As teachers we frequently give out career advice and general guidance on the way of the world to the young people in our schools.
I commonly hear staff at my school talking to students about the importance of achieving well at school so that you have options available to you when you transition to the next phase of your education or career at 16, 18 or 21.
Of course, it’s great advice and I have an assembly that I deliver every year to the year 11 students about the importance of enjoying going to work every day.
I have a great reference point for this, having done some extremely arduous and mind-numbingly boring jobs myself as I worked my way through college and university. These jobs taught me the importance of education and to genuinely value the opportunities afforded to me at school, college and university.
As a result of working hard at my studies, I managed to scrape my way from a distinctly average set of GCSE and A level grades to a career as a PE teacher that had been my aim since the age of 13.
Working in a specialist sports college for the first six years of my teaching career didn’t actually feel like going to work. I was working alongside like-minded professionals who genuinely loved going into work every day and never thought twice about going the extra mile for our students or for each other.
It was a privilege to work in such an outstanding department and I count myself very lucky to have cut my teeth as a teacher alongside some of the most talented educators I have ever worked with. This collegiate environment meant that as colleagues we were there for each other if any of us had a problem and there was a real team spirit.
It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed going to school each day; I thought I had the best job in the world. I was wrong however, being a headteacher is far better!
Since then I have moved schools twice and taken on a variety of senior leadership roles in a different county, and while I have worked in a couple of great teams where I have forged a strong team spirit as the headteacher, there is certainly a different dynamic when you are the person in charge.
While I was part of a PE department, or working as an assistant headteacher with a senior leadership team, I always had colleagues around me to provide support, guidance and advice. As a headteacher who should I go to when I’m unsure about what to do in a particular situation? Who should I turn to when I need advice?
I’ve been a headteacher now for three years and I’m still confident I’ve got the best job in the world, but it is certainly becoming more challenging.
Budget cuts and educational reform are probably the greatest barriers I face and I have to continually ensure that my team and I focus only on the things that make a difference for our school and our students.
I have a responsibility to make sure that not only am I jumping out of bed every morning with an enthusiasm and passion for making a difference for our young people, but all the other members of staff at school are doing so too.
Fostering these conditions is a really important part of being a headteacher and in these challenging times it is increasingly hard to maintain the high levels of discretionary effort that teachers so often give to a school they care deeply about.
My focus for the summer term this year is to find out what more I can do as the headteacher that can increase this commitment from my staff even further, so that despite the external pressures we are facing as a profession, we are doing everything we can as a school to provide our students with the best opportunities possible.
- SecEd’s headteacher diarist is in his third year of headship at a comprehensive school in the Midlands.