Teach Middle East Podcast
Welcome to the Teach Middle East Podcast, the ultimate audio hub where educators find inspiration, share innovative ideas, and grow together! Brought to you by Moftah Publishing—the minds behind the premier Teach Middle East Magazine—this podcast is your gateway to the latest research-based practices, cutting-edge classroom strategies, and the heartwarming stories of educators from the Middle East and around the globe.
As the only podcast that interviews school leaders from across the Middle East and beyond, we offer unparalleled insights into the challenges and successes that shape educational landscapes in diverse settings. Join us as we dive deep into the fascinating world of education, where every episode promises a treasure trove of insights designed to connect, develop, and empower the brilliant minds shaping our future. Whether you’re seeking fresh perspectives, practical tips, or a dose of inspiration, the Teach Middle East Podcast is your must-listen resource. Tune in and transform the way you teach!
Teach Middle East Podcast
From Pharmacy to School Leadership: A Conversation with Gillian Hammond
Gillian Hammond’s journey from a rural childhood to becoming the principal of Repton in Dubai exemplifies the twists and turns of a fulfilling educational career. The conversation delves into her personal and professional development, focusing on creating an engaging and supportive school environment.
• Early creative influences from family and nature
• Transitioning from pharmacy to teaching
• Experiences in civil service and fraud investigation
• The impact of international teaching
• Leadership philosophy centred on student enjoyment
• Building a supportive school culture for staff and students
• Unique aspects of boarding life at Repton
• Trust and professional growth in educational leadership
• Importance of self-care and work-life balance
• Recommended books and podcasts for inspiration
Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need, to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.
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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson
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Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome to the Teach Middle East podcast. My name is Lisa Grace. Today I have Miss Gillian Hammond on the podcast. She is the principal of Repton, dubai, but she's also the chief education officer for her group, and so I'm going to be diving in to a little bit more than just the professional, a little bit into the personal, because this is behind the principal's desk where we get to learn about the person in the role, and so it is my pleasure to welcome you to the podcast, gillian.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much, Lisa. It's great to be here with you. I literally am behind my desk, so you're very welcome.
Speaker 2:We're going to get to know who Gillian is and where it all began. Gillian, this is my new favorite question to ask. Tell me about little Gillian growing up. What was she like and what did she get up to?
Speaker 3:So little. Gillian grew up in a part of Lancashire that was very rural and had lots of countryside everywhere, so I was able to walk myself to and from my primary school. That would take about 15 minutes. I would always take longer going home. I would stop off at the park and there was a lot of tree climbing and playing in the woods and forests and building bivouac dens and falling in the river. I've done that quite a few times as little Jillian and I then joined the Brownies and then the Girl Guides and became obsessive about getting the badges on my uniform and doing all of the different challenges that we had to do for that and camping and all sorts of things.
Speaker 3:But I had my grandfather was a great painter and so him and I would do a lot of painting together as well. So I don't consider myself artistic anymore. I don't get involved so much anymore, but I really enjoyed doing that with him. That was a bit of an outlet for me and I found I really did like painting with oil paints and watercolors. So yeah, that was Little Gillian. What was Little Gillian painting? I actually got into the newspaper with one picture and it was a flower scene. It was roses. But my granddad and I really loved painting, drawing and then painting different birds, different quite close up bird scenes and you know myself and our family members all still have pictures around the houses that my granddad had done and they're very fond memories for me now. I was very proud of doing that with him at the time. It was quite different to what a lot of my friends were doing.
Speaker 2:It's funny, the things we remember, you know. Sometimes you think it's the massive things, but it really isn't. It's just the little things that join us together as family or friends, the little bonding moments, things like painting or walking or running in the park and that type of thing. So you stayed in Lancaster, obviously for your child, but when did you leave and why did you leave?
Speaker 3:So I left Lancashire first, probably when I went off to university and I went off to Nottingham to study chemistry university.
Speaker 3:And I went off to Nottingham to study chemistry and I loved it because when I chemistry it had never been a childhood dream to become a chemist. But in year 10, when I was in high school, we had to go on work placements and I always remember them telling me that my work placement was going to be in a hairdresser's and I said to them and my family but I'm not interested in going into becoming a hairdresser, it's not, I'm not artistic that way, it's not an interest of mine or a profession I want to go into. And they said well, that's what it is. Unless you find another one, that's where you're going. So my aunt was a manager in a local pharmacy and Auntie Rini was able to persuade them to give this year 10 girl 14, turning 15, a two week work placement and so I worked there and I stacked shelves and I cleaned and I put prices on things and then towards the end of that practice I was allowed to be in the dispensary with the pharmacist and started helping doing certain tasks there. And it led on to all of my holidays and every Saturday and a half an hour shift on a Sunday, which was interesting, and that was just to open up the pharmacy just for the local police station to fill their prescriptions. And it was something I did then all through my college days and even during the school holidays when I was at university. So that gave me the taste, for I want to become a pharmacist. That's what I wanted.
Speaker 3:So I left Lancashire when I went off to Nottingham to study chemistry and I loved it and I had a wonderful experience and one of the memories that sticks out there is doing a lot of organic chemistry but then being sent off to what we were told would be bucket chemistry, and it literally was. It was taking it from a small scale in the lab into a factory size and upscaling that. So we were literally dealing with chemicals on a bucket size and trying to make sure that we were doing that accurately. So it were literally dealing with chemicals on a bucket size and trying to make sure that we were doing that accurately. So it was a great practice. I did some research into asthma and unfortunately I became a little bit disenfranchised with it. I started to realize the money that pharmaceutical companies were making by selling common cold remedies that I thought a lot of these things could be cured actually, but we wouldn't want to do that because there's too much money to be made and I became really disenfranchised with it and I was opposed to the animal testing and I didn't know what I wanted to do then at that point and I was very for.
Speaker 3:Again, through family, my mom has been, or was, a civil servant all her life, so she worked for the government in the Department of Civil Service and actually through contacts there, I became and this was fantastic actually I became an assistant inspector on a fraud team for national insurance so different and I did that for just over two years and I loved it. Lisa, I had the best team that I worked for. We were working for companies and for employees who had paid over their national insurance but then retired and the company hadn't passed it on to the government. So it was a fraud scheme, or it was what we would call collusive employers, so it was people opting not to pay national insurance so they weren't being registered properly with their employers and then they wouldn't have a pension at the end of it because they didn't have sufficient contributions. So it was really interesting. We recouped. I was part of a team that recouped over in one year £3 billion worth of national insurance and we were on truck stops with the police and we raided premises and went and collected the books and the accounts and it was fascinating.
Speaker 3:So I would very often be out on a highway with a high vis jacket and hard boots and I loved it. I did that for two years and then my family kept giving me stick and was saying you know, you're not going to earn much more than you are now in the civil service. It's a dead-end job really. Do you really want to be a civil servant for the rest of your life? You're not using your chemistry. What are you going to do? So I applied one to become a teacher. I submitted an application and I submitted an application to the police and I then got to the point where I had to make a choice, and I am so grateful that I made the choice I did because I sincerely have loved my career and I still love my career now, so I feel blessed.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine being a police officer?
Speaker 3:career now. So I feel blessed. Can you as a police officer? You see, I as a chemist as well. I like rules, I like regime. I kind of need organization in my life. I can be quite. I like things in their place and organized and um, yeah, I I thought it would be some. I felt like I could make a contribution to the community in doing that. Um, but and it was a tough decision ultimately when I was offered both. So, but I'm so grateful that I went the direction that I did. It's interesting.
Speaker 2:You know how our paths are so winding, and. But it all adds up to a rich tapestry and it all gets, you know, used at some point in our lives. So where did you start your teaching career then?
Speaker 3:So, I remember doing my work placements. So obviously when you're doing your degree to become a teacher you have to do two work placements, and I again used contacts. I wanted to do two very different work practices work placements. I was a little bit older than my peers because I'd worked for a couple of years as well before going back to university. So I was a little bit more assertive and knew what I wanted to do than some of my peers. And I managed to get one of my placements in a special needs school in St Helens. And boy did I learn classroom pedagogy there, because the challenges that we face day in, day out, you know, we regularly had to do student restraints to keep, you know, maintain safety. I remember taking a group of students pond dipping as their science teacher, and the head teacher said to me nobody's ever dared take these students out and do that, are you sure? And I did it. I was adamant that we could broaden horizons for these students. So I started to get a real love for special education as well.
Speaker 3:And then my second placement was in an inner city school in Magul, and it was at Magul High School and I loved it. It was a school year, seven through to sixth form eventually. That I helped set up and I was there seven years and I loved that school. So I had my placement there and then, as I was leaving, they were advertising for a science teacher and I was like I have to get this job.
Speaker 3:And I still remember it was those days, lisa you'll remember, when all candidates would sit in the staff room and wait for the decision to be made and they would tell you on the spot doesn't happen. These days you go home and you have to wait. But I remember the head of science walking into the staff room and there were five of us and obviously I'd worked with this lady and done my eight-week block practice with her and her department and I really wanted this job. And she walked in and she said you know, it's been a very difficult decision and I started feeling faint. She said, gillian, we're going to offer you the job. So I was elated and I stayed seven years and.
Speaker 3:I. Whilst I was there, I had the opportunity to help set up the sixth form there and to make changes there, and, yeah, I loved it. Seven years was a great learning path for me and a great place to do my NQT, so yeah, and so your journey to international teaching.
Speaker 2:How did that transition happen? Because I'm interested, great question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. So I love travel. That is something I'm really passionate in and I really wanted to keep exploring different education systems as well. And I saw that there would be you know the tests. It used to be the newspaper Lisa I'm not old, be left in the staff room, it'd be pinned up. And I saw that there was an international section. It had never occurred to me and I kind of was growing out of the county that I was living in as well. It's really quiet. There was not a train system really there. You had to drive to the nearest biggest cities and I was restless.
Speaker 3:And I saw a job advertised in Italy and, as we used to have family holidays there, I had very fond memories and it was in an international school in Italy and I met with the principal in London, got the job and I agreed that I would go for one year and I went to support in modeling department heads roles in around managing budgets and performance, management of staff and monitoring the curriculum and lesson observations. And so I went and worked with a gentleman called Jonathan Pram and his amazing team up there and I loved that this school. It was FS all the way through to year 13. And attached to it we shared a canteen with an old age pensioners home. So there was residential living there for the eldest in the community and I loved how connected we were as this family, this community, a lot of Italian, predominantly Italians, but a lot of expats as well, and that for me was just. I adored it. Um, but it was when I left McGill. The senior leadership team asked me to meet with them before I left because they thought I was crazy. They actually said to me I was ruining my career and I shouldn't do it. And if I go abroad, they wanted me to promise them I would only go for a year. And so I believed them at the time. I believe that that was true.
Speaker 3:And so after the year that I'd agreed with Jonathan Cram at this international school in Turin, I came back and I worked for Belvedere Academy, and Belvedere in Liverpool was a GDST girls school private, independent, fee paying girls school and we converted it into it was of national interest. Actually we converted it into a non fee paying, paying, non-entrance exam all girls academy and it really opened up some doors for some of the girls in that inner city area of Prince's Park in Liverpool and I had three very, very good years enjoying myself with working with Belvedere, and then I went down to Brighton into a school in special measures. I was part of a brand new SLT team that a principal had been tasked to form, philomena Hogg, who became my mentor, and I worked there and we managed to get the school out of special measures and we were delighted with the outcome of the Ofsted inspection and Phil, the principal I'd worked with, philomena retired and we were all saying, yeah, she's not ready for retirement. And the next thing I knew she'd come out to Abu Dhabi and she'd come out as a consultant for ADEC and I got a call from her.
Speaker 3:I'd done three and a half years at that school Brighton Aldridge Community Academy and I got a call from her in the November. I'll never forget it. And she said, gillian, I need you to come and help me with the behavior of these boys. And so she was struggling implementing behavior systems in this school and asked would I come out? And so I got permission from the chair of the governors, sir Rod Aldridge, that I could come out in the January of that following year. So that was my start of falling in love with the UAE back in 2018. So I joined a GEMS school in Abu Dhabi and never looked back really on my UAE journey.
Speaker 2:Wow. So somehow I thought you were out here before 2018. I don't know why that came to my head. No, you're right.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I have just it was 2014. You're right with GEMS. It's, you're right. I'm saying that wrong. It's 2018, january 2018 with Repton. You're right. Thank you for reminding me.
Speaker 2:OK, because I'm like in my head I'm going. I know I'm sure I knew you before that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're spot on. Well done, yeah, 2014 with GEMS, and then I was 2018 with Repton, abu Dhabi.
Speaker 2:So, over those years, what do you think has kept you going? What's the guiding philosophy, what's the guiding principle?
Speaker 3:I say this all the time, I say it to you know, the staff and parents, and then even new prospective parents. My personal vision being in a school is very, very simple. I want students to love coming to school every day. Now, that takes a lot and that is that whole rounded holistic education. It is the children feeling part of something, that they belong, that they are loved and cared for and protected and safe, that they see that they can achieve their aspirations and their dreams, that they're being given drive, that they make friends, that we open doors, that we create experiences for them. I want them to be excited about education and to love coming to school every day. And we see that and we hear it anecdotally. Our parents tell us that children, even though they're sick, want to come into school because they don't want to miss it and they enjoy it. And that is my personal vision. Constantly, I want us all if I can get staff to love coming to work that's also a benefit. That would be amazing. It doesn't always happen. It's a job and you know some, but predominantly we have a long. Our staff give us long tenure. We have some veterans here who have been here now 17 years. It's we wear our service badges with pride and I've handed out 37 badges to staff who've been here more than 15 years. So we've got veterans in Repton and it's because it is a great place to work. Our Reptonians are incredible, our values are spot on, we believe, and the experiences that we then share as a Repton family mean that you commit.
Speaker 3:I've been with Repton seven years now and I want to get out of bed every day to come in and make that difference For me personally as a principal. I love the variety of the work. I'm sat here behind the principal's desk. That's what this podcast is about. I never know what's going to come in every day and even as much as you think you've planned in advance. You plan the calendar very carefully. My PA helps me plan the scheduling and diary very carefully. All of those things have to be dropped sometimes and honestly, I love that aspect of it. If I'm honest and in every scenario, I will prioritize the children in those instances, and then staff and then the parents, and it kind of goes in that that pecking order, and I I value the support we have from our parent community. They're very, very supportive and I only need to pick up the phone or I'm on a WhatsApp group with the friends of Repton and we do feel like a family, and so if you're not here and you're not putting your best in, then you feel like you're letting family members down. So I think that's what keeps me going.
Speaker 3:We want to be world-class. We are outstanding. We've been outstanding for a decade now. We've loved to celebrate that and I think once you hit that threshold, we discussed it at length. What's next? And we say, well, we've got to be outward, looking to find other things that will keep challenging us and stretching us. So looking at blockchain and cryptocurrency and all of these things with our students. So, yeah, I love the challenge and the variety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Repton is a bit unique, especially your campus in Dubai, because it's a boarding campus as well. Tell me what's boarding like there.
Speaker 3:It's amazing because I'm a boarding campus as well. Tell me what's boarding like there.
Speaker 2:It's amazing because I'm a boarding person. I used to go to boarding school so I'm like what is boarding like in Dubai?
Speaker 3:So this might bring some memories back for you then. So yeah, we're the largest campus in the UAE. It is vast. When I do my campus checks and tours, I wear sportswear on those days, I book in my tours with the facilities team and I wear my sportswear on those days. We have two boarding houses. I call them my boarding babies.
Speaker 3:We have 101 boarders, so we have a girls and a boys boarding house and they are such an integral part of our community I will see them going up to sit onto the first floor very soon for their end of day snacks and what have you. We have onsite kitchens that are like hotel kitchens underground and chef and his team produce the most amazing meals for them every day, and we obviously benefit from that as our catering provider then as well, and he provides all of the packed lunches and snack boxes and does the catering for our inset days. So we're very fortunate. But the boarding really create this. It's almost a homely feel on the campus, because if we have rains or there are problems with weather or electricity or my first thought goes to are the boarding babies okay? Have they got everything they need? Does AC still work? What's our backup plans for them and so we are open 100% of the time. So you know, when you see schools closing because of different things that are going on with weather and different problems that they might be having, we've said to parents we will be open all the time. You don't need to ask us that question. You don't need to worry. We're going to be here whether we have to kayak in or not, and we literally myself and the SLT make sure that we watch these events happening very closely.
Speaker 3:We make sure we get here because we have students here all of the time so they create a real dynamism of the time, so they create a real dynamism about the place I think there are often. Many of them are leaders and they fully engage with all of the activities and bring a lot along of their peers as well. It means that we provide an opportunity to students overseas who perhaps might not have had the opportunity here. So parents place their students here because it can be quite a good central point for parents if they travel a lot because of their work. We also have a tennis academy here, the Emilio Sanchez Tennis Academy, so we're going to have a Reptonian who's a Wimbledon champion and you know those students have come specifically because they can live here and attend the tennis academy before school and after school hours as well, because their ambition is to play at Wimbledon. So it means that you know that it goes hand in hand. Really, it provides an amazing opportunity for students who perhaps might not have been able to come and join us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you're talking about like the chef, and I'm like I bet this was not like a Church of England boarding school all girls boarding school that I went to I promise you that was. There was no chef there. There was a lady who cooked and sometimes she cooked stuff that we couldn't eat. So let's just be honest.
Speaker 3:It's not the same. No, I can imagine. And chef has a rolling menu of different cuisine, so he'll do, you know, Chinese food one night, indian food another night, african another night, and it's brilliant. And so when we did our staff inset, we themed the days as well, and that's what we we were able to enjoy. And the last Friday of every month, on a Friday, as one of our well-being initiatives, we as a staff member, as a staff body, we sit and have lunch together as well, the last Friday of every month, on a Friday, as one of our well-being initiatives, we, as a staff member, as a staff body, we sit and have lunch together as well, the last Friday of every month, which is lovely.
Speaker 2:Let's just say Repton is boarding 3.0, the advanced version. That's not your regular, but it's not, it's definitely not Probably not, probably not.
Speaker 2:That's not irregular, but it's not. It's definitely not. So tell me then, gillian, when you look at your obviously very long and interesting career not long by age, but long because you varied it so much you know some chemistry here, some insurance fraud detection there, some special education needs over there and some teaching over here, and then some leadership all in the mix what do you love most about your role? So I'm talking about you, not your school and not not the job, but what do you love about your, your influence, that you can?
Speaker 3:have and make. So if you do it right, you not only provide incredible opportunities for the students but you develop internal staff talent who want to stay, who stay, and you also have opportunities and move on and demonstrate that lifelong learning journey and growth journey to students as well, and I think that's really impactful. And I think the thing that I'm most proud about my career thus far besides the students and what the school has achieved and all of those things is that my senior leadership teams have all progressed in their jobs, in their roles and in their career and we've done that with our middle leaders. We've replicated that. So I believe in distributed leadership. We have 72 middle leaders at this school because we distribute it out.
Speaker 3:And in my two previous Repton schools, my vice principal in Repton, abu, dhabi, became the principal, assistant head teachers became head teachers, both of them and they are all three still there In Repton Al Barsha, my vice principal became the principal, and so you know we've moved people up and created opportunities, and I'm doing because it shows that our staff professional development and our development of leaders is working and is impactful and I am probably personally very, very proud about that.
Speaker 2:I love that because this year we're doing leading forward, leaving a legacy, and so I wanted to just check with you how have you managed to do that? Because very, very few schools have that nice pathway built for leadership, for the teachers and the middle leaders to aspire. How did you manage to do that?
Speaker 3:It's for me. I started with the structures and was very clear about their specific roles and was very clear about their specific roles. Often teams any leadership team, whether it's middle leaders or senior leaders often their roles overlap too much and there can be wasted time and less accountability and you can't challenge and push and progress. So I started with the middle leaders and looked at well, what do we need? Not tailor-making roles to personalities or people in them, but actually saying, no, these are the roles that our students and our school needs. Let's find the right people for those roles and be very clear about these are the job descriptions and these are your KPIs that you need to achieve and then replicate that with the senior leaders. You need to achieve and then replicate that with the senior leaders. However, with the senior leaders, what I do and we do it every year and I know it continues in the other two schools is we have a chart and like we share it with everybody, so everybody sees what are the main top 10 things, if you like, responsibilities for each senior leader. So everybody knows who does what and there isn't any. Yes, we support each other. Yes, we have to work together, but everybody knows who does what and there isn't any. Yes, we support each other. Yes, we have to work together, but everybody knows what their responsibility is and they have the KPIs for that and they take ownership and they can be held accountable for those things and it's clear to everybody.
Speaker 3:But every year I mix them up a little bit.
Speaker 3:So in the September I give out to SLT slightly mixed up and moved around responsibilities, because when you become a head teacher and then a principal, you have to have had the pastoral experience and you have to have had the curriculum experience and health and safety and safeguarding. So I try and make sure that everybody keeps getting something they're passionate about and we know they can be amazing at, but also something that puts them outside of their comfort zone a little bit. And you should see some of their faces sometimes and they sort of I've no experience of doing that and I'm like that's why you're now going to take it now, because you've no experience of doing that and I see your potential and the capacity. So it's trusting, it's giving the structures in the first place, it's holding people to account, but it's then the praise, the recognition, but also the trust, and I try and use that word a lot. Oh, I trust your instincts. No, I trust your decision on that. Well, no, I trust that you've written that in the policy and you'll do that with your team.
Speaker 2:So I regularly use that word and it seems to work Very, very proud of them. Yeah, it's a good track record if all your three have moved up and more. It's a. It's a good track record. And I love that word trust, because that trust means that it doesn't come with any sort of no. It does come with nervousness because you have to be like, oh, my god, is it? But it comes with the ability for them to fail and come to you and say, oh, that didn't work, but knowing that you're not going to come down on them like a ton of bricks, that they can go back and fix their mistakes, because people want that freedom to fix mistakes that they've made.
Speaker 3:I like that. It's how we learn. It's how we learn, isn't it? Through making mistakes. I like that a lot. We say that one of our values is to have a growth mindset and we have to model that. We have to model that all the time to middle leaders, to our teachers and to our students, and there's a lot of power in the word. Yet so we say, well, I haven't got experience with that yet. Well, I don't know how to do that yet, or I can't do that yet. So we don't let anybody get away with using that kind of language, unless they add the yet. So yeah, love that oh thank you.
Speaker 2:So, julia, how do you take care of you then? Because you're busy, big old campus what are you doing for you?
Speaker 3:do you know I'm very good at this. Now I I'm nailing it. I think it takes a while to do that and I stand by that. As SLT, we have to model us switching off, because if we don't and we still are working, that's usually picked up by emails or through other staff, so our work just ultimately goes down as well, and that can't always happen. So I have, in all three schools now, introduced a 630-630 rule, and it took a while for the directors and service providers and our CEO and all of the different people and governance that we work with to get used to that. That you're not going to get a response from us before 6.30 in the morning or after 6.30 pm at night, only during working hours, unless there's a real emergency, and then they know. You know, of course, but so that we stand by that rigidly. During the holidays I don't, or weekends, I don't expect staff to work. We work really, really hard during turn time, but we don't expect staff to work, and I model that. So I share what books I'm going to read, I share where I'm going to go traveling on holiday, but what we do have for our senior leadership team is in all of our schools we have an on-call rota. So on our out of office, if anybody emails us, it will say this is the HR person that you need to contact. This is compliance, this is finance, this you know all the key ones. But if there's something urgent and you need to speak to an academic and you need to speak to a senior leader, then these are the ones who are on call. So it's like fastest finger. First, when my PA puts out the schedule for you to write your names in the dates that you want, because that can be flexible and we swap them with each other who we've got a wedding or a special event and it means then that on. So we've just had half term.
Speaker 3:Now I did the first Sunday of the half term. That was my own full day. I don't open my emails. We don't have our notifications on. I only check the emails on that day and I'll only respond to urgent ones.
Speaker 3:You have to train for the expectations and I ignore everything else and I try. And what we say to each other is we trust each other's decisions. So if it's a SLT member having to make a decision about a junior school issue, but they're predominantly senior school. That's okay, we'll trust their decision and we'll allow them to handle that. And then, and we model that and you have to be so strict with yourselves and sometimes we have to remind each other of that as well, and we do and we challenge each other about that.
Speaker 3:So I, this half term, I was very lucky and I went away on holiday and I worked one day, and when I say worked, I checked for urgent emails. That was all I did. So I'm very good at that. Now I probably do work 6.30, 6.30, if I'm honest, on those days In our term time days, but I literally check. I can be at home from 5.30, but the last time I look at emails is about 6.20, just in case there's something I need to see. And after that everybody knows we're off duty. So I've got better.
Speaker 2:Good, good, good good, because there's so many people who are on that email at 10 at night and you're like go to sleep. Sleep is really important. You need sleep. You will make drunk decisions, and drunk not by alcohol, but drunk by lack of sleep. You'll make drunk decisions if you don't get proper rest. So what are you doing? Are you running? Are you jogging? Are you yoga-ing? What are you doing?
Speaker 3:I'm an avid reader. I love reading. Reading is my escape. I took three books with me on holiday. I got through two.
Speaker 3:I love reading, but I'm a yoga girl as well. So I you know, as you get older, you need to keep that flexibility and strength going. So I really like yoga. I'm not a big gym or running fan. I'm going to be honest with you. My sister would find that hilarious if she thought I was doing that, because she's the complete opposite. But no, I'm not.
Speaker 3:I like swimming when I'm on holiday, I really do like swimming. That was something I used to do a lot as a kid as well. But yeah, reading and yoga, I would say, particularly during the work week, obviously, seeing friends socializing. I also have a dog and she makes me walk twice a day, which is very healthy, um, and I appreciate that, because sometimes you might not feel like going out and doing that, and you know it's. It's much nicer now with the fresh air and the cooler temperatures, and I actually really enjoy feeling that when I go out now as well, and I probably wouldn't have done that as much if I didn't have the dog to do that with. So she's very funny. She's still quite young, so that's brilliant.
Speaker 2:So last question fill up our reading list. Help us, help us out with our reading list. What books have you read recently that you were like get this on your shelf now?
Speaker 3:Oh my God, get this on your shelf now is Lessons in Chemistry. I've read it twice because I love it so much. It's nothing to do with chemistry, by the way. One of the characters is a chemist, but it's not chemistry based, it's not for scientists. It's a wonderful book about a lady overcoming some bias. It's set, you know, many, many years ago, but it's a fantastic book and it's laugh out loud. But it's also sad in parts and it makes you think.
Speaker 3:I've, then, just read quite a challenging one called Eye for an Eye by FJ Arledge, and it challenged me in that it was talking about retribution and is that via stories, stories and and you know it's an, it's a novel, it's fiction, but it was really interesting and it really made me pause and and think um about what the writer was was putting across. It was great and even when I closed the last page, I I remember I was on my sunbed on holiday and I was it still made me think about it afterwards. So I have to say I've discovered that I love crime junkie podcast. Yeah, I love it. I don't know if you've heard about that. I love podcasts of an evening If my mind is still thinking about work and my eyes are too tired to read anymore, I will stick a podcast on, and I often don't hear the end of it, but it's something that really does relax me. So, yeah, my new one is it's called Crime Junkie, so yeah, ooh, love it, thank you.
Speaker 3:Gillian, very welcome. Thank you so much, lisa. I hope to see you very soon.
Speaker 2:And you thank you for being on the podcast, of course, for being on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Of course. Thank you for listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Visit our website teachmiddleeastcom and follow us on social media. The links are in the show notes.
