Saying goodbye

Over the past couple of years it feels as though we have said goodbye to colleagues far too frequently. Today it was the turn of our Head of Science who is leaving not just the school, but also the country and starting a new life in Australia.

I was thinking about it and, excluding my HoD who started on the same day as me, we only have 3 teachers left in the whole of science who were here when I arrived just over 5 years ago. That's a lot of turnover in a relatively short time!

I wonder if it was something I said!

All change (again!)

It's getting on for that time of year - teachers who want to be in a different school next academic year are busy filling in applications and going to interviews.

We already knew we were losing the Head of Biology who is heading off to Australia at Easter, but this week already 2 more teachers have announced that they have found new jobs. Yesterday it was a chemist who is moving on to become a HoD at another nearby school and today one of the biology teachers revealed that he is also becoming a HoD and relocating to be nearer to his partner.

It's fab news for both of them, obviously, but as always they will be sorely missed. Since I started here just over 5 years ago all but 2 of the science teachers have changed.

I guess change is necessary. New people bring new ideas and enthusiasm to the department. After all, without astroboy we probably wouldn't have got the observatory up and running and our NQT is proving invaluable in pushing the solar car project forwards. Change scares me, but I will endeavour to embrace it, and at least this year the physics dept should be staying the same. (Fingers crossed!)