As we reach the end of October we\u00a0hit some important milestones.\u00a0 We change the clocks, we have Halloween and we have bonfire night.\u00a0 All of this reminds me to highlight some basic safety points:<\/p>\n
Late Autumn in Scotland can be a great time of the year but it is not without its problems – with good planning and care we can all enjoy the opportunities to the full.<\/p>\n
One of our big PTA events ‘fright night’ is linked to this time of year.\u00a0\u00a0When it was first suggested to me two years ago that we should have a fright night my reaction was “not a chance, the risks were too great, it wold not be\u00a0safe”.\u00a0 So in 2014 we did not have a fright night.<\/p>\n
By the following year we had done more work on growth mind set, on the need to take risks and learn from them and the need to\u00a0try to go outside our comfort zone.\u00a0 So rather than think of reasons not to do “fright night” I asked people to think about how we could possibly make it happen.\u00a0 After an awful lot of work and careful planning we figured out how to manage the\u00a0various risks and we held our first PTA fright night\u00a0in October 2015.\u00a0\u00a0It was a massive success both in terms of money raised and the fun people had at the event.<\/p>\n
On Friday 4\u00a0November\u00a02016 we held our second ever PTA fright night and I am pretty sure it will be a regular feature in our calendar.\u00a0 Indeed this year we had to put up the ‘sold out’ sign by 8.30 when it became clear we\u00a0had booked up all the tour slots.\u00a0 Next year it will have to be advance bookings only.<\/p>\n
Fright night is an example of moving from a situation where\u00a0I thought something was impossible to a situation where I know it possible.\u00a0 Some people say “anything is possible when you put your mind to it”.\u00a0 I do not\u00a0completely agree with this view.\u00a0 Something is only possible\u00a0when you put your mind to it and<\/strong><\/span> when you are prepared to put the work in to make it possible.\u00a0 I can put my mind into improving my golf as much as I wan but it will not improve unless I am also willing to go out and practice a lot more.\u00a0 So yes you need a growth mind set – striving to improve, belief that change is possible.\u00a0 But you also need to make a real commitment to work hard to overcome barriers, to then be willing to work even harder when things do not go to plan.<\/p>\n As I write this blog Andy Murray is on the brink of becoming world number 1 in tennis.\u00a0 A few years back I had my doubts about Andy –\u00a0he was reaching several\u00a0finals but failing at the final hurdle.\u00a0\u00a0Although he had the desire and belief I did not think\u00a0he had the work ethic\u00a0of Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic.\u00a0 It has been great to see\u00a0Andy Murray ‘bounce back’ from the setbacks, redouble his efforts and put himself on the brink of\u00a0being the best in the world.\u00a0 Whether it is in the context of ‘Fright Night’ or\u00a0tennis or school work or any other aspect of our lives there are important lessons there for us all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we reach the end of October we\u00a0hit some important milestones.\u00a0 We change the clocks, we have Halloween and we have bonfire night.\u00a0 All of this reminds me to highlight some basic safety points: watch out on the slippery pavements and paths – falling leaves and frosts can be a\u00a0nightmare give yourself a little bit\u00a0longer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parents","category-weekly-blog","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.harlawacademy.org\/option1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}