Welcome to a limited monthly serial posting all about the journey to Headship. What happens en route? What will you encounter? How can you possibly prepare?!
It’s odd, really, to be writing about a change that I know is coming.
I’m on the road to being a Headteacher.
I need to address my privilege almost immediately: I work in an awesome school that was founded and is currently lead by someone even more awesome. With a new, second, school opening in September 2025, the stage is set for my deputising to become more permanent.
Most people don’t know this kind of information in advance, let alone with a 12-month run-up to the big job. Perhaps the then-Prince Charles sat in wait for over 70 years of his life to take the crown – which comedian was it that said, ‘his only real job was waiting for his mom to die’?! Either way, this isn’t the way to think about this hugely privileged journey I am embarking on. Instead, I need to treat with the excitement, dread, anticipation and sleepless nights I deserve (!) and need.
The Acting Weeks
My Head has lead a four-day residential this week and will do so again next which means I’ve been acting head – and let me tell you that the acting part is real. The kind of acting Daniel Day Lewis would appreciate: raw, visceral and very much method. Sam Strickland (@Strickomaster) often says that you can’t criticise Headteachers and the insurmountable job they do until you sit in their seat. I couldn’t agree more and I think that’s what this journey is about.
As a Deputy I have ‘acted up’ and deputised the powers of my Headteacher in suspending a student or otherwise making calls and decisions that have far-reaching and immediate consequences. These moments are singularly terrifying and thrilling (I’m categorically not equating enjoyment with delivering sanctions) – the thrill about which I speak is the knowledge of the deep and heavy responsibility you hold in that moment: the power to do the next right thing in the best interests of the majority.
Never Alone
My Headteacher is full of simply brilliant advice (a post with her sayings may well be in the offing) that comes from her get-up-and-go attitude to life. One of these, which I now live by, is safeguarding should never be done alone. Now look, no one is claiming she invented that, but her assertion of this in every day practice means that I never take safeguarding decisions unilaterally. Of course, we’re all ‘taught’ this in our safeguarding training along with which issues to press the big red button for but – in the moment – it’s easy to make a snap decision with the best of intentions which may well result in the worst of outcomes.
It's in these moments of peak isolation that I am reminded to call her, to ask for her advice and for us to make the big decisions together. As our school family grows and she inevitably takes on a more ‘executive role’, this is a mantra I will be following no matter what: Safeguarding together is safeguarding for all.
The Next Steps
As the term rolls ever on (three weeks in but WHY does it feel like seven?!), I am mindful of moments that pass which will, next year, be my first as Head: the first day, the first assembly, the first complaint, the first relationship break-up that threatens the very fabric of Year 10 as we know it …
My next steps are to begin drilling down into my own decision making and my own choices, being ever-mindful and deeply cognisant of my mental models of leadership that I’m using to navigate the normal every day.
In my next post, I’ll be drawing on some excellent and exciting conversations we’ve been having at EduPulse HQ with mega-minds Sarah Cottinghatt and Sam Gibbs. So do stay tuned.
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