I last wrote on my blog 6 months ago. I had an unplanned personal hibernation in many areas of my life. Recently, my daughter pointed out the beautiful, dark pink blossom appearing on the trees on our road. Nature is signifying spring, new beginnings and rejuvenation so I’ll follow her cues and get back into thinking via writing on this blog. 

Here’s what I’ve been up to professionally during the last 6 months.

1. Schools Week interviewed me talking about my career, youth violence, why I got into and subsequently left teaching. We also discussed the limitations of what the formal education system can do to fix society’s problems.
2. Oxford University Press invited me to write a blog for them about inclusive classrooms and what teachers can do to disrupt power dynamics. I feel it’s natural follow up to the conversation I had with Jeffrey Boakye on BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth about the language of power in education and leadership.
3. Outside Voices by YHA was published. It’s a National Lottery funded project exploring a wide variety of people’s personal relationships with green and blue spaces using a range of creative media. It was a pleasure to take part and there’s a recording of me reading You are the Sea, a poem which developed after starting life as a blog about my grandad. 
4. I was appointed as a member of Natural England’s Landscape Advisory Panel. The aim of the panel is to provide Natural England’s Board with a standing expert group to support, challenge and advise on ambitious and innovative ways to shaping the future of all English landscapes, for everyone. My fellow panel members are all very knowledgable and I expect I’ll be writing and thinking more about nature and the outdoors and everybody’s entitlement to experience the beauty of nature in their own way. 
5. I was involved as a chief listener for ‘The Relationships Project: the lookout’ where young people discussed their experiences of the Covid pandemic. My main takeaway was that many young people who took part in the project would really value support from the adults in their lives in ‘catching up’ and re-adjusting socially, emotionally and mentally.

 

Over the past 6 months,  I’ve also deleted all of my social media accounts (apart from Linked In- which I’m still not sure I understand). Thanks to those of you who checked in and sent me messages. Consistency is the first step of progress so with patience (yours and mine) I’ll get back to regularly writing stuff worth reading and thinking about fairly quickly.

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If you are interested in the human side of leadership then my book The Unexpected Leader is for you.

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