Well one month on from launch and we are doing some re-viewing of how naïve we were at launch. Having done months of work we thought launch was “all go from here on in”, sigh….. if only. We have had to re-jig bits of the web site, send constant frantic emails back to our web creators asking endless questions and imploring their help.

Once upon a time we had loaded resources onto the web site and went back, a week or a month later, to tighten things up. We started realizing that when we uploaded now it was onto a live site. The opportunity to go back and modify the document/illustration just a bit more, sometime later in the week, just didn’t cut it anymore. This new understanding has since sharpened up our thinking and may I be so bold as to say we are quite enjoying the edgier space. Our current mantra is ‘have faith in the process, don’t get captured by outcome only judgments’, and so we continue to hold tightly to this idea.

We hope those teachers starting the new academic year in International schools have been re-energised by their break and are all set to engage their students’ hearts and minds. For those teachers who are well into the third term we hope you are holding firm to the hopes that first invited you into teaching as a career.

I was talking to some young people about to start their new academic year and was aware of how much they were looking forward to a new teacher, reconnecting with old friendships and possible new ones, and their tingling excitement tinged with worry about what the coming year might ask of them.

Carla has headed back to HaNoi after a period of work and brainstorming with us here in Oz. She is currently reading “A Dangerous Place” by Jacqueline Winspear and is listening to a compilation of 80’s music.

Pearl is currently reading “House of Orphans” by Helen Dunmore and is listening to “Same Love” by Macklemore &Lewis.

MD is reading “The Lowlands” by Jhumpa Lahiri and is being transported by Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor played by Jacqueline du Pre with the LSO and Barbirolli conducting.