Hi there!
Two weeks, two very different vantage points. The first was all process - minutes, meetings, marking, the granular grind of getting things done. The second pulled back for the wider view. Funny how often the small stuff has to break before you remember to look up.
I finally closed out the AI working group meetings and sat down to write up the minutes: four or five sessions; sixteen people; a sprawl of ideas, contradictions and half-formed good intentions - all to be compressed into something coherent. I enjoy this part more than I probably should - taking the mess of a real conversation and finding the shape inside it. It’s actually pretty similar to how I now write the weeknotes. The next step is to create the first draft of the actual policy from the headings we agreed. Multiple asynchronous meetings seemed a crazy, but essential thing to do but it worked out well because the discussions were focused and I listened closely to everyone’s input. Communication was once again key: that turned out to be the theme of the whole week, though I didn’t know it yet.
Because the week also offered the opposite. I’d arranged to meet my friend Jean for coffee and, through a combination of my poor planning (not checking that the name of the cafe had changed, nor sending a location) and a communication failure on both sides, I found myself finishing my coffee and my cake while still waiting for her to arrive. We managed a short catch-up once she did, and we agreed that next time we’ll meet at a known location first and walk to the cafe together.
The weekend had begun in Glasgow, my first project standardisation meeting as a senior marker. It was genuinely good. The team got on well and we agreed clear standards for the coming five day central marking event in Edinburgh. While my partner didn’t come down with me this time (as she supported my son through his first Higher exams on the Friday and then accompanied him down to Edinburgh for a university offers day), I managed to grab lunch with my daughter as a break from the final assessments of her degree. Later we managed another meet up and walk along the river before we both headed in different directions home.
A few days later, after my miscommunication mishaps with Jean, I headed to Edinburgh to begin marking Advanced Higher projects. Something went wrong in our preparation and as a result we were myopic: spending close to five hours marking a single project. As the week continued, the mental drain increased and I was demoralised. However, the team listened to a few good ideas from experienced markers, met again to analyse the bigger picture and agreed a clear way forward. I have never been so happy to see the pace pick up and the fog lift. But it was a hard reminder: a process is only ever as good as the communication underneath it and, if the process ends up tying people in knots trying to apply it correctly, it’s too complex.
The marking process certainly improved as the approach was clarified, but I still came home on the Sunday genuinely wrung out.
Paying attention
The five days finished. Monday was a holiday, which helped, though even it carried a little work: I’d booked an online meeting with a financial adviser to make further sense of my teacher’s pension.
It was genuinely one of the most useful hours I’ve spent in a long time. I finally understand the statement that lands each year and have always half-ignored, and I came away reassured about my options for the years ahead. I’ve since shared this knowledge many times with my colleagues and I was pleased to learn it wasn’t just me who didn’t fully understand something which plays such a fundamental part in our future quality of life.
That evening the three of us watched Nick Mohammed’s stand-up, built around the repeated instruction to pay attention. My son did, and called the ending before it arrived. I noted the phrase down as I collated the events of the week, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It’s not a bad rule for most things really.
I put it to use on Wednesday at the Unfiltered coffee morning at One Tech Hub, shamefully my first of 2026. I paid attention, decided it wasn’t giving me much this time and ducked out early. The slower walk back to school enjoying my surroundings and thoughts was worth more than the rest of the morning.
There’s a film about a world too busy to look up at the thing hurtling towards it. While mine wasn’t an extinction-level event, just a blizzard of small stuff, the lesson rhymed: take time to glance up before you lose sight of everything.
Zooming out
The most rewarding work of the fortnight wasn’t really teaching at all. My colleague Dave and I built a sports day app to replace a spreadsheet that had been creaking along for over a decade. Building the app together was genuinely good fun, and the moment we realised it all actually worked was immensely satisfying. Needless to say, the PE department loved it, and it opens up ways to share the day with parents and students.
I also pulled together a report for the senior management team on the Computing Science curriculum across the school. When paired with Dave’s updated report on infrastructure it explains the wider digital architecture and points to our direction of travel.
Not everything survived the fortnight. Mark and I ran an online Q&A for the slimmed-down Teacher Experience scheme, and nobody came. We took the empty room as a sign and shuttered the scheme until next session. There was no anger or upset, and it gave us more time to work on our other projects. Much better to let something end cleanly rather than dragging on.
The macro zoom came on Friday: lunch with my partner and my son at Dr Noodles. Time where we just focused on what was happening in each other’s lives. I mentioned in a previous weeknote that I was unsettled about how quickly everything was changing. Well, everything else can move as fast as it likes - that hour didn’t.
This fortnight reminded me that the granular stuff matters enormously right up until the moment you realise that you need to look up. Pay attention.
Thanks for reading Caffeine Tangent! This post is public so feel free to share it.
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