At the end of July I graduated as one of the first teachers in the country to be granted Chartered Teacher status by the Chartered College. I'm very proud to be part of this special group of 98 teachers who have been through a rigorous 14 months of reflection, development and assessment. It has certainly re-invigorated my career and given me a fresh sense of direction for my teaching practice. I've taken on three mentees who are members of the next cohort to start the programme and I'm looking forward to the fresh challenges of helping staff develop who I do not directly line manage. We've spent time together working on their personal development plans and have our first face to face meeting together in September. Rebecca Nobes a fellow CTeach has explained much better than I can what it is all about, click for link to her blog (link here)

The weekend after graduation I went on a family trip to Mullingar in Southern Ireland, a small town near the village that my Dad's family came from. As we stood near the lake where my Grandparents grew up living a very simple existence without any home comforts its hard to appreciate how things have changed in two generations. My Grandparents gave up their family surroundings to travel to England to gain employment, they would not have imagined what we would all be doing today. We had, for the first time ever a 100% pass rate in both Chemistry and Physics A level at our college. With over 400 students sitting their final A level exams in my department this is an enormous achievement.

At the end of the holiday my Uncle had a nasty accident and yet again we feel grateful for the NHS and it's wonderful staff. I see first hand every day how hard they all work and how hard our young people work in order to get places to train as Nurses, Physiotherapists and Doctors.

So now, I'm looking ahead to the 2019/20 academic year and thinking about what challenges and opportunities it may present. I'll be looking to build on my contribution to the teaching profession both as a Chartered Teacher and Fellow the Chartered College. In the spirit of seeing opportunities I'm planning to be 10% braver and say yes whenever I can starting with a short talk at the first ever BrewEd in Brighton. Maybe see some of you there?