It’s been a while since I blogged; The main reason is that we’ve had this little man in the photo join us but seeing as I am sat here (once again!) unable to sleep I thought I’d write something. For some reason this years annual sleepless nights (I don’t sleep a lot anyway!) seems worse than previous years … let’s be honest there were some tough decisions made with regards tiering this year and the pressure (real or otherwise!) felt by students and teachers was so much more intense than other years. Much was discussed about changes to tiers of entry throughout the year and even after the exam was sat, hearing that there had been a massive shift towards the foundation tier nationally didn’t help alleviate the nagging thoughts. Almost every day Seager and I reminded each other that we’d made the decisions we did (it ended up being about 75% Higher tier in the end) based on rigorous data and in conjunction with the students – we also had to remind ourselves that nearly 60% of the students last year got a B+ so we couldn’t drop below this really or we’d be limiting some of our students access to the possibility of getting grade 6+. Anyway, it’s now just a waiting game …  and as my Mam would’ve said: “What will be … will be”.

There it is … bam! straight in the face … the other reason for not blogging is that the end of August is always a reminder of one of the toughest times of my life – losing my Mam. I started writing about the story here two years ago but this year is a biggie … its 20 years ago.  It’s funny how you remember certain events and they just “pop” into your brain … on the Sunday morning after we’d lost my Mam on the Friday, I remember driving home (my Mam & Dads house) from Tesco, having gone to get some veg to cook Sunday lunch for my Dad and when I arrived outside the house my Dad ran out to me … he was crying! He then screamed at me that Diana had died and how awful it was going to be for those “poor boys” … my response was “who the flipping ‘eck?”. I stood there and wanted to wrap him up in cotton wool and protect him from the pain that I knew we’d be going through as a family over the next few weeks.  What is even stranger is that I distinctly remember trying to make sage and onion stuffing like my Mams and failed dramatically … bless him … my Dad ate it anyway! It was bloody awful!

So, this is just me saying: “what will be … will be” and I promise I will be back blogging with a vengeance but for now enjoy the rest of the holibobs x

PS: I’ll let you into a little secret too .. there may be a tiny part of me worried that by documenting the last 3 years through the blog I may just end up looking really stupid and inept as a teacher if the results are … ummm …  well …. basically shite! I suppose it’s a little bit of imposter syndrome that I suffer with occasionally.

PPS: Remember I also get my own GCSE result on Thursday too .. no pressure then! Anyway, I’m off to Reading Festival for the weekend … the thing is … I’m old enough to call it a midlife crisis and I can’t wait!