In recent conversations I’ve had with headteachers, the theme of isolation has frequently come up. In one conversation in particular, there was a lot that the person needed to express. It was clear that many thoughts had been swirling around their head for a while, and, as I always find, just being able to articulate them, getting them out of their head and into the open, brought insights they hadn’t expected. New options and possibilities presented themselves, and the act of

How can headteachers delegate effectively?

I’ve been reading posts online this week from leaders who have just taken their first steps into headship, and it’s caused me to reflect on my own first weeks and months in a headteacher role nearly 15 years ago. One moment came clearly into view. I was fortunate to be part of a new heads group in my LA (sadly I don’t think they’re all that common these days). We attended a workshop together and the first activity was to bring a photo that showed something you felt proud of f

I’ve noticed that AI has become a regular talking point in coaching conversations with heads. I was really impressed the other day as I listened to a head tell me how he and his staff are leveraging it, among other things, as a tool to enhance effective feedback to pupils. The creative possibilities seem to keep coming, but I can’t help wondering what we might be losing as AI occupies a bigger and bigger space in school life and in the minds of school leaders. The context of

I was coaching a lady recently who had moved school and into a new role as a head of department. She was feeling a bit like a fish out of...

‘OMG, what have I done!’ I thought, during my first meeting with the Trust Head of Finance after taking up a role as a head within a Multi Academy Trust (MAT), after being a Local Authority head for 5 years. I found it really hard to accept the lack of autonomy I was going to have in terms of managing the school budget. I was seriously doubting the decision I had made to change jobs. The theme of my first couple of years as a head within a MAT was ‘how can I hold the Trust at

In my last 3 years as a coach working with heads, one theme has emerged more than any other – how can I keep going in this job? I’ve...

I’ll let you into a secret – you’re not the only headteacher sitting on a beach this summer second-guessing decisions you made, things you said or actions you took over the last year, instead of relaxing and enjoying the sun. Lots of heads are going through that right now, and it’s making them wonder how long they can stay in this crazy, overwhelming job. A recent client came to her first coaching session wondering how she had lost her passion and motivation for the job. She

If you have a tendency towards perfectionism, it can work fairly well for you when you’re a classroom teacher, at least in terms of your...

One of the hardest aspects of being a leader in the education sector today seems to be the extent to which you’re in the firing line. Parental complaints seem to be at an all time high, which can drain your energy and suck the joy out of the job. It’s no wonder that headteachers are leaving their roles in high numbers. It’s one of the reasons that I think the most important leadership skill in the education sector these days is emotional agility. That’s the ability to make sp

According to the TES (‘Headteachers are leaving schools’, 23 June 2023), school leaders are leaving the profession in record numbers. I’ve just posted a poll on LinkedIn in the last few days, and only 26% of respondents in the ‘Headteachers’ group said that they were definitely ‘staying put’ in their roles. The rest were either thinking of leaving or had definite plans to leave. I worry about the amount of experience and expertise being lost from roles in schools, but I’m als

If you’re a headteacher, you’ve probably heard about coaching, whether you’ve actually experienced it yourself or not. In this blog, I thought I would explore the ways in which coaching actually benefits headteachers (or those in similar school leadership roles – principal, executive head, head of school etc). I started by looking at some research. Rachel Lofthouse and Ruth Whiteside of Leeds Beckett University conducted an interesting piece of research in 2020 on the impact

Dedicated headship time - what is it and why does it matter?

Being able to give feedback that’s ‘clear but kind’ is an important leadership skill, but it’s not easy and takes a lot of practice to get right. Brene Brown uses the expression ‘clear is kind’ a lot. She writes, ‘Feeding people half-truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel more comfortable) is unkind.’ I think lots of us have unwittingly done this and it ends up backfiring. I experienced this early in my first headship.

A few days ago, I read a social media post from a headteacher who had just permanently excluded a student, and was feeling terrible about...

Spinning plates, firefighting, being snowed under, drowning in paperwork, headless chickens . . . These are some of the metaphors I commonly hear leaders using about their workload. I’ve used them myself. I remember clearly times when I felt completely overwhelmed by my workload as a headteacher in a challenging school where I needed to drive quick improvements. People would ask me if I was enjoying my job, and I wouldn’t know what to say. I did enjoy it in some ways, but in

Values matter for organisations and for individuals. When values are shared across an organisation, it brings people together and gives...

There’s a couple of scenarios that have come up a lot lately in my conversations with school leaders. The first is the leader is filled...

In a recent poll which I conducted in school leader groups on Facebook and LinkedIn, 57% of respondents said that worry about staff...