End of the half term and Ofsted

4th November 2019

It’s the end of the longest half term and as such there seems little value in trying to find clever things to say to keep people motivated and ‘up and at it’. All I need to do is say thank you to everybody for their contributions over the past ten weeks; be that students, parents or staff.

 

For those of us who work in colleges, in whatever role, we understand the value of those regular breaks, for staff and for the students. We need them. It is impossible for those who don’t understand our work to understand how tiring that work can be.

 

Day in and day out we have literally thousands of interactions between the adults, children and young people. On the whole most of those interactions are and end on a positive note. As we know, many can be challenging, difficult and even distressing. Yet we all dust ourselves off, pick ourselves up and start all over again. Sometimes we do that in a matter of moments. Sometimes we do that overnight. And sometimes over the weekend. Yet we do it and many of us have done it for a number for years.

 

Even though the autumnal nights are drawing in, the weather is getting more challenging and a long hot summer is nothing but a distant memory, we stay and remain positive and enthusiastic. As staff, we know that we have to put on our ‘best face’ for our students and their families.

 

At the end of this very long half term I, once again, thank you for all your commitment to the children and young people of this community. We have made terrific progress over the last ten weeks and that progress is tangible, meaningful and impactful.

 

And as testament to that I would like to point you all to the Ofsted report published about Thomas Rotherham College on Monday 28^th October – see the College’s website for details.

 

And just to lighten the mood, as we going into the well-earned break…

 

‘I tend to sleep in the nude. Which isn’t a bad thing except for maybe on those long flights’.

 

‘A tomcat hijacked a plane, stuck a pistol into the pilot’s ribs and demanded: “Take me to the canaries.”

 

‘What do gardeners do when they retire?’

                                                                                    The legend that was… Bob Monkhouse