Rowan Tree Forest School

It's official, I am setting up a Forest School! I know it has been far too long since I last wrote a blog post and for that I am truly sorry. You will know by now that I never seem to make things simple on myself and there are constant twists and turns of new …

A Shift of Focus

It's Friday 22nd December at 8pm. I am sitting with dimmed lights, the Christmas tree lights on, a glass of mulled wine and a Salted Caramel Galaxy chocolate bar. Michael Buble Christmas album on vinyl is playing (NOTHING beats vinyl) and all around outside of my little oasis, there is silence. M is away on …

Journey of life

Up until 6 years ago, my life was settled. Prior to six years ago, my life followed a pretty bog standard pattern - I left school, knowing that I wanted to become a teacher. I went to University, graduated, got a job, bought my first flat, met my now husband, got married, we bought a …

Happy Holidays

Over the past 6 months, I have seen and heard an increasing number of tales about the 'challenges' faced by adopters. These come from a variety of sources with some stories coming directly from fellow adopters but mostly from the media. You only need to look at the results of the latest Adoption UK, File …

Pie in the Sky School

As a teacher, I was never interested in taking up a promoted post, particularly that of Headteacher. My heart was always in the classroom and not within an office dealing with all the issues many Headteachers face. As a teacher, my heart also was very much in the actual teaching - not the paperwork and …

Responding to the media

Tuesday was a complete whirlwind of a day. It started bright and early at 6.15am with just an hour to get myself ready for work, both boys washed, dressed and breakfasted for school. Bags were packed, my lunch made and then the boys directed towards different televisions with the doors closed to block out their …

Exclusion is NEVER the answer

In session 2012/2013 (the year in which my son was excluded from school) 21,955 exclusions from school took place across Scotland. 21,955 phone calls made to parents or carers informing them that the behaviour of their child was not deemed acceptable in their school. Of those numbers, 9,608 children had additional support needs. Of those …

Friendly variety

Last night, I was out for dinner with my two best friends. We'd not managed to meet up for a while and so there was lots to catch up on. Both my friends are married and one has a baby. We spent around 5 hours together last night and only 20 minutes maximum of that …

Don’t you, forget about me…..

The word 'transition' is one you will hear banded around a lot right now as children finish one year of school and prepare to go on to the next. There are certain times that are felt to to be 'key' transitions such as starting nursery, nursery to P1, P7 to secondary, but for a child …