The Bees
These are the bees that are colonising our gutters.
Thought for the week
Seen on a Church notice board on my route into work… Make prayer a first priority and not a last resort
The Final Chapter…
Next week I shall be starting my last job in teaching. I have been a teacher since 1990. In the years in between I have worked in a variety of High Schools. I have worked with some wonderful teachers and wonderful people, people I have been proud to call colleagues and in many cases friends.
New Year thoughts
On Sunday 29th December I took a service at Brighouse Central Methodist Church. Our theme was the journeys of Joseph, drawing parallels between Joseph of the Old Testament and Joseph who was betrothed to Mary. We reflected on the fact that, despite their uncertain futures, they were able to put their trust in God and step out in faith.
In our reflections on this we considered two well known poems that can remind us that life’s challenges are resolved in God’s time and not our own, and also that when facing these challenges we are not on our own.
The poems are included below:
For all that you have done – Rend Collective
This is the file for Sunday 29th December 2019…
The journey continues
Well, the journey continues. After 5 years as a Methodist Local Preacher ‘On Trial’, the finish line beckons. All the work has now been submitted and, barring re-submission being required, I await the results. It has been a long journey, with more than its fair share of ups and downs. Studying has been hard in the midst of a busy family life and considerable turmoil in my career. I’ve also had a significant period of ill health to contend with. However, I can see the hand of God alongside me during those difficult times, picking me up when needed. I have now my final assessed service and an interview at the Local Preachers meeting to look forward to, followed by approval (or otherwise) at the next circuit meeting. Of course, the journey goes on. This is not the beginning of ministry, nor the end but merely a significant staging post…
A Prayer for the Day
Lord Jesus I pray, Be with me this day, In all I do or say, That I may walk in Your Way. C Partington 2019
Searching…………..
Well – an eventful few months! Despite being really keen to make the rest of my time at the school a positive and constructive one, in early December 2017 I succumbed to a bout of depression. Thinking back the signs had been there for much of the previous year but you know how it is – you try and keep going. I actually went to the doctors with another complaint but he asked me some questions about underlying issues and, to his credit, he recognised what was happening before it got any more serious or even terminal. Whilst feeling ‘depressed’ occasionally in the past I had never had such a period of poor productivity at work before. Teaching was fine, at least I think it was and all my observations were ‘Good’ but in the periods in between teaching, when I couldn’t rely on 28 years of experience, I really…
Leaving…….
Secondary education seems to be going through a change that mirrors much of what happened in post-16 education some years ago. Rigorous targets and an over-reliance on data whilst being justifiable in some abstract sense, fail to ask the question of the value of any data where the data is arrived at by teachers whose continued employment depends on the data. Have we really reached that Orwellian world where pupils and staff are no longer people with personalities but merely numbers or figures in a graph? We are in an age where graduates are encouraged, even bribed by a hefty bursary, to enter teaching but then face a job with little support from the tier of middle management above who have been ripped out and discarded in order to meet budgetary targets. Not surprisingly many of the new recruits are leaving the profession as soon as they have completed the…