The summer period, although not a “holiday” per say for IT staff in schools, is a little bit quieter without all the staff, student and other users around requiring support.   I certainly have less meetings in the calendar and no conferences to rush off to.  Yes, there are all the upgrade and maintenance works, but I still feel it is a quieter period, and in this there is an opportunity to stop and reflect.  And so, I find myself stopping and reflecting on the fact that the end of this academic year sees me completing 10 years in my current role and at my current school.    This is the longest I have been with any organisation, and by far the longest period I have held a single job title.   

As I stop and reflect, I look back on a past blog post where I reflected on my move back to the UK in 20215, having been out in the UAE for several years.  You can see that post here.

The last ten years have presented many work-related challenges with some resulting in significant stress and others resulting in a healthy and needed level of challenge and stress.   On the more “stressy” projects or issues, I can look back and say they were resolved and life continued although at the time I was often struggling to see the way around or through the issue at hand.  Some work relationships became strained, and that’s putting it lightly.    And lets not even mention the pandemic and what was a very difficult challenging period for schools and for IT staff in schools. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that the world goes on and that things are often not as bad as they seem in the moment.  Lately I have found myself using the phrase “one foot in front of the other” or “little steps” which I feel sums up the mindset that is sometimes key in dealing with difficult issues.  I also try to consider the people side of people, processes and technology to a greater extent.  I a world of AI, maybe being human and how we interact with people is what really matters.

I need to also acknowledge my personal life hasn’t been without challenges over the last ten years, related to my children and also to the breakup of my marriage of almost 18 years.   On reflecting, and thinking about some of the issues and events, some of it is still is a bit raw and makes me feel a little emotional.   There were definitely moments where I felt lost and had no sense of how I could move forward, or even survive, however I do feel I am in a better place now and I have high hopes for what the future may hold.  My thanks go to a couple of people who leant their support and friendship including making time for a coffee (yes, I do occasionally drink coffee rather than an Irn-Bru!) and a chat, allowing me to share my struggles;  I hope you know who you are. 

When I reflected on my time in the UAE, and my move back to the UK, I commented towards a feeling of atrophy and habit being an issue, in that my work in the UAE had become routine, and that was all based on just 8 years and a number of job titles.   Thinking from where I am now, 10 years further on, and only 1 job title and school, I wonder as to whether I have been impacted by the same atrophy.   My sense is that the answer is that I haven’t and this in part lies with my work being more than just my core job, seeing me get involved with various conferences, become an ANME ambassador, a member of the Digital Futures Group and the vice chair of the ISC Digital Advisory Group, writing for EdExec Magazine and contributing to National Education Group professional development courses, as well as my involvement in the development of the ISBA digital survey for 2024, with the 2026 version already well into the preparation phase.   There are also the many conferences and events I have had the pleasure of contributing to or attending.   The various groups, and more importantly the various people I have interacted, and who share a passion for technology and its potential in education, as well as the need for education to change, have given me the variety which I feel is needed in life, challenging and encouraging me in equal measures, and also providing me the support and friendship when I have needed it most.

And then there are the amazing memories of the last ten years.    There is the formation of the Digital Futures Group (DFG) with Emma and Gemma over lunch in Amsterdam.  There is being invited to join the ISC Digital Advisory Group.    There is also the chance reconnection with Rick Cowell, who had been a previous work colleague, and the chance to contribute to the ANME as an ambassador.    A trip to speak in Venice followed by my attempted murder on the grand canal at the hands of my DFG colleagues, not to mention my first session presenting at the BETT conference. I also had the opportunity to create and manage a podcast with Ian Stockbridge, producing the In Our Humble Opinion podcast and discussing cyber security in schools. It wasn’t particularly well produced with some meandering discussion and variable length episodes but it was a lot of fun.And then there was accepting the Outstanding IT Professional award at the EduFuturists Uprising event a few weeks ago. I was so proud to be nominated alongside so many other great IT professionals, let alone to go on and win.

Personally, there was the joy of a first family holiday abroad after a period of about 10 years where we hadn’t had such a family holiday, despite actually living abroad for the majority of that time period.    There was seeing my son complete school and move on to study at college, where he has just finished and appears to have achieved some great results.   There was even the opportunity to accompany him to BETT which he was attending in relation to Esports. In more recent times I have also found myself visiting new places, or places only visited briefly for work, so spending time personally and with my new partner in Amsterdam and then in Egypt, making new memories.

This all gets me thinking about how, as humans, we have a definite tendency to overweight the bad things, remembering pain, loss, etc, while underweighting the good, often forgetting the chance encounters, the moments of laughter, etc.   Looking at this post, for example, I note how I started with the challenges rather than the positive memories.   I feel increasingly we are all generally getting that bit more negative, finding things more difficult, or at least feeling as if they are more difficult.   I think we need to be conscious of this and try to make sure we remember the good bits, maybe even making active efforts to ensure we record such events.   This makes me think of the growth and fixed mindsets;  Maybe if we have a more growth mindset and can identify our agency and ability to change things, accepting that nothing is fixed or permanent, we will be that bit more positive and happier.

Looking forward to the future I think the key thing for me, is simply to be more me.  I think the world of technology and external forces, social media, news of conflict, fake news, AI, etc, all make it more and more important for us to be true to ourselves, and to do so requires us not to look outward, but increasingly to look inward.   But also, we need to embrace the fact the human animal is still an animal and benefits from its herd, so it is also about cultivating networks of friends and colleagues such that collectively we are all better for it.   Its about those human connections.

Am not sure what I’ll be doing or writing 5 years from now, but as I look out on my garden on a sunny July 2025 day, the future looks bright.  

I hope everyone enjoys the summer period whether taking a break or whether working on the IT tasks in schools or colleges.  Make sure you find some time just to be you!