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It has become apparent during my forty five years thus far on this earth, that many personal characteristics that we carry in adulthood were imprinted upon us early in childhood. Many of our habitual patterns of behavior, temperament and emotion are ingrained and changing any of them can be quite a challenging process. I have been acutely aware of this during the first few weeks of headship.

Despite what many people may now think, as a child I did not like to be the centre of attention. I can admit to some inaccuracy within this statement however and a more truthful revision may be that I did not like to be made the centre of attention. Many people who knew me in my adolescence may comment that I looked fairly comfortable, desperately grasping it, when I felt the want!

Never was this more the case as during Advent every year at St. Benedict’s, Garforth. As a child, I had numerous roles in school plays and it is worth noting that I took as much pleasure at six years old at being ‘the back end of the donkey’ in our annual Nativity as I did the next year at seven years old as ‘the innkeeper’ and hence narrator, in a slightly more modern interpretation of the same story. In fact whilst I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as the innkeeper once the performance had successfully passed, I still have vivid memories of clammy hands, a dry mouth and an abject fear of forgetting my well-rehearsed lines and letting down my fellow third year infant thespians.

Recently at Holy Family, we have had a few events that brought back that sense of foreboding. The Year 6 Open evening and the Year 7 Mass of welcome both reminded me of my childhood reluctance to be thrust into the spotlight. On both of these occasions the preparation and effort from all staff and pupils involved were quite humbling. The school looked fantastic and the evenings were planned with military precision. As a teacher with over twenty years’ experience public speaking is not something that is usually of a concern; both of these occasions however, were different. The thoughts of wanting to eloquently describe the real ethos and values of the school to parents and visitors, to support the hard work and dedication from all colleagues and to make an appropriate and positive impression in my maiden events as Acting Head teacher reminded me of that evening as an innkeeper nearly forty years ago.

A week or so later, I can now happily reflect on the successes of both evenings. This blog offers me the opportunity to publically thank all staff, pupils and parents who were involved in both of these very special events; they were outstanding. It is evenings such as these that genuinely put ‘family’ into Holy Family Catholic School and hopefully we will enjoy many more celebratory occasions together in the future. Similarly to my time as an innkeeper, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience once the ‘performance’ had successfully passed. The only major difference was that forty years later no one squeezed my cheeks or left lipstick marks on my reddening forehead whilst telling me how proud they were of me. It may be worth mentioning at this stage, that I would be very grateful if this omission continued for the foreseeable future.