Christmas letter 2009

Rose and Alice’s move from learner drivers to fully fledged car owners (shared Fiat Punto) was one of the major features of this year. Chris did most of the driving practice. I wasn’t deemed to be calm enough to accompany them in the early stages. We all coped really well; Alice got out of the car and refused to drive any further at a junction in Selby with me and Rose refused to go out with Chris for at least a week after he had the temerity to pass comment on a manoeuvre or two.

At Easter we went on a family holiday to the Red Sea with a tiring day trip to Cairo to see the antiquities museum, the Pyramids and the Sphinx. The snorkelling was wonderful, but not quite as exciting as the traffic in Cairo.
After Easter, we started on a tour of University Open Days. To be honest I think I was more interested in having an opportunity to check out the competition than the girls were. Rose and Alice’s UCAS forms are now in. Rose has applied for accountancy at East Anglia, York, Sheffield, Northumbria and Hull. Alice has applied for deferred entry to study Chemical Engineering at UCL, Newcastle, Nottingham, Herriot Watt and Aston. We liked Herriot Watt; Alice said it was like having a University at Harewood House (except near Edinburgh), which is a large country house and estate just to the north of Leeds (where the north of England red kite release has been carried out).
In the summer, Jack went on a School outdoor activities holiday to the Ardeche whilst Lucy chose the less active option of touring the Belgian battle fields and chocolate shops. Rose, Alice and Lucy spent a muddy weekend at Leeds Festival and apart from that we have been at home all year. Even Chris has only had his passport out to go to Egypt. He spent most of the summer re-visiting silver-spotted skipper butterfly sites on the north and south downs. We did a survey together in 1982.
We had a series of family celebrations at the end of the summer; my parent’s golden wedding anniversary, Chris’s 50th birthday and Chris’ nephew’s wedding in Ditchling. It was good to meet up with family and lovely to see the Thomas cousins monopolising the dance floor.
I went back to Newnham in September as part of Cambridge’s 800th anniversary. It was also 30 years since I first went to Cambridge. It was lovely to meet up with so many old friends and spend a night in College.
Jack and Lucy have started their GCSE courses and have also being doing their bronze Duke of Edinburgh award. Jack is helping to coach the village under 8 football team and refereeing home matches and Lucy is helping out at an after-school club at a primary school in Selby. Jack and Chris have continued their Hull season tickets. Alice has continued to work at Starbucks in the Designer Outlet and Rose works at Polo Ralph Lauren. They had a joint 18th birthday party at a Selby nightclub in November. It was lovely to see all their friends from school, stagedoor and college together.
Sadly, Rex died during the year, of heart attack we think – very quick, on his way out to the garden. After six weeks of “never going to have another dog”, Chris caved in and Ruby arrived; a Staffordshire Bull Terrier x Border Collie puppy. We need to take her to puppy training classes…

Happiness is catching

 According to Prof Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire) ‘Happiness is catching’. By making a few small changes to your behaviour you can not only improve your own state of mind but help others to be happier too. I’m going to try and follow his advice;

• Starting the day by thinking about the things that made you happy from the previous day
• Remembering to smile whilst carrying out everyday tasks such as making a cup of tea
• Carrying out small acts of kindness, such as paying someone a compliment or holding the door open for someone
• Expressing gratitude for the lucky aspects of your life, for example being in good health

See ‘Worklife Support’ blog for more information or follow Worklife support on Twitter

Positive Thinking

 I’ve been practising positive thinking this week and have already felt lots of benefits at work. It sounds very glib but once you start thinking positively you can get more work done, once you get more of the tasks on your ‘To Do’ list ticked off you feel better and the postive cycle continues. Working here in Biological Sciences isn’t a bed of roses at the moment (See BBC News Job cuts at University of Leeds 3rd June 2009) and it is easy to slip into a cycle of cynism and negative thinking. We all know that negative thinking can make you ill and add to that the continual threat of a swine flu pandemic its really important to maintain a positive outlook.

One thing to be positive about is that of the three ‘highlights’ on the University web site home page at the moment two of them are about research done in Biological Sciences.

On a personal note I lost 2lbs at Slimming World last week and if I can do the same this week I’ll be 1 stone lighter than I was 10 weeks ago.

From a family perspective all four of my teenage children are now ‘in a relationship’ on Facebook. Having been in the same relationship for 27 years I hadn’t appreciated how important the ‘relationship status’ was and, of course, had no idea that you could send and receive ‘relationship requests’

On top of all that the sun is shining today and we haven’t necessarily lost the Ashes.

University of Warwick Open day

We had a lovely day at Warwick University yesterday. I had been to the campus before for an Association of University Administrators Annual Conference (2005) and will be going again next year. The girls loved the campus and squealed with delight when they realised their chemistry 'goody bags' included a laminated periodic table. All four girls; Rose, Alice and two friends were booked on the Chemistry talks. Hannah and Sarah also went to Biology and Alice (and I) went to Engineering.

The best part of the day for me was to see so many parents out and about, enjoying a day with their teenagers. It a much more positive image of both parents and teenagers than one ever gets from news, media etc. Its also useful to for me to find out how other university degree programmes are put together.

The girls didn't seem to get as much out of the talks as they did at Hull. I think they wanted more information about what the degree programmes included rather than what careers you might go onto afterwards. They feel they are at the stage where they are trying to choose between different degrees and they need more information about what they will study if they go to a particular University. Despite that, they both came home very impressed with Warwick and wanting to know which other Universities have campuses. I've added Loughborough and Sussex to our list of places to visit which is getting longer and longer.....

Marilyn French: the author whose novel did change lives

How sad to read in the Guardian today that Marilyn French had died [obituary]. I looked out my battered copy of the 'The Women's Room'. It was easy to find between a copy of a novel by Micheal Frayn which I don't remember ever reading, and my collection of Stephen Fry novels and autobiographies. Like Kate Mosse (Guardian G2 tribute article), I first read 'The Women's Room' as an undergraduate and some of its messages have stayed with me and to a certain extent shaped my life. Mira, the central character of the novel, chooses to pursue her own academic career rather than accept the inevitable compromises of following her academic boyfriend. The ending is a very poignant picture of a solitary female academic watching a noisy family on the beach, the family of her erstwhile boyfriend. I made the opposite decision; my husband's academic career continues to prosper, I've followed him across three continents and we have a very noisy family of teenagers. I don't have any regrets 25 years after I made that first decision to follow my heart rather than my academic calling.

Conference blogging

 I had good intentions of blogging whilst at the Association of University Administrators (AUA) Annual Conference in Exeter but instead now have great admiration for anyone who manages it. I feel as if I have put a whole years staff development into one day (and given a paper of my own). All I’ve had time to do is update my twitter. I’m only finding time to blog now while I listen to the Archers (on-line) and wait for my hair to dry. It is the Gala Dinner this evening – a valuable networking session 

In case you think I’m making a bit much of the hectic schedule here it is
9.00-10.15 Writing and reviewing for publication.
10.30-11.15 Launch of the AUA CPD Framework
11.15-12.30 Pressures to succeed in a changing HE landscape
13.45-15.15 Leadership and management development for middle managers
15.30-16.00 The development of professional careers in UK Higher Education
16.00-17.30 Developing the student experience

Two more sessions tomorrow and then 6 hours in a minibus to get home. Have a happy Easter.

Relatives who fought and died in World War One

Lucy is going on a Selby High School trip to the Battlefields of WWI in May and so I spent yesterday afternoon trying to track down the burial places of her great, great uncles. My father showed me how to look up the burial sites of soldiers on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site and we also tracked down the military service records of my grandfather and Chris' grandfather on the National Archive web site

Chris' grandmother, Beatrice Gresham (nee Long) had two older brothers who died in 1916. Henry Archibald Long was 31 when he was killed in action on the Somme. His body was never found and he has no grave but his name is inscribed on the Thiepval Memorial. He died on 15th August 1916 and his younger brother, Guy Steer Long was killed in action 13 days later on 28th August. He is buried in Villers-Bretonneux Military Ceremony near Amiens (See picture Source: CWGC web site).

Both Chris and I had a grandfather who served in WW1. Chris' grandfather, Arthur Gresham Modlock was a Captain in the Royal Field Artillery and was awarded the Military Cross for his heroic service in the defence of the Messines Ridge in 1917. We even managed to find his citation in the London Gazette in May 1918.

My grandfather, George Bowcock was a Private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was awarded a number of campaign medals. George Bowcock was a butcher by trade which is presumably why he found himself in the Medical Corps.
Source: www.cwgc.org

University of Hull Open Day

It doesn't seem very long ago that I was pushing a pushchair around Bracknell but time has marched on and we have started looking at Universities because Alice and Rose will be filling out their UCAS applications in the Autumn.

I started my research a few weeks ago and found that www.opendays.com does all the hard work and provides easily searchable information on University Open Days. The University of Hull seemed to be about the first and since it is one of the closest to home we decided to book a place and take the girls and some of their friends. We went to talks on Chemistry and Engineering. Hull is ranked 11th for Chemistry in the Guardian league tables and 8th for Engineering (general) and is ranked 5th overall. We were all very impressed with the campus and the departments but it was our first Open Day.

Mothers Day, Jade Goody and smear tests

I had a vague plan to spend today being selfish and just doing what I wanted to do but being a mother doesn't allow you to cut off entirely from the responsibilities of the role.

I woke this morning to the news that Jade Goody had died from cervical cancer at the age of 27 (Radio 5Live 8am alarm) and wondered what advice I should be giving my daughters about having smear tests. Apparently in England screening starts at 25 but in Scotland and Wales it is 20 but this is under review. I recall my first test in the Doctors Surgery on Kings Parade, Cambridge when I was an undergraduate and either 20 or 21 so the advice on age of first testing must have got older rather than younger. I've never had any reason to think about it before. For myself, I've had a letter from my Primary Healthcare Trust sitting in my 'Home Pending' file since January reminding me that my next, 3 year appointment is due on 13th January 2009 so I'll be joining the queue at the surgery over the next week or so.

Ofsted Inspection

Selby High School had its Ofsted inspection yesterday and today. I spent a few hours at the weekend, and last night 'swotting-up before my interview with the HMI. I found some good advice via google e.g. from TES, from UK Governor Forum amd from some local authorities (Manchester, Swindon)

There were two governors at the meeting; our Chair and myself (Vice-Chair) and we were asked about the information that the School provided for governors and our involvement in reviewing and updating school policies. The HMI was particularly interested in the governors role in revising, reviewing and approving the School's Safeguarding Children Policy and how the School had explained the Fischer Family Trust data to the governing body. She was also interested in how the School's specialist status 'Performing Arts' has impacted on the School. We must have done quite a good job because at the feedback meeting the HMI said the "governors are effective and well informed" although this only translated into 'satisfactory'.

The full Ofsted report has now been published on the Ofsted web site.

The challenge is to improve the effectiveness of the governing body so that by the next Ofsted inspection we are ranked 'outstanding'. Quite a few local authorities have self evaluation and self review procedures for governing bodies that we could use to improve our effectiveness e.g. Lewisham. West Sussex run a course for Governors called 'From Good to Outstanding'. We would have to jump from satisfactory to outstanding but its good to be ambitious. I'm going to a governor training session on Stategic Thinking for Governing Bodies in May so the challenge is underway.