Best wishes on my retirement
I gave my notice with days to spare before the deadline. The advantage of this was that speculation about my successor or leaving me out of planning would not happen. I held a very important meeting with Capita and Manchester Council on the Thursday before I finished on the Friday. I was seeing parents and students up until 11:00am on the last day.
In the last two weeks I had a meal at the Jamie Oliver restaurant with the Leadership team, a meal with the IT team, a meal with the pastoral team and after my leaving speech I met some ex staff and some young staff took me out on the town. On Wednesday I am going to for a lunch with ex teachers and Mike Evans the ex Headteacher.
The last day involved a whole school assembly 1200 students and over a hundred staff they said good bye and cheered. They nearly lifted the roof off. I went out with tears in my eyes. I gave a leaving speech that Lynne attended, it took me a few days to work out and I tested it on Lynne she laughed so I stuck with it.
I said I would not stay out late but I got taken to bars around Manchester and did not make the last train. There were a number of offers for a bed for the night.