A thread for any small child parents but particularly teachers who live in half termly cycles, want their children to eat healthily but have massive imposter syndrome around all the domestic goddess stuff (like me) #MTPTproject
Tip 1: study M&S’s “taste bud” range, or equivalent high class organic ethical healthy brand. Produce yourself for cheaper and with less plastic.
Freeze at least one meal per week of each half term, in glass containers. Then you can take it straight out of the freezer and blast it in the microwave/ oven without plastic-anxiety or the need to think ahead at 6:45am.
Expose marketable vegetables like “happeas” and “sweetie corn” that you can sell to your kids at 6:30pm. HIDE other vegetables like carrot, sweet potato and parsnip in mashed potato. Pick your battles with veg. Outsmart them.
Freeze mash separately. Then you can plonk it on/ beside other stuff.
Every day is Christmas: add nutmeg to stuff. Sauces, mashed potato, stews. It makes it taste nicer. Kids like nutmeg. It’s the real reason they like Christmas.
Make a list like this and tape it somewhere. Add to it whenever you have a mealtime success/ leftovers/ moment of genius.
Commit to an afternoon of batch cooking in the holidays. God it kills me to accept that this is what my once-exciting life is reduced to but I’ll deal with that crisis once a half term rather than every week night as I scrape rejected food off the floor. The indignity.
Excellent thought inspired by @meh50187: fraternise with the nursery chef and find out their nursery favourites. If chef can make it for 50 kids and it’s purée-able for the baby’s room, it must be simple and freezable.
Taping a picture of @saysmiss’s face next to this list will complete your shrine to organisational goddess and encourage you to ask, every day: “what would Kat do?” Luckily, she’s already written a blog about it (because she’s that organised) saysmiss.wordpress.com/2019/08/09/sti…
Avoid losing your shit when this happens and it’s 33°+ because you’re spending your afternoon next to an oven. Remember that you went to Bali once when you were young and exciting and did yoga. Draw on the zen of your 26yo self.
Call things by their “proper” names so your French husband doesn’t realise you’re feeding les enfants cheddar on Hovis when he’s not around with his Michelin star rating instruction manual 🇫🇷 🍽
(There is highly pulverised courgette in here - or at least there would have been if I’d been organised enough to think of this earlier this morning but see the first tweet of this thread 🤷🏻♀️).
Do all of this whilst one child is transfixed by a yoghurt pot filled with animals and the other is napping with a sieve. Alternatively, when someone else has taken them to IKEA because they don’t know any better and you are evil and didn’t advise against it.
Add a bag of this to your grocery shopping. Sprinkle cheese on everything and use words like “meaty” and “cheesy” and “gooey” to make stuff sound more appealing.
Listen to an audiobook/ podcast/ @BBCRadio4/ a symphony whilst you’re doing this so your mind can wander in a happy place rather than fixate on domestic drudgery if, like me, the angel in the house and all that jazz is not really your thing.
Ask important freezer capacity questions like “wtf do you intend on doing with your octopus, cherie?” BEFORE cooking 5 containers’ worth of toddler food.
Pretty sure this just means “pasta with oil” 🤷🏻♀️ 🇮🇹 🍝
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- Improving quality of T&L in the department by mentoring, planning, being generally "good" and taking on tasks that needed to be taken on (once I was a KS3 lead, once I line managed the librarian).
- Doing whole school T&L research... 1/
@AbbyMorris_1 ... projects on homework, memory, sets - presenting the evidence to SLT, making suggestions and then delivering whole school / middle leader CPD on it.
- Taking on half of the ITT role, managing mentors, delivering trainee CPD, observing, doing the reports, being the uni link 2/
@AbbyMorris_1 - Coaching middle leaders through curriculum design in response to the new Ofsted criteria - meetings and stuff.
- Supporting teachers that needed to improve their practice with observations, feedback, 1:1 mentoring and coaching.
“I find the school holidays really hard and then feel instantly guilty because I *should* be grateful for all this precious time with my children.”
Oh guys, I feel you. Here’s some survival tips… 🧵 1/
I am someone who needs structure. Many teachers are. Children also need structure and routine. So make yourself a holiday timetable! Great for slightly older children who love to know what’s coming next 2/
Timetable that works for me: one activity a day, usually in the morning, with one adventure (think: school trip) a week / fortnight. Many of these activities are also fun for me *or* involve somewhere to sit where I can do something for myself, normally with coffee 3/
My children know another big change is coming. They are resilient but change is hard. So I've set up my work desk in their room so I can be there when they go to sleep (everything is scary at bed time at the mo). Currently my 6yo is "just doing a bit of yoga before sleeping".
Tactically ignoring my youngest who has slipped off the bed in quite beautiful slow motion over the last 5 minutes and is now underneath it.
We are asleep. Repeat: we are asleep. Just 2 hours after they actually went to bed. I have the Korean Tea Ceremony music to thank for this.
Chapter 1’s heading is a quote from Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE, a space scientist and host of @BBCStargazing. You probably already know her because you have a telly. I don’t have a telly. But she looks awesome AND she’s a mum! I’m inspired #BlackGirlMagic
Here is one of the authors @yomiadegoke - award winning journalist. She’s not even 30 and she is storming. Can’t wait to get her face up in my classroom - perfect opportunity with some non-fiction units next half term. I’ll start trawling through her work! #BlackGirlMagic