EDIT: I’ve come back to this and want to apologise for this brain dump  …  I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about when it started. It just happened. Blogging Tourettes …

Tonight I can’t sleep. It’s the night before GCSE results day and for the last two years we’ve gone into results day with almost certainty about what the next day will bring but this year normal service has resumed and I’d almost forgotten the feeling, the doubts, the hope, the fear … the excitement even … about what we’ll be dealing with tomorrow. There will be 100s and even 1000’s of you for which tomorrow is your first results day as a teacher – there will be some of you that have taken on a Head of Department role over the last two or so years for which tomorrow is your first set of results for which you are accountable. Any anxiety you’re probably feeling is normal … I’m not saying it’s right … but it’s being felt by more seasoned leaders across the country and you need to know that are not on your own. You’re not abnormal, you’re not overthinking things … its the way it is. It isn’t anything to be worried about … I’d almost be more concerned if you were blase about the whole thing.

Actually … part of the reason I can’t sleep (and I think I wrote about this 5 years ago the evening before the results for the first sitting of the 9-1 GCSE) is that once again I am reminded that twenty five years ago this week (where has that time gone? and yes I am now middle aged but I’m ok with that … so do one!) I received a call from my Dad first thing one morning to say there’d been an accident. My first instinct was that if anyone was involved in an accident it would have been my Dad so I asked “How is HE? Is HE ok?” and it took me a couple of minutes to realise that i was talking to my Dad. He was in fact calling me to tell me that my Mam had been hit by a car the previous evening. Now as time passes I’m not sure whether I remember the conversation or I remember the memory of the conversation and so I vaguely remember him going on to say she was in intensive care and my husband had clocked on to it being serious so just said to me quietly something along the lines of “just go” as I was walking around the bedroom trying to get dressed whilst listening to my dad trying to tell me what had happened. I now only really recall him telling me that as he crossed the road, he heard a horrific noise and turned to see my mother (his wife of 40+years) and it was like a handkerchief floating over the top of the car. I didn’t pay much attention to the rest as I finished the call and just said “I’m on my way! Love you Dad and see you in a couple of hours” … the rest is history as they say. She passed away a week later the Friday before Princess Dianas accident so it’ll never go unacknowledged.

The fall out from this, at the time was horrific and it had even longer term repercussions. I probably wouldn’t be teaching today but maybe that’s a story for another time. I had two brothers (now only one but again for new readers of the blog maybe another time!) and one sister. The next sibling up from me was 17 years older than me … my eldest brother at this time was about 40. I’m going to precurse all this by saying that we grew up in very different times and in very different circumstances. My mother was only 17 when my eldest brother was born and as a young couple with immigrant backgrounds they found South Wales tough. They had a young family and then 17 years later along came me as a little mid-life surprise and for the first few years I was very much on my own and my mother (they ran a corner shop) was able to devote lots of time to me, reading was a passion she instilled in me from a very young age … so me and my siblings are very different people. Don’t get me wrong I love them … we just had different starts in life. Well … my eldest brother ended up … ummm … not sure I’ve shared this before on here ….

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this is hard

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to cut a long story short

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Maybe as I get back into blogging regularly I’ll write in more detail … (look out I’ve promised/challenged myself to do a “blog post a day” from when we return back to school! You have been warned … and don’t worry I won’t take it personally if you don’t read them!)

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(INSTRUCTION: Read this next bit quickly and gloss over it!) Anyway cut to the fact that my eldest brother was in prison. His girlfriend rang the prison to inform them about my Mams accident and they asked if anyone could collect him … OF COURSE WE COULD!! I ended up driving to somewhere in Devon to collect him and he walked out of the front doors having been told that he had 24 hours. There were no guards, no police and I’m sure it wouldn’t happen today but I assure you he was no risk to anyone. We sat with our Mam in intensive care and the next morning I drove him back.

A week later we were informed that life support was going to be removed that day. I made a call to the prison and was informed that he would be on the next train to Newport. Again, I am sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen today. I drove to the train station and it is my most abiding memory of my brother … the train stopped and he walked down the platform towards me and as he stopped in front of me he said “I’m too late aren’t I?” and I just nodded at him. This grown man, my brother, crumbled in front of me and I held him as he sobbed like a baby. When I returned him to prison on the Monday morning (the day she passed away was a Friday) having been given a weekend pass I spoke to a guard outside and he said how sorry he was for our loss. This guard then took me aside and said that my Mam would be proud of my brother. I thought at the time how weird … given the building we were standing outside … that someone would think my Mam would be proud. He went on to tell me about my brother becoming what they called a ‘listener” … a role that some of the men took on (like manning the Samaritan phonelines except in person) and he told me how amazing my bro had been with a few of the guys that were struggling.

As a drove back I thought about how right this guard was. She would have been proud. She would have been proud of him, not proud of what she’d achieved as a mother but proud of what he was becoming and how he was having a positive impact on others. She would never have considered that she would be proud of herself … I’ve always felt that me and her were very different terms of personality … she was very quiet and unassuming … but over the years I’ve started to think I’m more like her than I want to admit.

Tomorrow, regardless of the results I will be proud of our students. There will be disappointments, there will be pleasant surprises but whichever way it is, I will be proud of our students knowing that they tried their best and worked so hard (in the main!).

Tomorrow, regardless of the results I will be proud of the team I work with in my day job. Apart from the fact that they’ve put up with me (and I haven’t yet offended them … well … not that they’ve told me I have!!) I will be proud of them knowing that we did all we could for our students.

… that’s it. There’s another emotion for you that it’s normal to feel tomorrow. Be Proud.