I am looking forward to this weekend as I think there are lots of exciting things to think about.  I also think that at Highfield lots of people are totally up for doing things that are a bit different.  There are loads of staff who are great teachers with brilliant ideas, we need to allow the oppportunity for people to be able to come together more often.  So my first suggestion would be that we need to allow this to happen more, we need to finish early once a fortnight as they do in other Blackpool schools and use the time as constructively as possible.

We are one school working towards the same goal, not a group of indiviual faculties or departments, yet in practice if often feels that way, We need to share more ideas, talk more, plan more together and with a new school we need a totally creative space to be able to do this.

I am not convinced at all that we are preparing our students for what goes on beyond Year 11.  For those that continue with further education they find the transition hard, too much spoon feeding at KS4 doesn't prepare them for taking responsibility for their own learning.  We have to chase up coursework, run revision classes, hold detentions etc but how much does this prepare students for the realities of life beyond Highfield?

We need to raise aspirations of our students, a new building will help but teaching skills than can be used across all subjects and outside school will give our students to conviction they need, the self belief that they can be successful. 

Building positive relationships with our students is much easier to do if you see them more or if you see them all day, especially if you start this in Year 7, and even easier to do if students see less teachers and you see less students.  How can you expect to know how 300 students learn best, what they do like and don't like, what motivates them, what they are good at if you only see them an hour or two a week? 

Being honest, I was not at all looking forward to being with Year 7 all day on a Friday, I was worried that it wouldn't work and there would be alot of problems.  I could not have been more wrong.  It is the best thing that I have done in my six years of teaching.  I have changed not only what I teach and how I teach but it seems to have alot more point to it now.  I am not just filling students heads with content that they don't really need to know and will have forgotten next month, I am teaching them skills that are going to help them in school but also in building relationships, getting a job, preparing them for the future, to me what is more important than that?  What is also great is that I really enjoy Humanities teaching all day and the students really like it too.  We have got 9 staff teaching Humanities all day now, we are ready to teach more stuff all day, half days, work with other departments.... whatever fits as it makes alot more sense. You can do more, learn more, discuss more, engage more, enjoy it more. Enough on that.....

I am all for a calmer atmosphere, no bells, I have worked at a school with no bells and it was great.  No huge stampede with students being crushed underfoot.  All we need is a load of clocks and a bit of sigur ros playing through the corridors and its sorted.