Like you, we’ve had to work so differently this year – and we have a confession to make. We think we became “that colleague”. You know, the one that sends too many emails when they could’ve just dealt with everything in a single conversation?
Yeah … so we’re sorry about that! Some poor government school Victorians were even getting our emails twice due to your email address migration this year. If that’s you, just reply to this email – it’s an easy fix.
Our new way of communicating results in just two emails coming at to you every week.
Email 1 will usually arrive on a Sunday and will have the subject “Weekly Real Schools Goodie Bag”. In this email – and congrats on reading your first, by the way – you’ll be provided with four types of goodies!
- Gifts – free events and products that we hope will help you in your important work.
- Opportunities – ways we can collaborate and partner.
- Thoughts – something that a key Associate Director at Real Schools has been thinking about and discovering in our work with schools.
- Epiphanies – this is our weird one! In every Real Schools team meeting each member shares an epiphany, realisation or awakening they’ve been had. Some are super deep … and some are just a bit funny. We’re gonna bring you our best epiphany every Sunday.
Email 2 will rock up around Thursday. This email will be our Service email. In it, we’ll be sharing something that we think can be genuinely useful to Teachers and School Leaders in your important toil. It’ll be taking a key point a little further and making it practical and a priority. And, of course … it’ll always be connected to establishing outstanding School Cultures through exemplary Teacher Practice in your school.
So … here goes!
GIFTS
This Wednesday Adam and Amy are running a FREE Video Tutorial for School Leaders titled “Staff Wellbeing In Focus”. Beyond yoga, hot chips & Friday arvo drinks (none of which are bad, by the way!)
there’s a level of teacher self-care that equates to robust Staff Wellbeing. School Leaders, register here to take your school to that level.
On Tuesday ay 5pm, Amy will be running ‘TEACHER TALK’ via our Real Schools and Real Schools Academy Facebook pages. This week she’ll be handing out tips and tricks for DIFFERENTIATION. Got something you want Amy to discuss, send your ideas or questions to amy@realschools.com.au
OPPORTUNITIES
The next intake for our 6-week Intensive Courses for Real Schools Academy commence on October 26th. With the end of the year approaching, why not finish up with some PL that will be wholly supportive and also sure to impact and transform the way you teach. You also get to connect with other amazing teachers each week.
THOUGHTS
So, the decision to communicate differently with you came after some reflection and some decisions that change direction. Then, as is the case with most post-decision plans, the devil is in the detail. At Real Schools we realised on Thursday that we’d spent 20 minutes discussing the email subject and whether the correct spelling is goody or goodie. Seriously!
My thought is that this happens in schools too. We often spend time arguing or debating post-decision details that really don’t matter. You may have an opinion on which spelling is correct. But you know what, it doesn’t matter to us what you think on this one, because … well it just doesn’t matter.
When you next get your PLC or Leadership Team together, discuss decisions and priorities because they make your meetings matter. Trust individuals to handle decisions so you don’t descend into group think.
EPIPHANIES
This week Simon shared his thoughts on self-reflection. When we reflect on a situation, either positively or negatively, we generally focus on the question ‘Why?’. Although helpful, it can be an ineffective question in isolation. An important question to follow up with is ‘What?’. The ‘What’ allows us to be future focussed and can be a call to action. It’s important to ask ‘Why did that happen?’ and then quickly ‘What am I going to do about it?
Warm regards,
