My top Twitter followers of 2010

Earlier this year I wrote about feeling frustrated with Twitter. I have to say that since then I'm enjoying using it more and more. It's a lot of fun and yet I'm constantly learning too.

Here are my top followers of 2010, based on the number of times they've replied to me:

Monthly Review December 2010

As the new year begins, I plan to make sure I do write these reviews every month.

The last month of 2010 was, as I'm sure it was for everyone else too, extremely busy. It's almost a relief when it's all over!

Christmas Play
During December my colleagues and I helped to organise our Christmas play for Years Two and Three pupils. This was the first play I have been involved in as a Year Three teacher. We performed a play called The Xmas Factor by Sheila Wilson. It was a terrific experience and I was so proud of the children who gave a first class performance. In total they performed six times, four times for parents and two shows for the other pupils in the school. It is amazing how much Christmas plays can dominate the teaching timetable. But I would argue that chuldren who are good at maths and English get to show it on a daily basis, whereas good performers only get to share their talents a few times a year, so I think it is worth it.

Rearranging House
I have spent a lot of time at home rearranging the house this month. Activities ranged from setting up Christmas decorations to swapping rooms around ready for creating a nursery for our baby. I don't think I will ever get my new office tidy.

Complaining about the weather
I am a bit of a moaning git when it comes to the weather. Put simply, I hate the cold and I despise the snow. Our estate is particularly bad when it's icy. We managed to get the gritters to agree to come round the estate but then it snowed the next morning. The other day it was as warm as 8 degress - it felt like summer!

Eating and Drinking
Oh my word! I have eaten and drunk far too much this month. I intend to run each week this year, and so hopefully I can reverse some of this damage!!

Thinking about stuff
I've been thinking a lot about the way this year has gone and deciding what I would like to do in 2011. I hope next year is all I hope it will be.

Reading
An early new year's resolution was to read more books. Since I made my decision I have read at least one chapter of a book every day. I hope I can keep this up all year. I have also joined Good Reads to share my books. Most of my books are now in boxes ready to display on the bookshelf in my new office, but I have kept out the new books I have received over Christmas so I have no excuse to continue to read!

Something Pink

My Project 365 will be something a little bit different. It's a bit quirky. It will be a challenge. It will be fun!

Here is what I have written to explain the idea on the blog:
"Our baby girl will be born in April so it won't be long until I'm surrounded by pink. To help me get used to the colour I'm going to take a photo of something pink each day as a 365 Project."

I will be using Posterous to keep the blog and you can find it here.

My plans and hopes for 2011

I used to think that years with odd numbers were bad. Nowadays, it seems good things happen in odd-numbered years. In 2001 I started teaching, in 2003 we bought our first house together, in 2007 we bought our second house and in 2009 we got married. Here are some of my plans and hopes that could make 2011 another vintage year!

Baby
Our first baby is due in April and she's already started turning our lives upside down! Our house is a little bit all over the place due to moving rooms around ready to create a nursery. I hate decorating, but this is going to give me so much pride! I need to adopt a completely different way of working - coming home much earlier so that I can see the baby. Financially I need to be careful as Lisa won't be working for most of the year. The baby will be the centre of our lives, and whilst I'm nervous about it all, I simply cannot wait!

Routines
Since reading Doug Belshaw's #uppingyourgame I have realised that my life is a bit disorganised. I really want to sort this out in 2011 and one way that will really help me is to keep more closely to routines. I want to establish routines in work to make me more productive and allow me to leave school earlier each day, routines in carrying out chores at home, routines in taking exercise (running at least once a week and cycling once a month), financial routines, blogging routines and probably other routines too. I don't want to become boring, but what I do want is to have a better work-life balance and to feel more organised.

Blog
I really want to spend more time blogging this year, and write more regularly. Things like weeknotes and monthly reviews have not been written consistently in 2010. I like being reflective, and blogging allows me to gather my thoughts (and share them with anyone who likes to read them). I might even take the plunge this year and set up my own web site, but we'll see.

Project 365
I'm really keen to set up a 365 project where I record a photo each day. The problem is that it's 2.30 on day 1 and I haven't got a clue what I want to do. I would like to have a theme rather than record random photos. But I will start something today and I will share it here when I have set it all up. Lots of people have suggested on Twitter that I record the baby, but this is something that we will do anyway without being part of the project. Does anyone have any ideas?

2010

2010 has been a busy year. Here are some of my highlights:

Baby
Back in August we were delighted to discover that L is expecting a baby. We have wanted this for so long and so it was the best news ever! The baby is due in April, meaning that 2011 promises to be eventful!

iPhone
I know it sounds ridiculous, but this gadget has changed my life! I guess I'm being a bit overdramatic. But getting my new phone back in January has changed the way I relax, the way I record my memories, the way I communicate, the way I shop and the way I learn. It's amazing, and I don't think I could ever be without it.

iTunes
As I have never had an iPod, I have never really bothered with iTunes. But getting my iPhone encouraged me to explore it. It took some getting used to but eventually I got the hang of it. It forced me to 'sort' my music collection, making sure information was correct and organised. Now I love it, and I like watching the play counts!

Dropbox
I have used Dropbox for a while but this year I upgraded to a paid package. It is, without a doubt, the best application that I've used this year. I can work on projects at work and at home without needing to take anything with me.

Last night of the Christmas Proms
Just the other day we took mum and dad to the proms at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. It was completely amazing and it has already encouraged me to listen to more classical music. This will help me work and relax.

Lost
The Lost finale, back in May, brought to a conclusion a programme I have obsessed over for five years. Unfortunately the final series was not what I imagined (it went off at a tangent, making large parts of the programme irrelevant) but the whole Lost experience remains a highlight for me.
Holiday

Leadership Pathways
Earlier this year I completed the Leadership Pathways course. Whilst I was quite negative at first at the idea of doing more 'learning' I grew to value the experience very highly. I learned a great deal about the leader I am and the leader I want to be. In a couple of years time I would like to complete the NPQH.

Moving to Year Three
After spending nine years teaching Year Six it was time for a new challenge. In September I moved to Year Three. It has been a challenge, for all sorts of reasons, and I haven't found it easy. But I have found it very rewarding and I'm looking forward to the next two terms.

How Santa Really Works

The last few weeks of English lessons have been based upon a fantastic book called 'How Santa Really Works' by Alan Snow.


This wonderful book explains how Santa makes Christmas happen, talking you through the different departments of his North Pole set up, describing the training that the elves must go through and then explaining  his specialist equipment. It also gives top secret information about how he can get around the world to visit every child without being discovered!


It really is a wonderful book and the children loved reading it. I used it as inspiration for various pieces of writing, and I thought I'd share the ideas.


The elves' jobs: We read about the different jobs of the elves and the training that is required to do the jobs well. We then wrote a letter to Santa to apply for a job in one of his departments.


Toys: After reading about the Research and Development departments we designed our own toys for our friends. We drew a picture and labelled them with short explanations of all the special features.


Recount: We recounted an explanation of how Santa manages to deliver all of his presents, describing some of his specialist equipment


Santa's Suit: We produced a labelled diagram of Santa's suit, explaining all of its special features. One child included special pockets for storing mince pies!


Reindeer Food: We watched a video of Santa's reindeer in action (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzCnQSwuFhk) and then created our own special recipes for reindeer food.


Stories: After watching the Snowman, we wrote a story about the day a snowman met Santa and helped him to deliver his presents.


Have you done any special Christmas writing activities?

PGCE Guide

I will be mentoring a PGCE trainee over the next few months. I will certainly be encouraging her to read Tim Handley's PGCE Survival Guide.

It's a fabulous book which is not just for PGCE trainees, but for anyone training to become a teacher!

Men in Primary Schools network

A new network is being piloted in London to support men in primary schools. The "Men In Primary Schools" network, supported by the TDA, is aiming to increase applications from men to teacher training courses, achieve higher retention rates, and encourage more to stay in the teaching profession.

They are aiming to do this through the creation of a peer support network. Three short films with male primary school teachers have been made and they are holding three initial events this month.

The Facebook page for the network is here.

I hope that the network is successful and that it expands beyond London.

Monthly Review November 2010

I've decided to stop my Weeknote posts. Instead I will build this review proves into my monthly review.

Review:
Personal targets:

• Play squash - I can't seem to make this happen. I should try harder but I have find it difficult to have much free time in the evenings at the moment.
• Finish painting the windows - It's either rained or we have had plans every weekend this month. I did manage to trim a tree that was taking over the garden and sort out the garage, but... no painting.
• Sort out my iTunes - When I started to use iTunes back in February I was incredibly frustrated because most of my song information was incorrect. Names of songs and artists were wrong; album names were missing; genres were wrong. It has taken me several months to do but I have now completed the process of correcting all of this. During this time I have been listening to the music but it was more functional than for pleasure. It has taken me a long time to sort through my collection and download any gaps. Whilst streaming music over the internet is probably the future, for the time being I would prefer to own my music. It has really annoyed me in fact. Well this month I have finally finished this and for the last few weeks I have been able to enjoy my music properly! Now it's fun to watch the play count increase!

Professional targets:

• Introduce the new ICT progression - I completed a review of the ICT curriculum coverage in school and introduced the Lancashire progression to staff. From now on I've asked the staff to base their teaching around this.
• Performance management reviews - These were all completed in October. I really enjoy this process.
• Sort out my office - You know there ought to be a picture here. I have completely rearranged my office so that there is a defined desk and working area and a seated area for the many meetings that I have. Not only does it look tonnes better but it is already making me more productive because there is a place for everything. A new large notice board has been ordered and when it is installed it my office will be brilliant.

This month I:

• Enjoyed my first residential as a Year Three teacher at Fox Howl, Delamere Forest. We tried lots of activities including a woodland walk, den building, trekking and trailing and orienteering. The children had an excellent time.
• Set up our class 'pet' blog for Super Pig and Friends. It's a bit like weekend friends, but when it's established it will have more of a geography focus. The pictures that the children have taken have been fabulous, and it's another way to get them using the Learning Platform.
• Missed lots of school football matches. For one reason or another I've only actually made it to two out of six games this term. Luckily I have a colleague who I run the team with who has lead the team to three wins and one draw.
• Attended a conference for senior leaders. I will write more on this, but I found it really interesting and very helpful.

Targets for November:

Personal targets:

1. Play squash
2. Sort out our garage completely
3. Paint the windows
4. Get my office sorted in preparation for changing it to become a nursery!!
5. Find some time to read more

Professional targets:
This term is so hectic with Christmas play preparation, my target this term is to get the dozens of jobs on my to do list completed, and not worry about any big projects.

Undercover Boss

I recently enjoyed watching Undercover Boss. If you've never seen it, the idea is that the boss of a large organisation adopts a new identity for a week or two and goes to work with staff within the company in order to find out how it works.

It's a brilliant idea and it fascinates me how many bosses appear to have lost touch with the general day to day running of an outlet or a department.

It has given me ideas for when I am a headteacher. Of course it would be hard to go undercover in my own school, but I definitely want to make sure that I am always in touch with day to day running of all parts of the school. I would make sure that I spend time working with teachers in the classroom and find out about how a TA works with a teacher and wth the pupils. I would shadow the caretaker for the day to find out about how their role could be made more efficient. I would want to spend time with office staff and experience the demands of their role. It would be interesting to spend time with the midday assistants to explore how they could be more effective.

Unless you know how everybody works, how can you manage the school efficiently? It would help to maintain relations with staff and ensure you fully understand the demands on every member of staff.

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School For Boys

I know that I am late in writing about this programme, but I guess that's Sky Plus for you!


I have just finished watching this excellent programme and wanted to share some thoughts.

1. It was clear to me that the programme was not completely true to life. Of course the pupils and the school were real and the situations, but bringing in a new teacher to focus entirely on a smaller group of pupils, allow him to spend whatever money he liked and to do whatever he liked with the children is not really what can happen in real life. As I teacher, I know that, but I hope that the general public recognise it too.
2. It highlighted the importance of role models for boys. It was clear that engaging the boys' fathers had a huge impact on the efforts of the boys. We all know that it is vital to involve parents in the children's education, but it really impressed me that Gareth deliberately targeted dads. It makes me think that we could do more.
3. It showed that a creative curriculum can work. The head said, after analysing the results, “how we design our curriculum and the sorts of things we do, we put such emphasis on reading, writing and maths, the enjoyment has gone out of learning, if we can put enjoyment back in and they’re still learning, that’s what we should do.” We can all take something from that.
4. The theme of competition kept recurring throughout the series. Mr Malone frequently told the boys that 'girls are doing better' or 'boys are not doing as well as the girls in this school'. I don't know if I'm entirely comfortable in this approach but it certainly spurred the girls on. This straight talking encouraged the boys and made them want to do better and to improve. I have said to my class that they need to beat the other class, but is it right to do this with boys and girls? Has else anyone tried this?
5. The head set a target for Gareth's boys to achieve by the end of the process. They had to improve their reading age by six months. Whilst I was surprised that writing wasn't chosen for the target, given that this is an even bigger issue than reading nationally. I was really proud when it was revealed that the boys had reached their target and Gareth was justifiably proud too. But taught me the importance of setting targets. It's all very well to have an idea, but it showed me that it is important to expect a measurable impact. The head monitored the progress and discussed the initiative regularly. I need to set targets too.

This was the first programme that I have seen that was entirely positive about education. Instead of sensationalising an issue, it addressed it. It was a terrific programme an I hope that Gareth gets the chance to try other experiments!

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School For Boys website

Gareth Malone's website

Creating a Technology-Rich School by Terry Freedman

I thoroughly enjoyed teaching this book by Terry Freedman. It was, however, not at all what I was expecting. I guess I thought it would include guidance on the sorts of facilities a school should provide to make a school 'technology-rich'. Instead it focused on creating and leading the vision of a technology-rich school. Not that this is a bad thing at all - it gives lots of good advice in how to lead successfully.

A vision
The book explains how to create a vision - what you want the end result to look like. 'What makes a vision more than a mere daydream is that it is underpinned by a strategy, i.e. a systematic plan for achieving that vision... It has to be believed in, and wanted, by others: your immediate colleagues, the school management team, non-teaching staff and parents and carers.' Freedman explains good reasons why it is vital that these people are part of your vision.

Sharing and planning the implementation of your vision
There is lots of really practical advice for how to show leadership and 'pull' people into your vision. Freedman explains, step by step, how to share the vision, ensuring that the vision is agreed with all staff in the department. Then a strategy should be created, which includes a set of broad aims which will lead to the realisation of the vision. Each aim should then be broken down into SMART targets. The strategy must take into account legislation and 'environmental' issues.

Implementing your vision
Every meeting should end with a list of action points, each of which are assigned to a named person and has a deadline attached. 'Action points and minutes are of no use unless they are referred to, therefore one of the first items on every meeting's agenda must be to follow up on the action points.' There is good advice for leadership of 'the vision':

• Leaders should set the tone and the vision for the school's ethos and philosophy (leading by example)
• Leadership should be distributed throughout the organisation, because empowering people to take responsibility is a powerful way of getting things done.

The book is very clearly about 'creating a technology-rich school' but I have taken away much more from it. I have learned various leadership and organisational techniques which can be applied to any management role.

Creating a Technology-Rich School by Terry Freedman can be purchased from http://www.ictineducation.org/ebooks/ for £1.99+VAT.
You can learn more from Terry Freedman's excellent website ICT in Education.org.

SpellQuizzer

SpellQuizzer is spelling software for children that need help learning their spelling and vocabulary words.

I had a go at using the software over the last few weeks and I wanted to write my thoughts.

The welcome screen is really straight forward, and so I will use this to describe how the software works.

Quiz Me On A list
After clicking here you can choose a list of spellings to practice. I liked the simplicity of the quizzes - there's a space to write in the word whilst SpellQuizzer reads the word to you and a phrase or sentence to help put this into context. If the child gets the word right it moves on to the next word. The children commented that they would like a tick or something to show that they'd got it right. If the word is wrong there's no second chance, it will show you what you entered and also the correct spelling. I think it would be better if you could alter the settings so the children can have more than once chance to spell the word. Once the student has been quizzed on all the words on the list the results of the quiz are displayed. If the user spelled every word on the list correctly a "Woo Hoo!" sound is played and they are congratulated on a perfect quiz and are asked if they want to start over to practice the list again. If the user spelled one or more words in the list incorrectly then SpellQuizzer displays the number wrong and offers to let them try again on just the ones they missed. It repeats this cycle until the student has correctly spelled each word in the spelling list.

Create/Edit a spelling list
It's when you come to create a spelling list that the software comes into its own. It is very simple to add a new list and then add words (which can be edited later). You enter the word, add a phrase to help children to understand the word and then record the word and a phrase if you like. It takes a few seconds to add a word. I like the way that you can record your own voice - no American robot voices!! If you enter the word incorrectly then the software lets you know. I didn't get the chance to let the children make their own lists, but this would be very straightforward for them to do.

Import/Export a spelling list
Lists of words can be shared at http://www.spellquizzer.com/community/index.php. I found that the words and word lists tended to be American based (e.g. names of the 50 states). But, to be honest, I preferred making my own lists anyway. It would also be good if a list of words could be imported using Excel, but this option isn't available. 

The help menu menu is very clear and there seems to be good support through the website.

The software is not all that cheap when you consider that there are free alternatives on the web. But the facility to record your own voice is very useful. 

You can purchase the software for the price of $11.95 (for a single licence) on Thursday 7th October which seems like a very reasonable price. Site licences are available from the site by enquiry. You can purchase the software at the special discount price at this link: www.tedcosoftware.com/DailyDeals.htm?page=index.aspx?review=spellquizzer-spelling-software.

ICT Curriculum

Each of our curriculum co-ordinators has been given a day to explore the planning across the school. The idea is that we would like each teacher to record the progression in skills from the national curriculum and to keep note of the topics/areas of study for each year group.


This week is my turn to look at ICT. I was particularly interested in doing this as I had just read this blog post where the relevance of the curriculum and the QCA Schemes of Work for ICT in 2010 is questioned. The post mentions the evolution of the internet and Google in particular. It also mentions that the searching of CD-ROMs - does anyone use CD-ROMs any more? I can honestly say that I don't and I haven't done for years.

After looking at the planning from the teachers in the school, basing my progression on the National Curriculum, I began to realise that the skills, knowledge and understanding that is described is, in my opinion, nowhere near specific enough and also it doesn't reflect the variety of modern applications of ICT.

So in order to help our staff to meet the demands of the curriculum, challenge the pupils appropriately and include the variety of skills that modern ICT can include, I have looked into different ICT progressions on the internet. I have found two which I think complement each other well which I think staff will helpful and the children will find even more exciting.

The first 'new style curriculum' is the Lancashire Progression. I like the way that the curriculum is split into phases rather than key stages. This means that skills are broken into what should be taught in Key Stage One, lower Key Stage Two and upper Key Stage Two. The progression takes each of the strands from the ICT curriculum and sub-divides them.

• Exchanging and sharing information is now sub-divided into:
• Text and multimedia
• Images, video and animation
• Sound
• Electronic communication
• Finding things out has become:
• Digital research
• Data handling
• Developing ideas and making things happen is:
• Datalogging
• Logo and control
• Simulations and spreadsheet modelling

I think that using these new strands will enable teachers to understand the diversity of skills that should be delivered. The Lancashire progression also features a Software toolkit which gives examples of the software which could be used to deliver the curriculum.

The other progression I like is the Herefordshire progression. Like Lancashire this progression is divided into phases and the strands have been sub-divided too (the names are slightly different but they mean the same thing). This progression gives ideas for the lesson, national curriculum levels and an APP-style grid.

I believe that with a combination of these two progressions our school will be able to deliver a modern, dynamic, diverse ICT curriculum from which the staff and pupils will benefit.

Something else which I have realised I need to learn more about now is the ICT provision in Early Years. This will have to be later in the year!

Learning from the Dragons: James Caan

In my fifth report about what I learned by reading the Dragons' Den book 'Success from Pitch to Profit' , I will share the ideas of James Caan and how they have relevance in education.

James Caan

• James writes, 'I've learnt that if I want my child to do something, I need to make her feel that it was her idea. For me, this is the same when you are building a business.' I believe that it's so important to empower people by taking on board the ideas of all stakeholders, and especially the children's.
• His tips for success are:
• Observe the masses and do the opposite - Whilst I don't know if this is always the right advice, one message I took from this is that as a leader you should be creative and be brave enough to stand by what you believe in.
• Presentation and preparation matter - We all know this is true. take the time to put yourself into the shoes of other stakeholders and see what they expect from your school.
• It's the people who make a business successful, not the products - To be successful you must have the right staff.
• You can - and must - learn from failure - Good advice which we often give to children, but at times in our profession we are so desperate for things to be perfect first time that we are hard on ourselves when things go wrong. Learn from such experiences

The book Dragons' Den: Success from Pitch to Profit can be purchased here: Dragons' Den: Success, From Pitch to Profit

Monthly Review October 2010

It's been a breathtaking month all in all! My feet have hardly touched the ground. My biggest news this month is that my wife is pregnant and that I am going to be a dad in April!!

Review:
Personal:

• Complete my 10K run - I managed to finish a whole minute faster than last year in 63 minutes! I was very pleased with myself! (One of my past pupils finished 3rd in 36 minutes.)
• Play squash - Unfortunately I haven't achieved this target. My friend has been unavailable and, to be honest, I've been incredibly busy. Dammit.
• Finish painting the front of the house - I was doing so well with this but then it has rained most weekend meaning that I still have window frames left to do. I really want to do this before the winter.

'Professional':

• Enjoy teaching a whole month in Year Three - I've been so busy. I really have enjoyed it, but it has just been an intense start to the year. I haven't found the change easy, but I'm beginning to get into the swing of things.
• Update the school website for my new year group - The page isn't finished but the children are using the blogs and forums so I am pleased with this.
• Formulate a progression of the ICT on the school and put together a software map - I have been able to do this. Over the next few weeks I'll be introducing some new ideas to the staff when I try to implement the Lancashire Progression to try to develop standards further.

New Targets:

Personal:

• Play squash.
• Finish painting the windows of the house.
• Finish sorting my iTunes (editing the song information).

Professional:

• Introduce the new ICT progression.
• Performance management reviews.
• Sort out my office!

It's time for the government to Face the Book

I've recently read a couple of blog posts about whether or not to give e-safety advice about children using Facebook and other social networking sites:

http://ianaddison.net/?p=430

http://www.digital-teacher.co.uk/2010/09/do-we-do-or-do-we-dont.html

Both posts offer plenty of food for thought.

I just find the whole issue very frustrating. Why hasn't there been more guidance on this from the government? The previous government, for me, did not regulate social networking sites at all well, and the coalition government has not indicated that they will either. Therefore the lack of awareness of the potential dangers will continue unless schools themselves make an attempt to teach about being safe online.

But of course, as Digital Teacher points out, by doing this could schools open themselves up to litigation if parents believe that the school 'lead them to believe they were doing things safely'?

As far as I can tell, this is the government's advice regarding e-safety in their safeguarding documents:For me this is a green light to go ahead and offer guidance to children about how to use networks safely (whilst always reminding them that they shouldn't use them at all due to the age restrictions on the sites themselves). But it really shouldn't be down to schools to do this without any regulation. The government must show a greater interest and introduce more specific guidance.

The other huge problem that it is probably not the children that need to learn this - but their parents!

The best source of guidance I've found for using Facebook and other social networks is found here.

"To fulfil their commitment to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people all organisations that provide services for children, parents or families, or work with children, should have in place...

A clear understanding of how to work together to help keep children and young people safe online by being adequately equipped to understand, identify and mitigate the risks of new technology."

Becta shutdown

I read about the timetable for the shutdown of the Becta website at Primary Bits and Bytes at http://shareit.yhgfl.net/kirklees/kcyps/?p=412.

‘This will be a staged process, involving the movement from the full web functionality, through an interim “holding site” stage to the final closure of all online activity in March 2011.  Specifically, I would like to draw your attention that the ordering of publications (not downloads) will cease being available from 22nd October, and this will be flagged on the site from October 1st.’
If you require any  hard-copy versions of Becta publications,  you need to visit the site before October 22nd to order them. Printable downloads will still be available after this date.'

So my question to everyone is - if we only have a limited of time - what publications must schools download/order now before it's too late? What is it important for schools to have?

Weeknote 10

My 'Weeknotes' are now tending to be produced fortnightly so I think I will continue this arrangement. However, I will continue to refer to them as 'Weeknotes'.

This fortnight I have:

Announced that we are having a baby
This week my wife and I went for the three month scan of our baby! Excited is not the word!! This is, of course, life changing news. It has encouraged me to do a lot of thinking and is encouraging me to re-evaluate lots of parts of my life. In particular I need to think about improving my work-life balance which, at the moment, is very poor.

Ran
I completed my 10K run at Tatton Park today. My training for this run has not been quite as good as last year, but in a way I guess this is a good thing. Last year I didn't enjoy running for a long time and felt that I had to do it because I'd entered myself into the 10K run. This year I have ran for pleasure (something I once never thought I'd say) and so I haven't forced myself to run in quite the same way. I completed the run in 63 minutes - improving my time from last year by one minute!

Attended a curriculum course
The course I attended was in Rochdale and it gave me lots of food for thought about how we organise the curriculum in our school. I will blog about this as it requires more explanation.

Started Film Club
Last week it was our school's first Film Club (although I will miss the first three clubs!) This has proved to be really popular and I'm looking forward to this being a valuable addition to the after school clubs that we offer. I'd love to hear about other people's experience in running a club.

Learning from the Dragons: Duncan Bannatyne

In my fourth report about what I learned by reading the Dragons' Den book 'Success from Pitch to Profit' , I will share the ideas of Duncan Bannatyne and how they have relevance in education.

Duncan Bannatyne

• I though this was great advice for leaders: 'I like to work with people whom I can empower by giving them freedom to manage effectively... By delegating to trustworthy employees I am able to take a step back from the frenzy of the day-to-day business and examine the balance sheets, study the bottom line... Because I trust my regional managers and the managers of each health club to run the business, I am free to scrutinise that underperforming club, discover why the profit margin is lower than the rest and then recommend the necessary improvements. Lastly, and crucially for me, though, the art of effective delegation allows me much more time to enjoy the most important part of my life - my family.' It can sometimes be difficult as a leader to delegate, but it is so important. Like Bannatyne says, it allows you to focus on the important details and identify successes and issues within the school. Most importantly it helps to keep a work-life balance, something which I am not very good at doing.
• His tips for success are:
• Look after the people - 'I always believe people are the most important aspect to a business, so I look for drive, enthusiasm, knowledge and someone who I can believe I can work with... Leadership is part of this too. People must believe in you and believe in your direction and strategy.' I believe this is great advice - you have to appoint the right people and look after them well so that they succeed for your school and for their career. The proportion of your budget that is spent on staff makes people your most valuable resource - it pays to look after them.
• Care about your product - In our case, our product is education care for children and it must be of the highest quality.
• Identify your organisational structure - I believe that a school has to have a clear structure in terms of deployment of staff and also in terms of the curriculum delivered and in terms of policies and protocols. I can imagine that I will be a right stickler for this when I am a headteacher.
• Look after your suppliers - In our case, our suppliers could refer to two stakeholders - parents and the local community. Look after these people and the reputation of the school will stay strong.
• Communicate - 'If you do not have the correct procedures and communication lines in place, then it will all fall to pieces...' In school, the importance of keeping everyone in the loop is important. Use of technology will play a significant role in this, but it's also crucial to not forget to talk too!!

The book Dragons' Den: Success from Pitch to Profit can be purchased here: Dragons' Den: Success, From Pitch to Profit