Challenging start to the week

Walking into school today I knew right away something was not right. Call it intuition – or the fact that the cold air hit me as soon as I walked through the door. For reasons which hopefully will become clear tomorrow the heating had not been on. And as perfecting timing would have it the unseasonably warm weather had abruptly come to an end. It took a while – and some fraught telephone conversations – but we had a reasonable level of heat by lunchtime.

Something working at Forthview has taught me is that it  would appear to be pretty near impossible for a Business Manager to plan a day. I thought that it was maybe just me – taking my time to get to grips with things. But when I met some other Business Managers a couple of weeks ago I was comforted to find out that others have the same experience. Sure I have an idea of what I need to get through -but the priorities are dictated by what happens – whether it is arranging cover for a sick member of staff, or sorting something that has come up in the days I am not in school, or a crisis which has arised overnight ( and there have been others).

And I still don’t have the hang of how to get help from the support departments at the Council. I expect that will fall into place about a week before my contract is up.

One thing is for certain. I encourage others to be reflective practitioners. To think about their day/ experiences regularly and consider what was good, what was more tricky and what they will do differently next time. Doing this myself right now I have come to 2 conclusions

1  I am using a  load more skills than I gave myself credit for having before…

2  I have a load more to learn!