Twenty-five years ago this week, I was preparing for my first ever “Back to School” as a teacher !! Twenty-five years sounds positively ancient so I guess that makes me positively ancient !!! In those twenty-five years, I guess I have probably done twenty official “Back to Schools” due to time out for babies and for my period working in industry. I still enjoy the buzz of the return to school, with the new classes to discover, the new routines to put in place and to build on over the months ahead. It always feel like sweeping with a new broom and, as the teacher, the onus is on us to establish how things are going to be right from the word ‘Go’.

As a “Prof Principal”, I will be the first contact with the school for the kids on their “Back to School” too. Discovering their timetables, their teachers are all elements that will impact hugely on how the year goes.

First lessons are always an important moment when contact is made between teacher and pupils. Reputations preceed you, as a teacher whether they be justified or not. Sometimes it is perhaps better not to know what the kids say about you when you aren’t listening !!

As the summer holidays draw to a close for the teachers, it is always important to remember that they are drawing to a close for the kids too. Two months of break from school are almost over – hard to believe but it is true. So, happy Silver Jubilee to myself and to my future pupils, and to all pupils everywhere, have a good year !!