Skip to main content

The senior leadership adventure: an update

2014-05-29 08.59.38

It’s been a while since I posted about my new job.  Not that it’s new anymore as it’s June (how did that happen!?!) and I’m four and a smidge weeks away from completing the first year in leadership.  I last posted 40 days in.  This blog has also been quite quiet. So why the gap?  I’ve created a graphic:

image

Throughout my career so far, I’ve always spoken from experience.  No hypotheticals.  The number of posts will increase I’m sure and the advice I can give is useful, when I’ve made an impact and have become competent at my job.  This year has been about laying foundations, figuring out what’s going on and coming up with plans.  It’s a bit like a steam train: you have to stoke the fire for ages and ages, the locomotive struggles out of the station and then quickly gets up to speed.

My feelings over the year are summed up by this:

image

I hope you get the picture….. Leaving my last school was like stepping off a sleek bullet train.  I knew my place within the organisation.  People understood me and where I came from, even if they didn’t agree with me. Looking back, the last two years leading Priory Geography was epic.  I doubt that I’ll work within such a dynamic again.  However, I forgot something.  I forgot how difficult the first three years were.  I forgot how much work there was to be done and how much I didn’t look forward to going in to work.  If you don’t have your own blog, start one.  If only for the simple reason that you can look back and remember without the rose tinted specs.

I guess I was a little arrogant and delusional expecting to step off the bullet train to join a similar vehicle, travelling in a similar direction.  In fact, I had to jump onto a totally different space rocket, with different ambitions, purpose and vision.  It was necessary to reinvent and to start carving out and defining my role within a different context. No one was going to do that for me.  Nor should they. It’s been a year of testing, breaking and building back my values and principles.  When I look back on this year, i wonder what I will think?

  • At the end of my NQT year is a nightmare school, I look back and know that I can handle any behaviour;
  • The first year at another school was heart-breaking: students with no chance of doing well, staff morale an all time low.
  • When I left another school, I wondered if I’d ever do any cool stuff ever again. (I did)

This year I’ve learned to be comfortable in my own skin and with my own leadership style.  I work within a great school, forward looking and with a top leadership team.  I’ve made an impact, but no where near enough.  I’m impatient and it’s time to change the world.  I rediscovered the video below this week.  I’d forgotten that everything worth having requires a struggle. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

High Impact, Low effort

This month is the start of the #29daysofwriting challenge.  I enjoyed this last year and will be using my Staffrm account to post.  I'll also be reporting here, both to give a little more detail and to keep a log of what I have written. The challenge developed a great sense of community last year, which is why I'm choosing to write on Staffrm. What I would say to those who are new to writing or don't want to run out of ideas is: Write for yourself. Clarify an idea, write something out loud. The process of distilling thoughts into writing is immensely beneficial to your practice. If other read, comment and respond, that's a bonus. Ignore the muppets who know nothing of your context, style or students. Mix it up - I like to read about real stuff from real classrooms and schools and also about other stuff.  If we always write about school, how does that work for workload? If you've nothing nice to say, don't say it. So, the following has been 
5 comments
Read more

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey.  As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others.  Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up.  I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions.  From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment.  From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die.  How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach?  Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment is not always conducive to profound
4 comments
Read more

The danger of Teaching and Twitter conversations: poorly formed bipolar arguments.

Sometimes in life, there really are only two options.  Get the wrong one and you can look like a muppet.  Take this useful sign for the toilets in Morocco.  I successfully navigated it, choosing the right option.  The result? No egg on my face.  As a mountain leader, there are many right or wrong decisions that I’ve faced, as there are all over life.  It’s not a good idea to let inexperienced young people walk themselves down Snowdon.  They may die or be seriously injured.  If someone is showing the signs and symptoms of hyperthermia, you need to treat it fast in a specified way.  There is no real arguing with this sign: Other options are less obvious.  Take this sign recently spotted near to where I live: Now, I wouldn’t consider sleeping in a bin.  However, faced with a sub-zero night, I could see the appeal.  The danger? Being tipped into one of those huge lorries with a compactor. (by the way, I only really considered all of this thanks to questions from my four year old boy).
1 comment
Read more