the way back - nervous breakdown and all that

After the odd comments from 25.02.24, this week began with another corker:  Mate, people are sharing screengrabs of this blog left right and centre at both your old and new school. And not in a positive way!  😐 Well now! Who would write that? It’s clearly not someone looking out for my best interests. And don’t they realise this is a public blog? It’s hardly hidden away in some obscure recess of the dark web. My feeling is it’s someone who is a little rattled. I feel (and having chatted to friends and ex-colleagues about this, I’m not alone feeling this) that these one-dimensional comments have most likely been written by one and the same person, with this latest one now trying out a new tone. There would appear to be an agenda: to make me seem a little ‘unhinged’ and a fabricator of tall tales. However, these comments are ironically only giving the blog more exposure and helping it reach more people. There has been a huge increase of hits these past few days a...

Oh, the fun that can be had with the haiku form - 17 syllables of freedom. I thought I'd take a break from heavy blog posts this week and just enjoy a bit of messing about on themes I've already explored more seriously in the past. ___   This first haiku was inspired by my previous head's insistence on not getting involved in staff's emotional duress. Upset staff If you shed a tear, Do not expect sympathy; Tissues should suffice. ___   This next one is a riff on the lack of accountability at my previous place of work. Nervous breakdowns One man down - who cares? Another four - who’s counting? No one seems to see … ___   This one echoes the head's dismissal of taking pride in one's work... Pride One thing is for sure, There is no place for pride here, Silly communist. ___   As Modern Foreign Languages lead, I was genuinely told to look into bringing Latin bacl onto the curriculum. Latin: that most famous modern for...

On 25.02.24, two comments were made within an hour of each other about a post I wrote last November .  Seeing as comments are relatively rare, this seems a bit of an odd coincidence.  Here are the comments: 1)  This is a little unhinged and erring on threatening I feel. The kids LOVE the head, there’s not loads leaving other than normal house moves away etc There’s been so many improvements since the head joined - new library, new play areas, new community initiatives. There’s discos, music night, everyone joins in . Teachers are great. Head is great. Parents are happy!! 2)  This is pretty threatening from a teacher at my child’s primary school. It makes you sound a bit unstable tbh. And I know loads of people with children at this school and they’re all really happy, so it’s just not true! These comments show a very shallow grasp and analysis of the ´whole story’ and Panglossian view of the school under the current head. I suspect that they were sent by the same per...