Happy New Year 2017!

This is a photo of my new baby granddaughter who I was lucky enough to spend Christmas with this year. It’s the pure innocence of babies isn’t it that stirs our soul – that makes hearts melt… and our spirits delight in the adventure of babies learning new things every minute… and whilst we smile and play the baby daily experiences love and kindness. Just how life should be. Now flash forward to the tired teachers (Christmas is exhausting) returning in January and facing the angry, obstinate, fearful, shutdown faces of some of the children in our schools. All that lost innocence before their childhood has hardly ripened. Think of the wave of experiences of shouting, teasing, fear, disappointment or emotional neglect which has shaped that angry child’s blisteringly disrespectful words, his inability to stop pushing or poking other children… or the withdrawn child with bleak, shuttered eyes and a sullen expression… the list goes on.

Yet when teachers are in the thick of it, it’s so hard for them to empathise or feel compassion… our own self-esteem is often low and instead of us understanding the child we can take it personally and become angry and defensive ourselves. I know because I’ve done it myself as a teacher. How hard it is to remember that the one who most needs us is the one who most repels us.

So you wonderful teachers take time to look after yourself FIRST. If you are failing to have Golden Moments or to create some joy for yourself (or just to get to bed earlier) you’re very vulnerable to over-reacting to these troubled children who started life off just like my baby granddaughter but for whom their life turned out to be unkind and unloving.

Website Manager’s Notes
1. Download a great article by Jenny Mosley on Staff wellbeing and the SPICE of life!
2. Also download two lovely Golden Moments cards from Jenny’s collection! Here and Here!
3. To find out more about Jenny Mosley’s keynote speeches, seminars and workshops at conferences and training events including headteachers’ conferences please phone 01225 767157, email circletime@jennymosley.co.uk or see our training section on the website.
4. Jenny works with staff in different schools and early years settings and always focuses first upon the staff energy and morale, as this underpins the ways that almost all things happen in schools. If your staff could do with a boost, phone 01225 767157.

5. Jenny Mosley’s Golden Model and training promotes positive behaviour for learning, positive lunchtimes and playtimes, SMSC, PSHE and British Values.