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An ex-Principal of mine (Prue Kelly at Wellington High School) used to start the 1st Teacher Only Day of the year saying that it had been a great year. By setting that expectation from the start we just had the ‘simple’ task of proving her right. I am facing a year looking completely full of awesome (yes in the true sense of the word: reverence, fear et al) challenges:

• 2nd year of Hobsonville Point Secondary School so double the students and extra staff on board
• Core eFellowship which ends by presenting our findings in the Research Strand at ULearn15
• Co-managing the New Zealand Geography Olympiad team at iGeo in Russia
• A range of conference presentations lined up

All of these whilst focusing on the 3 goals that my Principal (and 2014 Critical Friend) Maurie Abraham set for me at the end of last year. Note the influence of Ewan McIntosh on Maurie with the goal framing starting with How Might Steve – a more personalised Design Thinking approach to setting goals:

• How Might Steve create processes and systems that enable him to feel more organised?
• HMS maintain his focus on his learners and his responsibilities while pursuing his own PL opportunities.
• HMS lead his Hub in a way that strengthens powerful partnerships between his kids and their learning and with their whanau.

So, how to achieve all of this whilst maintaining great home/work balance (especially after such an amazing summer with my family)? Taking inspiration from Philippa Nicoll Antipas (@AKeenReader) I am also setting an overarching Word for the year. For me it has to be:

STRATEGIC

The first strategic step was signing up for #28DaysofWriting – see Tom Barrett’s launching post here or just follow the posts on twitter. What better way to kickstart my year from a summer of reading into a year of strategic action. 28 days of writing for 28 minutes a day. Developing a habit of writing, one day at a time, bring it on!

So, easy to say now that 2015 will be a good year. Much harder to follow through on. I have some great opportunities coming up though so it has great potential. With my word Strategic and my 3 How Might Steve goals in place I feel confident saying 2015 WAS a great year (now just to make it happen!).