What should my #Nurture1617 blog be about?

Last year I had been blogging about a month, when I discovered this new year tradition amongst Educationalists on Twitter. #Nurture 1617 seems to follow a rule of blogging about five achievements from the current year, which then leads to a contemplation of five things that are planned, possible intentions or achievable actions over the coming year.

In essence a blog which is an educational and work/life balance new year resolution

For #Nurture1516 I gave it a go. I did not publish it.

It was very simplistic. I wrote about maybe not eating so many orange matchmakers, undertaking some small scale SEND research within my leadership and Management capacity as SEN & Inclusion Manager, and writing a few more blogs.

I did revisit it a few times over the year to see if I was meeting my targets, and keeping my resolutions! Which mostly I was. Although perhaps don’t mention the matchmakers, as discovered they can be brought in certain discount shops for a pound!

So, I failed on the matchmaker eating, but I did undertake some SEND small scale research projects, which lead to being able to continue one piece of research around interventions, with a research grant acquired by The University of Wolverhampton.

I have written a few more blogs (12 this year, although not all of them have been published yet) and a piece for a #LearningwithoutLabels for Marc Rowland and several magazine articles on SEND Leadership and Management.

This year will my nurture blog look the same?

 It could to some extent.

I will still be eating matchmakers.

I am launching #ReserachSEND on February the 11^th with the University of Wolverhampton.

 I’m aiming to write more blogs, using #weeklyblogchallenge17, to motivate me.

But #Nurture1617, is not going to be all about me, I am going to use it in a different capacity to consider the idea of #Learningwithoutlevels which Marc Rowland first proposed to me. I am going to think about the children who need us as Educationalists to put our differences, career progression and political opinions aside and concentrate on what the Educational Landscape looks like for them in 2017 and beyond.

We collectively need to look long and hard on what we do for the children who don’t have a voice through their parents or the school they currently attend, the children who face adversity every day and the ones who need us to advocate for them, because there may be no one else, for example,

·       The children who are missing from education,

·       The children who are looked after,

·       The children who are managing a bereavement,

·       The children who are school refusers,

·       The children who did not celebrate Christmas because their family could not afford it,

·       The children who have been permanently excluded from school, and an alternative placement cannot be found.

·       The children with SEND, who are not in the correct placement, or are undiagnosed, or have unmet needs because there is a lack of understanding of their needs

What will we be doing in 2017 to support these pupils and make things better for them?

I know as a starting point, we have newly formed Whole School SEND Consortium, which has brought groups together to improve outcomes for children with various needs, and we need this group and others like them to continue.  We need Head Teachers, who write about the challenges faced by children in their daily lives, such as Jarlath O’Brien, and other Educationalists like him and and we need parental advocates, who speak out on behalf of all parents such as Starlight McKenzie, Nancy Gedge and Tania Tirraoro.

I wish in 2017, that we do not see any more blogs, like the one I read earlier in the year, about why a child had to be excluded, when the excluder knew there was nowhere else for the child to go. We should be looking for solutions on behalf of these children, we know its not always easy, but we chose this job, the children we teach did not have a choice about whether we were their main educators.

My nurture 16/17 ends with a plea for us all to work together to change outcomes for children, for example,  

·       Let’s reduce the numbers of children who are excluded,

·       Let’s reduce the number of children who enter the youth offending system,

·       Let’s increase the amount of white working class students who enter University and stay there

·       Let’s provide an effective and collective voice for children with SEND,

And ultimately,

·       Let’s be responsible for the children we teach, and work with on a daily basis, to make sure that they receive the best education we can give them

·       Let’s not spend another year discussing what this looks like when children need us to focus on them.

·       Let’s as a profession, share what we know and work together to make sure that every child matters.

Are you joining me?