Eric Cantona on school attendance

"when the Seagulls follow the Trawler it is because they think fish will be thrown into the sea."

When Eric Cantona mused about Seagulls and Trawlers it caused huge media interest. Nobody quite understood what he was going on about. However, I do believe that the quote has a place in education. Why do kids gather at your school? Is it because they are made to or because they want to?

If you understand that children who want to attend school will be more interested and engaged shouldn't this guide your practice? If you are worried about your attendance ask yourself why they do not want to attend. Each kid will have a reason, find out and solve the problem if you can.

Some children will have issues you cannot solve, why not be the best place for them?

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Time for a holiday

It is always interesting to see how students behave as we near a holiday. Years ago and brilliant head of year told me that some kids have such unhappy home lives that holidays scare them. Over the years I have noticed that there are more disclosures and more negative behaviours shown in the last week than at other times.

So as we head into the last week I wonder what this week will bring. More importantly I wonder what more we can do to support and reassure our most vulnerable students. If anyone has done any specific work on this I would be grateful to read about it. In the meantime tell your kids how much you like them, you may be the only one who will.

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Youth Mental Health

I had a brilliant meeting today with Nick Coulter of the youth MHFA. I love this idea and I love the way Nick goes about it. he is not interested in what cannot be done but only what can be done.

As a school we helped by being involved in filming the promotion and training video and I am attending a launch on the 10th. Take a look here and tell me what you think of this as an idea.

Trusting management, really?

Today I read an article about a school district that was allowing Principals to have the latest technology, (read it here) iPads, in order to give immediate feedback to staff that they observe and then move on. The comment on the piece from a parent was bemoaning the waste of money when schools needed more funding in classrooms.

I will not argue about that sut, seriously, do we not want our leaders to have the best tools to do their job. If it is all about saving money why not have the Principal teach? It would save one teaching post and we could buy more 'stuff' for kids. The reason we do not is because we need our Principals doing their jobs to the best of their ability and with the best tools. I believe they do not invest in their own equipment enough because they fear what staff will say.

We constantly see calls for management to trust staff, is it not time to trust management?