; resistant to explore new ideas; exclusive; and at time openly hostile to me and other new staff; I was served passive aggression for breakfast most days.

After two years something had to change; some staff were part of the problem not the solution; they needed the children and families to need them; it suited their narrative- the dinner party tales of 'you never guess what...... they'll never read, his brother didn't, I've seen it all before'; it was a closed loop of need.

And there were radiators- who supported me and encouraged me to be brave; they were tired of the energy sucking drains placing barriers in the way of progress. So we talked about real choice and it was transformational - we really can get up, get your coat and choose a diifferent path.

So my challenge to each and everyone of you is to consider who you want to be - a radiator or a drain

do you radiate positive attitudes towards children and your colleagues about your work or are you a drain and habitually suck energy out of the room. This is about working cultures and cultures grow if they are fed. Really important in trusts as new members join the team.

This is not to be misinterpreted as introvert and extrovert.
plenty of extroverts that are drains as we all know those people that require high levels of attention and 'psychological stroking' - This need for attention is very draining as it requires high levels of management. You may be mindful of some world leaders??
Conversely there are many quiet souls who daily go about their work calmly contributing to the wider system, not seeking centre stage but are such great role models. Tina Howard!!

You may also consider them as shepherds and wolves - do you want to safely guide your flock working as a team or join team wolf who circles from the outside waiting to prey on mistakes or their target who may be be exhausted or weary.

choose people that want to contribute and have positive aspirations.

Be kind to and about those that don't - there will always be experience driving the behaviour, whether lack of confidence a perception of injustice, or just deeply held beliefs and habits from bad past experiences that have been developed to protect themselves etc

But don't promote negativity by permitting and passively ignoring the act.

Don't ignore - what you permit you promote.
negative people need to be listened to
to be challenged to give specifics about their concerns

Just before break A think about who your big influencers ...
what is about them that love, admire and aspire. We want teachers and staff in school to be influencers - important to know who yours are?

in the work place - Katie Mack (EYFS teacher) - knowledgeable principled, humane, energetic, positive, brilliant teacher; Mr Horner (my primary head); number of heads/bloggers

in your family - my dad - very open, loves being in diverse groups, very dignified; twice fought cancer; double pneumonia, very bad foot issues but he never gives up!

professionally we should all be reading and learning from experts- Mary Myatt; Mick Waters; Pie Corbett; Dylan Wiliam (bit scary tho!)

personally - Brene Brown; Eric Berne - pyschotherapist (approaches to understanding yourself); Rebecca Adlington (first Olympic swim champion to win two golds 2008).

The national curriculum provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge they need to be educated citizens. It introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said, and helps engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.

The national curriculum is just one element in the education of every child.

Each subject has its own purpose and aims

Challenge -Teachers should set high expectations for every pupil. They should plan stretching work for pupils whose attainment is significantly above the expected standard. They have an even greater obligation to plan lessons for pupils who have low levels of prior attainment or come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Teachers should use appropriate assessment to set targets which are deliberately ambitious.
Purpose
Art - Art, craft and design embody some of the highest forms of human creativity. A high-quality art and design education should engage, inspire and challenge pupils, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to experiment, invent and create their own works of art, craft and design.
History - A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

The more principles you have the more likely you are to have a very comprehensive curriculum however you run the risk of if become complicated and unwieldy.

If its too short you miss some out

Its important that schools design their curriculum based on some key principles. The following are some offerings for consideration but will need to be consider against the context and aspirations of the communities you serve.

Dylan Wiliam

"we are the forst pahse of educators who know we dont know what we are doing' - he refers to the pace of change;

we are at a particualr time in our nations history and world history where we really dont know what the future holds

This is why bablnace is imprtant

Depth and discipline are useful related ideas to underpin this principle

This may be the principle which perhaps frightens primary practitioners the most because it can mean us unlearning what we teach and actually learning about the subject discipline in a more pure form so that we are not teaching idea that are in some way 'dishonest or may hinder progress. this may because schoolsITT providers have fallen into trap of placing more attention on generic cpd i.e assessment/behaviour than subject knowledge.
We cant be expected to know everything and must re-engage ourselves in the discipline of learning and researching.

For example to learn about prime numbers we often teach it as a number that can only be divided by 1 and itself - this may mislead into the misconception that 1 is in fact a prime number as it can be divided by itself.
The actual definition is that a prime number is a number that has exactly two factors.
We have to refer to the actual discipline of the subject to inform our teaching and not crate shortcuts that actually serve to illustrate our own lack of understanding - we can shy away from it because its hard. Its important to remember that for adults and children, solving problems and overcoming difficulty is inherently satisfying and we should share this joy of learning explicitly with children and our colleagues

We have to become more immersed in subjects. The rigour is about the internal detail of the subject.

A coherent whole school curriculum is a curriculum that makes explicit the web of learning and how ideas and concepts are interrelated.
A coherent subject curriculum makes explicit where the new learning relates to prior learning and how it fits into the overall narrative of the subject.

Coherence enables the curriculum to become connected; for example we teach coordinates in Y5 in maths but do we make the connection to map references in geography and digital technology developments 'what 3 words' which is how cartography are now using three words to describe every 3m squared on our planet.
this coherence brings learning to life.

This coherence is evidenced within year and year on year as the curriculum plan makes explicit how knowledge, skills and understanding progress for example in Science:
Knowing light comes from different sources to
Knowing that light travels in straight lines and this knowledge helps us understand why shadows are formed and where they are formed between the light source and the object to
Undertanding how light is refelected

The age old problem for schools is the management of material that it to be taught.

In the words of William Schmidt
University Distinguished Professor
Center for the Study of Curriculum
Ph.D., University of Chicago we can suffer from having a curriculum that is a mile wide and an inch deep'.

We complaint there isn't enough time; too much content but often resist removing anything.

Focus on developing an researching the big ideas:

for example in Maths:
Number, place value, equivalence, comparison, operational relationships, properties, estimation, pattern, proportionality, shapes and solids are examples;

in geography: Place space, scale and interdependence; environmental interaction; changing physical and human processes and diversity.

The importance about looking at the big ideas is about making decisions about will and wont be taught and engaging with the process using the rigour and discipline we have previously referred to.

to design a curriculum that is coherent, balanced and rigorous, with big ideas mapped out is complex.

You cant just pick up somebody else's model and drop it on Warrington schools.

You have to start where you are but have an idea of where you want to go.

It needs to be relevant for you context - do you have significant numbers of EAL children, high population mobility, big local employers. The curriculum has to be relevant without compromising the academic, creative and artistic nourishment each and every child deserves.

It requires dedicated time and focus. It cant all be done at once and it should be seen as a journey for individuals, the subjects and the schools.

to design a curriculum that is coherent, balanced and rigorous, with big ideas mapped out is complex.

You cant just pick up somebody else's model and drop it on Warrington schools.

You have to start where you are but have an idea of where you want to go.

It needs to be relevant for you context - do you have significant numbers of EAL children, high population mobility, big local employers. The curriculum has to be relevant without compromising the academic, creative and artistic nourishment each and every child deserves.

It requires dedicated time and focus. It cant all be done at once and it should be seen as a journey for individuals, the subjects and the schools.

The Warrington schools are on the curriculum journey already.

There will be varying levels of engagement with the process depending on your current role.

I know from talking to Louise that this is key priority; it should be for all schools.
We have referred to already in national terms, not enough time in training has been dedicated to subject knowledge; we know that accountability measures may be responsible for pushing leaders down a particular route. The new OFSTED framework has rocketed curriculum back up the agenda.
There is increasing concern amongst leaders that teachers (not here) are not actively engaged in the process of developing subjects but can become more more passive conduits content.We want designers back in our classrooms and those designers are you - you are the design team.
What do the teaching standards say:
As their careers progress, teachers will be expected to
extend the depth and breadth of knowledge, skill and understanding that they
demonstrate in meeting the standards, as is judged to be appropriate to the role
they are fulfilling and the context in which they are working
demonstrate a critical understanding of developments in the subject and curriculum areas, and promote the value of scholarship.

Dylan Wiliam encourages schools to consider their principles which may be different from the ideas Ive shared to ask the following questions:

Are any important principles missing?
Which principles are more/less important than others
Could some be combined?

Enagagment of all staff in the what should we teach is vital as it creates real school identity and ownership; you can draw on local expertise in the school and more widely.

Recognise that it is a process but it is not infinite - you need to be lay out a curriculum model that can be implemented and shared with children and families.

Establish when you will review subjects and the whole curriculum offer.

Decide what you will have stop doing to get this done...... we can create space for it but we can't change the amount of time we have. As leaders and practitioners you must decide what you will stop doing to give this incredibly important area of school development the just attention it needs.

Strengths
Team work
Alignment
Results
Individuals flourish as they use and develop their Strengths. This is a focus on individual strengths and identifying where an individual’s best contribution can be made. think about individual interests
People come together building relationships and as they work together well results in effective Teamwork.
When individual strengths and teamwork come together in pursuit of meaningful goals then performance starts to flow naturally and Results that are meaningful and rewarding to the team are achieved. But do this it relies on relationships and respect.
A light hearted end....A common goal for all successful institutions is to create effective teams but we all know that one or two people in the team can make this very difficult.... if you are lucky enough to have a dynamic positive team heres some tips for those who may like to spoil it.

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0FtXhSu0J0