Hopefully you can see the picture embedded in this email, however if not it says ‘I My Team’ and I really do. One year one of the PSLT (Sam, I think) had mugs printed with ‘Team Work Makes The Dream Work’. We all thought these tongue-in-cheek brilliant and had a little competition of who could slip the phrase into meetings (puerile, yes, but a bit of harmless fun) with a straight face. I look back on those days and don’t really recognise the person I have become in a relatively short time. I had a fantastic team even then and learned so much from each and every one of my colleagues. I shared an office in which over-sharing was common (I am convinced that there was extra over-sharing at times simply because it made me feel slightly uncomfortable 😊) as was laughter. We were a team and we were a tight-knit community of three plus one plus one (three in the office, one in the outer office and another one in an office downstairs). We all had to do things we weren’t always comfortable with, and having difficult conversations were nicknamed ‘putting my big girl pants on’. I can only hope that I gave as much to my team as they gave to me because I sure missed them when I moved on, remembering all of the good times when mine were not so good.
I think it was only when I no longer had that tight support network that I truly appreciated how valuable it was and how lonely it is possible to be while surrounded by people. It was during this time that I first utilised the healing power of young children. In an environment where I felt scrutinised and criticised (I have no idea whether this was accurate, by the way), I found that spending a short time with reception-aged children gave me the respite I needed. I can still remember walking into the classroom the first few times and I would either be ignored or actively avoided. So I did what came naturally to me at the time; I sat down with a book and started to read. It wasn’t long before I would have a small group join me in the book corner eager to read with me and together we explored all sorts of stories. I moved on from this to taking class reading sessions and then eventually whole year-group assemblies. My confidence spot was outgrowing my anxiety spot and it felt good.
This is one of the reasons I love reading with children. It is an amazing shared experience. One of my old Y4’s favourites was ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ because they found my ‘Grandma’ voice hilarious. I haven’t had a class to read a class text with for a while now, so it’s something I do miss. However, I have now finished reading with all 39 classes in the Primary school. It was no mean feat, but it was oh so enjoyable and brought me real pleasure. I hope that the children got as much out of the experience as I did. The best thing about it was that I read (pretty much) the same books with every class. I think some of our Y6s were humouring me when I told them that you are never too old to appreciate a picture book, however it is a sentiment I stand by. Sometimes you have to remove the barriers we (and society) put in place for us and just enjoy things for what they are. I am trying to look upon everything I do and experience as something to learn from because, if I don’t, sometimes I think I will have just amassed a rather large collection of random events, some of which have not been overly enjoyable!
So, is it lonely at the top? Some days it can be, but inherently when you have an amazing job such as we do, it’s never lonely because we have so many opportunities to spend time with inquisitive young minds. I love spending time in Early Years, however I still miss my time in UKS2. I also miss my time teaching secondary students (some days). I have an incredible team around me too, so it’s difficult to feel (truly) lonely even on the darkest days.
Happy penultimate Friday of Term 2 everyone!
I’m on YouTube again today; The Millennial Mixtape. I’m not a millennial, but I quite like the songs. I have to admit to fast forwarding ‘Wannabe’ (really dodgy lip-syncing on the video) and am now listening to good old Zombie (flashback to my student days).
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