Thanks from Sir Ran!

 I got a real surprise yesterday when the door bell rang. There stood a Yodel driver with a great big cardboard box. He asked me if I was Julia Word and I said no. He then apologised when he looked at the address, but stopped when I confirmed he had the right house number. Eventually, we agreed that the box was for me so I signed that funny machine and looked at my arrival.

It was clearly flowers but who from? Hubby was in the house and was as surprised as me as he had not done anything that bad to warrant ‘delivered’ flowers! It wasn’t my birthday, Christmas or any other feast day that my son could be celebrating so the mystery continued. My first port of interrogation was the label.

Right, so there was a clue – Mrs Julia 100 word. So it had something to do with 100 Word Challenge. Now for the flowers.

Aren’t they beautiful?

…and the sender?

All becomes clear! Back in March, the prompt for Week #27 over at 100 Word Challenge was all about Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ attempt to complete the Marathon des Sables to raise money for Marie Curie, the charity that helps folks with terminal cancer and their carers.

That week, there were 1700 entries from young writers across the world who were really engaged with his adventure. The flowers came from Liz who 100WC has worked with before. It was such a lovely gesture and although I did nothing apart from posting the details, (it was the children and their teachers who did the work!) it was super to receive such lovely flowers.

Thank you all! We are always happy to help!

 

My Week – 21st November

Another busy one with lots of school time. I spent time with my lovely head teacher at the school where I am chair of governors. We are expecting Ofsted anytime so we are constantly looking at the framework!

Visting at the moment is lovely as there is still plenty of colour in the grounds that the school sits in.

Later in the week, I had a wonderful time with a year 6 at a school that is a great supporter of 100 Word Challenge. It was great to see the enthusiasm for the prompt and to see that even pencil and paper are used when your have a great idea!

By Friday it was only right and proper to have a well-deserved drink with hubby and of course, crisps are an essential addition. For those of you who will be wondering, the gas men have now gone (hurrah!) but not before they brought a huge Tarmac lorry to fill in all the holes that the previous group had made!

I need your help – honest!

You, Dear Reader are wonderful!

You visit my little space here, leave me lovely comments and put up with all sorts of silliness!

I need your help over at the Head’s Office.

Could you pop over and have READ?

Please!

100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups – Week#112

This week I am giving you the same prompt as the children. It is a fabulous photograph taken by a very creative photographer Jane Hewitt. Do visit her site to be amazed.

The link will close on Monday 11th November. Do pop along through the week to see how the children are doing 100 Word Challenge

Do make sure you put a link back to here and also if you are on twitter or face book, do promote your work!

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list. I will transfer them to this page as soon as possible.

1. Every other Sunday
2. Welly Wood
3. Feet rising
4. Woof Wednesday
5. The wizard’s word
6. Fitting in
7. Alicia Audrey (Lovelylici)
8. Tangential thinking
9. Jonah
10. Puddle jumping

Make a SPECIAL Resolution!

If you are reading this, it means you have an interest in blogs. It also means you are interested in reading which means you are interested in what people write. Some of you may even leave a comment below which completes the circle.

As a writer, I know how it feels to get comments from my readers. They provide me with an opportunity to have a discussion with them, to learn their views and extend my own knowledge. All writers want their work read.

Imagine now how it must feel to be a child who maybe finds writing difficult but who has managed to produce a short piece of writing that has been posted on the class blog. You could make a huge difference by stopping, reading and leaving a comment.

The 100 Word Challenge and the 5 Sentence Challenge provide the vehicle for both writer and reader. As the children only have to write 100 words, it encourages those reluctant writers to have a go whilst challenging the able scribes to be circumspect with their words.

As a member of Team100, you will be given a maximum of 10 posts to comment on each week. Having a few words of encouragement from someone outside of school has been shown to make a HUGE difference not only to the quality of their writing but also to children’s confidence and motivation in many aspects of school work.

The Word Challenges are really having an impact in classes across the world. Do visit 100wc.net and read all the tabs to see comments from children and teachers on how much your comments mean!

This can be one resolution that will really make the New Year great. After all, IT’S ONLY 100 Words!

Get in touch via a comment below or tweet me @theheadsoffice

or send an email but 

DO IT!

#Nurture1213

This hash tag is being attached to a series of blogs -12 highlights of 2012 and 13 hopes for 2013.

HIGHLIGHTS:The year was a very busy one for me and my family so these highlights are in no order of priority

1. Reaching 60 and celebrating with family and friends. It has always seemed a BIG number and one that would signal a huge life change but it didn’t and hasn’t. I’m a member of the ’60 is the new 40′ club!
2. Discovering I was going to be a grandma. I was really surprised so may not have reacted in the expected way of tears. I just said ‘goodness!’
3. Becoming a grandma. We knew it was going to be a ‘pink’ one but had no idea of a name. My first cuddle with Brontë Matilda was very special.
4. Being recognized for my governance work by the Local Authority. I have been on several governing bodies and have often felt that I could have done a better job so being told that is not the case was very pleasing.
5. Visiting New York! It was an amazing experience ( see New York) and has given me an appetite and the confidence to go further afield again. There is a lot of world out there!
6. Vising the United Nations whilst in New York. It was a very moving experience.
7. The success of the Word Challenges. Yes – there is a group now – 100WC, 5SC, 100wcCymru. It was brilliant when 100WC was voted runner-up in the Education Blog Awards and it is all down to the hard work of the teachers and my wonderful Team100 who do the commenting!
8. Making contact with my brother after 30 years. The split is a long story but involves the death of a parent and a will. I understand that many families have similar tales to tell. Luckily, thanks to Skype we have made a good start at rolling back the years.
9. Having tea at the Ritz – a birthday present from my son and and daughter-in-law.
10. Seeing the Olympic flame go past. It was early in the torch relay and it really got me in the mood for what was to come.
11. The whole Olympic experience right from watching game of football between Egypt and Brazil, the opening ceremony, the Paralympics (we got tickets!), the stadium and all those wonderful Games Makers. It was tremendous and proved me so wrong! When it was announced that London had won the 2012 games,I groaned! I was a bit embarrassed at our bit at the end of the Beijing Games but I needn’t have worried!
12. The Diamond Jubilee. Events have gone on throughout the year but the week-end of celebrations made me glad to be a Brit!

HOPES: looking through this ‘to do’ list, there is a thread in many – time management! Interesting because that was something that was often on my ‘to do’ lists as a head!

1. Learn to relax more. When I retired my husband wanted me to have a balanced life. Being a head teacher had made that virtually impossible so I have really tried to put ‘none’ pressure things into each day. So far, that has been a #fail.
2. Exercise more regularly. We have a treadmill at home so there is no excuse. It is linked to that one above really!
3. Read more of the books I put birthday and Christmas lists!
4. Get the piano out. When I retired, the only thing I had on my list was ‘learn to play the piano. We bought an electric piano which I’m ashamed to say has been in it’s bag waiting to be played. I did have a little go but was not in the right frame of mind. Now, the mind is OK but I don’t have the time!!
5. Blog more. I have 6 blogs (!) but only 3 are for my writing. One is where you find yourself now. Another is ‘Julia’s Notes’ which is a space for me to post my entries for 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups (see 100WCGU) plus those for other writers who do not have blogs. The other is ‘The Head’s Office’. It was set up for my ‘professional’ scribblings but I have ignored it to a great extent this year. I shall attempt to rectify this asap!
6. Drink more water.
7. Stop thinking of going on a slimming diet to lose weight. I lose weight when I am calm and happy. Simples!
8. Extend the influence of 100 Word Challenge. It clearly is having a great impact on writing and I want more children to have the opportunity to take part.
9. Closely linked with no.8 is the need to greatly increase the number of people involved in commenting both on 100WC and 5SC
10. Take more care when tweeting! I love twitter but sometimes my enthusiasm gets the better of me and my fingers just run away with themslves! This results in dreadful typing errors which is not good when tweeting as The Head’s Office!
11. Speaking of social media, I must get to grips with Face Book. I have an account and 3 pages but do not really understand what I’m supposed to do! Twitter is immediate and there. Somehow FB needs more patience and moving around!
12. Do more living in the moment rather than worrying about the future and thinking about the past.
13. Get more music into my life. I want to join a choir but that is proving difficult at the moment. I do need to play more music in the house though. I will often choose the TV as background noise or silence. that is going to change!