Christmas and New Year fade in the distance. Hope you had a good one. Having managed to avoid the illnesses floating around my family in December, I received them as an unwanted gift on Boxing Day! Cue missing out on family activities and a large slice of self-pity. Anyway, over that and looking ahead with optimism. Our first wave of job adverts is out and we intend to interview and appoint by the end of this month.

The intellectual rationalisation for the title of this is that I am a fan of Lewis Carroll and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland but the truth is it’s more Mock Turtles, an indie band from the early 90s. I’ve been driving past the site for the new school on a regular basis and if the volume of construction vehicles correlates to effective activity, then we are doing well. For those of you who don’t see the site that often, here’s a couple of photos from last week:

I visited the Harris Academy in Tottenham this week. It’s an all through school in its 5th year and rated Outstanding. The leadership is focused, staff are welcoming and the students are engaged – the overall result is calm, effective learning. I wanted to see how behaviour was managed and picked up some wise nuggets to influence our practice at Katherine Warington. Staff presence at lesson changeover, at lunch and at the start and end of the school day, with clearly understood behaviour expectations, goes a long way to avoiding unnecessary and unpleasant confrontation. The advice to teachers to speak to and address students as if the student’s parent stood next to them remains a solid mantra.

Finally, applications for two community governor positions have closed and I am delighted to say we have appointed Ryan Hockley and Jenny Howarth. I’ll add their information on to the website under governors shortly but the quality of applicants, people willing to give up their valuable time to ensure the success of our school is amazing and continues to drive us forward.