Flourish & Survive
It is always about the words for me, and when I was trying to find the ones I needed to articulate my vision for a new curriculum, flourish & survive seemed to have everything. I mean, just imagine what could be happening in the space between these two points; between survival and flourishing; from the very basics needed to just keep going through to the rich nourishment needed to thrive. This was the curriculum I wanted to lead: Flourish & Survive - a vision for the now and next.
Over the past few years I have dabbled with blogging - tentative, exploratory, largely ignored. Working in the shadows, though, offered me a degree of freedom and I found myself revisiting a number of core themes which seemed to provide me with the spaces I needed to explore my ideas. I intend, for the moment, to stick with this model, so if you stay tuned you will become familiar with:
Notes on a rebel curriculum: where I excavate my experiences leading the REAL curriculum (2016 - 2022) sharing the voices, experiences and reflections of those involved
Status Quo Vadis: an opportunity for me to explore the inflection point between inaction and action in education (I appreciate that the Latin makes it sound a bit pompous, but the truth is I came up with the title first - while restocking the woodshed - and I liked the conflation of the two phrases, so I started with that and had to work out from there what I’d actually be writing about! Inflection points, as it turned out!)
Let’s imagine a school: a kind of fan fiction for rebel school start-up narratives. None of it is true, but all of it could be
Imaginary conversations with Ofsted inspectors: I probably won’t be revisiting this, actually - it was a bit of a one trick pony - but it satisfied an itch I had last summer…
And, of course, things will evolve. KindEducational represents the start of new adventures in learning, and this blog will provide a space to document and reflect on its unfurling: a space to share and celebrate the small steps towards the big transformation we all seek.
Anyway, for now, let me end with a warm welcome to Flourish & Survive. Here’s to the now and next!