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CEO’s Blog: 12th November 2021: “Flanders and Glasgow”
This week sees our news broadcasts dominated by our history and our future. Yesterday our schools and our nation fell silent in an act of remembrance for the fallen of war. With the Armistice, and the…
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CEO’s Blog: October 2021: “The marble and the sculptor.”
For this month’s blog I wanted to recount a conversation that I had recently with a headteacher, working in a school outside our Trust, as part of a performance management review process I was invited to…
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CEO’s Blog: London Marathon 2021 (Part 2): Je ne regret rien!
My regular readers will know from the trail of breadcrumbs I have left in my past two blogs whether to read on or not. This blog is the second, and concluding, part of my marathon adventure…
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CEO’s Blog: London Marathon 2021 (Part 1): Better to live with remorse than regret?
One of the highlights of summer tends to be that I can get out a little more, especially during school holidays. However, it has still tended to be essentially leisurely: the occasional glance at the watch but nothing more, accompanied by an Amazon Music playlist or an Audible audiobook, and the thought of a nice cuppa at the end.
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CEO’s Blog: September 2021: The “thief of joy”?
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
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CEO’s Blog: August 2021: “But the light is better in here.”
Feynman attributes this in no small part to the greatest gift that the onset of The Age of Reason in the eighteenth century brought to us – the value of doubt. It is through the admission of uncertainty that we learn, we discover, we find out more and we grow.
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CEO’s Blog: “The Pale Blue Dot”
Regular readers will know that I am “late to the table” with regards to reading for pleasure, and also that I’m no scientist by any definition of the term. Yet, I enjoy reading the work of…
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CEO’s Blog: “Turn up. Work Hard. Be Nice.”
Many of you will be reading this having clicked on a link via Twitter. I don’t have a personal Twitter account but follow many colleagues who do. One such colleague tweeted recently about a large display-sized…
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CEO’s Blog: “Miles didn’t hear it as a mistake… He heard it as something that just happened: an event.”
For this blog, I want to relay a story that is well-known amongst afficionados of jazz music. I don’t claim to be amongst their number but, as with fine art, and literature “I know what I like”.
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CEO’s Blog: “You blow in one end, and move your fingers up and down the outside.”
It is probably far too late in the month to wish readers a ‘Happy New Year’, but somehow for this first blog of 2021 it would seem impolite not to, especially in the context that the closing words of my previous piece was to wish you all a good Christmas.
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CEO’s Blog: “We’re cathedral builders – and we always have been.”
It is probably far too late in the month to wish readers a ‘Happy New Year’, but somehow for this first blog of 2021 it would seem impolite not to, especially in the context that the closing words of my previous piece was to wish you all a good Christmas.
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CEO’s Blog: “The Shape of the Spoon”
As we move toward the end of the term, and the end of the calendar year, we will all be taking some time to reflect on what 2020 has meant to us. Writing in a personal capacity, as I do for these blogs, there have certainly been many lows as well as highs as I am sure you, my reader, will have experienced also.
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CEO’s Blog: “We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.”
Readers of my blogs will recall that earlier in the year (March 2020) I drew my inspiration from Michael Palin’s “Pole to Pole”, a book I had chosen to read during the most restrictive phase of…
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CEO’s Blog: “If you have to tell folks ya is, ya probably ain’t!”
One of the reasons I enjoy history, and became a History teacher, was my capacity to enjoy and recall events with reasonable accuracy and ease. Thinking of a theme for my blog this month, I was…
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CEO’s Blog: When no one is watching.
I hope this Blog finds all its readers safe and well, as we continue to live and work through these times. There are numerous writers and broadcasters who have made the timely, and expedient, connection between…
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CEO’s Blog: Learning: a precious resource.
Learning: a precious resource. For the past week or so, I have been reading Michael Palin’s “Pole to Pole”, in which he charts a journey from the North to the South Pole, passing along the line…
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CEO’s Blog: The great outdoors
Perhaps writing this blog in the aftermath of some of the worst and most damaging storms for decades may be unwise, but it was prompted by several occurrences last week that I wanted to share with…
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CEO’s Blog: “And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you.”
It was almost ten years ago to the day that I began my association with John Taylor, by taking up the headship at John Taylor High School. My most vivid memory of 4th January 2010, which succeeded a somewhat sleepless night, was to be greeted at the snow-covered entrance to the school by a member of our admin staff, who enquired with an outstretched arm and an upturned palm, “So, are we opening today, boss?” Welcome to headship!
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CEO’s Blog: Front and centre: “The Sage on the Stage”
Welcome to the 2019/20 academic year to you all. At John Taylor Multi-Academy Trust we particularly welcome Church Gresley Infant and Nursery School to our family, our tenth primary phase partner. As with a new school to the Trust, I also welcome all colleagues, children and families that have become part of the JTMAT community this year. I am excited about what you will bring to us, and what you will share alongside us.
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CEO’s Blog: July 2019 Letter to Year 13
So, here goes. I’ve written you a list. I hope it makes sense. If it does, that’s great. If any of it resonates with you – even better. The list is in no order, other than that in which the ideas came to me, which has little bearing on their importance. It’s also by no means exhaustive, as you’ll see, but it is based on some of the challenges I know that some of you will face.
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