It has now been 6 months since I left the classroom as a Year 5/6 teacher and turned away from my role as Deputy Headteacher which I had only started a year before.

I have never really spent time writing about my decision on this blog and so thought it was about time, after all many of you helped in a small way to me actually getting the Deputy post in the first place and have been there to provide encouragement and support.

The last 6 months have flown by and I have enjoyed every minute!

I decided to leave teaching because of a variety of things, but the elephant in the room which was nagging me for months, was my desire to work with teachers and student beyond one school. Thankfully I rubbed my eyes and embraced the elephant, so to speak!

I chose to apply for a Deputy Head post not out of any deep desire to run my own school or be a headteacher, it was simply that I needed to change my circumstance and needed to feel I was contributing more to the running of a school.

I don’t regret my decision, but I think the specific challenges of the position and school went a long way to dampen my enthusiasm and zeal for school leadership. Sadly it led to some of the lowest times I have ever had in my teaching career.

It all seemed to come down to compromise. Due to my time being unnecessarily stretched compared to other Deputies I knew, I was making compromises with the quality of my teaching, the quality of my admin and the quality of my preparation. I had never really had to deal with such forced compromise in the past, on reflection that unsettled me deeply and is certainly something I never want to see again.

In my first week as a Deputy I wrote that, “No other 5 day stretch has ever examined and pressurised my professional facets as those just gone.” Well those 5 days continued on and the remainder of the year proved even more challenging than that tumultuous first week.

So what has changed?

The most notable things are a better quality of time with my family, variety through project work and being able to work with more schools and teachers.

I never really got to a stage that I was comfortably balancing work and life during my year as a deputy and so the quality of time with my family was hugely affected. There was always something nagging in my mind that hadn’t quite been completed or needed doing. I was never 100% focused on the here and now, and time was lost with the family.

This contributed to an unhealthy cumulative pressure I hadn’t experienced, both physically and emotionally – needless to say I am now glad to see the back of it.

The variety of work we have at NoTosh has been such a brilliant foil to the trudging monotony of the last few years. No week is the same – we will be wading in the deepest of intense research one week and design thinking with teachers the next. We are are also working with lots of schools and supporting teachers so I am never far from the classroom.

I have also enjoyed the ebb and flow of project work which allows you to see things to a natural completion in the relatively short term. At school the long term completion of a poject would feel most satisfying at the end of terms or the end of a year.

This “shipping” as Seth Godin would put it generates motivation and your energy levels rise as you move on to the next project. I am enjoying this way of working and although I have really felt I have had to adjust over the last few months, success and completeness is always in sight, something markedly lacking from my experience as a deputy headteacher.

One thing I realised, from those closest to me, was that things are not set in stone ad infinitum, even a job as all consuming as a deputy headteacher, and when things don’t work out you have to plan and actively choose to get yourself out of it. Linchpin by Seth Godin proved to be an important read for me in those difficult times and which underlined the importance of action.

All of that said I know that perhaps given a different set of circumstances I would have had a completely different experience as a new deputy and I have not discounted that maybe one day I will give it another go. But not right now

–

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Neil Hopkin, his kindness and generosity helped me steady the ship and find the elephant again in the darkened room. And also thanks to my good friend Ewan McIntosh for giving me hope and believing in me, even when I didn’t!

Thank you for your support over the last year and half, things took a wrong turn for a while back there but I am now doing a job I love (again), the future is bright.

–

Pic the winds of skagit. by heanster

What a beautiful line to start a song. Robin Pecknold’s lyrics (Fleet Foxes) from Helplessness Blues have been ringing in my ears during most of my recent car journeys. When I wrote about the purpose of education, the ongoing discussion made me recall them once again.

The opening two verses/stanzas seem to sum up what can happen in education in the course of about 10 years.

I was raised up believing
I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes
Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking
I’d say I’d rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues by subpop

The question I suppose is: do our education systems make children believe they are snowflakes or cogs?

Both of these films meant something to me. They both show people leading, they both show people taking action – they are both very different and yet we can learn something from each.

Leadership can happen in many forms, it can occur in the smallest of actions as well as the more obvious ones. What did the films say to you about leadership?

Since moving up to senior management the story of school has changed for me. A school is the centre of so much activity, central to the daily lives of so many people, each with their own part to play in it. Each person sees school in a different way, everyone has their daily narrative.

My story as a student teacher was exciting. We had the opportunity to work in lots of different places, the role we played meant we were new people in classrooms and so the children would often respond warmly to us. We had the freedom to explore what it meant to put together a lesson and find exciting ways to do that. There was an amazing sense of companionship with other students as we got through our placements, each one held it’s own narrative. These school stories were very linear with an end point we often focused on. Each story was about improving and getting better – each experience shaping what I am now.

As a full-time teacher the story of school changed. Suddenly there was a greater sense of responsibility as I had my own class. All to myself. The story shifts to learning about each child and the huge part we play as their teacher. The daily narrative focused purely on my own class, of the children that may have been unwell – “Are they feeling any better?”, of those that are having a tough time at home. Our classes consume our attention and devotion. We are committed to the learning journey we are on together.

At Easter I moved to another school and so my school story had to start from scratch. The familiar plot lines and characters had changed and I needed to establish fresh ones. My role had changed too and I no longer could focus on just my own class, but needed insight and awareness of the myriad of tales from right across school. I have spent a long time establishing relationships and finding the part I can play in this new story.

The most significant new contribution to my school story is the awareness of the difficulties many of the most at risk children face in their daily lives. I am now embroiled in their narrative too, learning about the help they need and often actively providing it. This parallel, often unknown, story that occurs in every school is a new chapter for me. It has rewritten my school story with a new challenging layer of meaning.

__

Photo: Petals, Toil and Business at Dadar’s Phulgalli [PHOTO 2] by lecercle

Tweet

My first week in my new post as Deputy Head Teacher has probably been the most challenging five days of my career. Unfortunately I cannot be as candid about my experiences as I normally would be, due to a number of reasons, including some legal ones. Let’s just say “a baptism of fire” would be an understatement.

The week has been all about firsts. When you are starting somewhere new, everything you do will be for the first time. Learning about the routines for assembly, end of playtime, dinner routines, seeing behaviour policies in action, dealing with incidents. When you are thrust into situations where you are a little unsure or even completely unsure, it is a huge challenge.

Carrying something to write on has really helped as things to do, information and names have come thick and fast. I have also punctuated so much of my work with a smile, a joke to lighten the air with colleagues.

Strangely enough I have walked away from the last 5 days with a better understanding of myself, my resilience and ability to adapt. I understand the importance of my open mindedness and have a clearer appreciation for the inner strength you need to stray way beyond your comfort zone.

I have learned that you cannot plan for every outcome in certain situations and that sometimes you learn a lot more about people and yourself when all you are able to do is react. No time to think, just react. With everything stripped away, you are just left with your professional instincts.

This week I have learned that I can be visibly calm under intense pressure and the impact this has on those looking to me to lead. In fact I have surprised myself with my ability to think with clarity when pressed, it hasn’t been an act, but simply how I approached situations this week.

No other 5 day stretch has ever examined and pressurised my professional facets as those just gone.

I know for certain that I am lucky to be part of an amazing staff, a fantastic group of professionals who have supported and helped me through a tough week. I am very grateful to them for that. It is a week to be included in the memoirs one day.

Pic: Father’s Strength by Shavar Ross Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Pete and Chris, an assistant head teacher and a newly qualified teacher, enjoyed sharing ideas for learning with me. But it was when I showed them Twitter and where to find future ideas that they saw the potential of online networks.

Give a teacher an idea and you spark an interest for a week. Lead a teacher to a community and they will have ideas for a lifetime.