As a teacher of 13 years and a Vice Principal of 10 years, I think everyone could see my move into headship...except me! My family, my colleagues, my Trust told me that I would eventually become a head, but I was adamant that this wasn’t going to happen…so here is my blog about my first year of headship! Isn’t the world a crazy place?
When I was first approached about taking over Peckover Primary School as the Interim Principal, it was a great surprise. I had worked in a very close partnership with the old Principal and we’d always joked ‘If you go, I go’ and we were certain that we’d both end up working at Tesco’s on checkout numbers 12 and 13 – the ones opposite the alcohol aisle. And here I was just about to embark on the biggest learning curve of my life.
I was very lucky to have a term to get used to the idea and to plan what the school would look like, under my leadership, but when September came around, no one could’ve prepared me for what THAT CHAIR really meant.
Planning my first training day was the first challenge – how did I deliver an inspiring message to the staff and governors that demonstrated that I was a credible successor for the school. Time for my big-girl pants! In previous years, training day had always been someone else’s responsibility. My role had been to support the Principal and affirm and reinforce all the message that were being delivered and now they were my messages! Is it appropriate to say I really wanted to wear extra pairs of big-girl pants to help me?
The day went well and everyone listened and I can honestly say that I had never felt so supported in my career and it wasn’t down to my underwear choices. The team were right behind me and this was just what I wanted. I received good luck cards, flowers, celebratory telephone calls, multiple bottles of alcohol – I’d got this! I could do it!
And now I’d just got to welcome the children and parents – eek! More pants needed!
As a Trust, we have an expectation of our SLT being visual at the start and end of the day and this is probably one on the highlights of each and every day for me. It is so lovely to welcome the children at the gate, to see them chatting with their friends, to watch their parents give them a hug and a final kiss. It’s funny to watch the older child squirm away because that’s ‘not cool Mum!’ But what this did allow is for parents to come and chat to me. It was a time for me to get to know them; to be someone who can reassure them; someone who can walk those wobbly children to class; someone who you can comment on the new winter hat; someone who can answer the parent’s questions; someone who can just talk about how the weather has changed. The topic of conversations isn’t really that important – it’s the conversations that matter and is certainly part of the day I look forward to.
So…its 9am – all the children have safely arrived – what does a Principal do now? Let me see if I can find the Principal rule book – oh…there isn’t one! I’ll just do my very best then!
My first big discovery has to be the fact that my previously infrequently used inbox suddenly explodes with marketing emails. My inbox goes from maybe 10-20 a day to maybe 120 up to 150! I never knew the school could NEED so many new things – new dining tables, new canopies, new playground marking, new training courses, new this, new that – and each and every email personalised to me – Kate, I understand your school is looking for new allweather sports facilities – Are we? I can’t remember that conversation with anyone! Who knew? Look at any head teachers ‘delete’ key on their laptop and you’ll soon understand.
I decide to go for a walk around school and it is just a pleasure to see the classroom come alive. I have watched the classrooms get organised and decorated across the summer holidays, but to see the children return is why we are all here. The children are so pleased to see their friends, to learn their new topics, to get to know their new teachers – life is good – life is very good!
The rest of my first day passes at an astonishing pace – how can it already be time for the children to go home? – time to get out on the playground again to see the parents. I made sure that I went to check in with all the staff to see how their day had been, including the catering team, the admin team and the site team. I wanted to know how their day had been and to check that everyone was ok. Lots of smiling, happy faces – Yay!
Day one – tick! I have a huge smile on my face.
I’d like to continue with how my first few weeks went, but I just can’t! I had promised myself that I would keep a log of each day, so I could reflect on it, but there just wasn’t time for that! Before I knew it, it was nearly Christmas. Don’t ask me what I did, except learn so much. Health and Safety, finance and budgets, OFSTED, risk assessments, compliance – I could continue for ages.
One thing that became very apparent to me was that being in THAT CHAIR meant so much more than teaching. What I very quickly realised is how important my Trust colleagues were. I would start my emails with ‘sorry to bother you again…!’ There was just so much to learn, but everyone was great and was only too happy to guide me on my steep learning journey. As a Vice Principal, I thought I’d have a really good grounding and understanding of the role, but I was so wrong. If I could pass any potential school leader a bit of advice in this area, it would be ask questions. Ask lots and lots of questions and it’s ok to not know!
A further thing that I also needed to realise is that as a headteacher, you are meant to solve so many problems and to have the answers to everything. People come and see you to ask you how we can solve the problem with the plumbing in the toilets; is there a way that we can get a book order here quicker; what do we do about a hole in the tarmac and parents also expect you to solve the World’s problems! There are so many times I have said to people ‘I’m listening…’ this is my code for saying – I don’t have a blinking clue, but leave it with me and I’ll get back to you! There aren’t many days when you don’t hear the ‘I’m listening…’ motto coming from the office, but I think I get away with it…well, most of the time!
As we moved closer to Christmas, something was starting to be yet another problem in school. I needed more advice. I dusted off the many leadership books that I ‘read’ throughout my NPQH and that had been the diet of my summer holiday reading, but the question I wanted help with, just wasn’t there.
How do I deal with a pandemic and how do I continue to keep a school operational with Covid?
No one could’ve possibly prepared me for the next few months. Staff were having to isolate, staff were poorly, children were poorly, attendance was dropping like a stone, we were struggling to cover classes and while this is probably the toughest few months of my life, they also were the most rewarding. The team around me were just brilliant. Staff were united and so flexible to make sure that we could keep going. At one stage, we had no admin team at all! All of the team were isolating at the same time. We had NEVER felt so out of our depth. Staff would cover classes they didn’t know, teaching subjects they didn’t have any experience of, site team members were answering phones and doing registers, I was serving lunches, staff would support children with SEND the best they could, staff would support lunchtimes and then go straight back to teaching, staff would ring families and conduct welfare calls on absent children and staff. The staff were just phenomenal and I truly don’t know how we’d have made it through without them. I kept referring back to my management books throughout these dark times, but there was just nothing ever there to help! Maybe when I get some free time (!) I might write the chapter that I so desperately searched for!
If you’ve ever met me, you will know that I am a very emotional person and I can honestly say that during these challenging times, there were lots of tears shed. Not tears of frustration or despair – I really can’t explain to you why, but I do know that a good cry on the way home, became part of my diet, along with singing at the top of my voice to some tragic love song on Radio 2, as I try to compose myself before I returned home to my husband and tried to convince him (and me) that I’d had in fact had a good day.
As the year continued, and things began to calm and the World went back to ‘normal’, I was becoming more confident in what I was doing. I’d gone from ‘I don’t know how to do that’ to ‘yes, I can do that’ and that was a big change of mindset for me. I CAN do this – I DO know what I am doing! I HAVE got this!
Everyday I continued to be out to meet and greet and I was walking just a little bit taller and with a little bit more self-belief.
Coming towards the end of the year, I realised that the planning cycle needed to start once more – what is next year going to look like? What are our priorities going to be? Where am I going to place staff? Hang on...I remember this…I’ve done this before…
And so the cycle continues! Time to get onto Amazon to order plenty more big-girl-pants! The start to my second year has been a carbon copy of the first year and maybe everyone, except me, will be saying ‘I told you that you’d become a headteacher’ when they talk about my headship journey, but it is with great pride that I end my first year of headship blog.
Do I love sitting in THAT CHAIR and leading the school? yes – it makes me brim with pride.
Do I regret sitting in THAT CHAIR? Occasionally, yes – I’m only human!
Do I feel proud of what I’ve achieved? Absolutely.
Would I do anything differently? Of course. Where do I start?
Am I looking forward to doing it all again? Yes, without a doubt!
The best advice I could ever give someone getting ready to sit in THAT CHAIR, is expect the unexpected! This World is a crazy place!
No two days are the same and you will NEVER manage to empty your in-tray. Get ready to rub the writing off your delete key on your laptop, get ready to become a plumber and font of all knowledge and most importantly, don’t try and do it all on your own!
The team, the children, the parents, your colleagues from other schools, your family and the Trust are all an integral part of being a headteacher and if you try to do it all without each and everyone of them, you won’t do it.
You MUST look after yourself too, before you try and look after everyone else. Are you making time for you? Are you taking the time to answer the question – is this World and this job just crazy?
Kate Kendal