1. Your team is your priority.
Actually, student outcomes are your priority – but we all know that the quality of the teacher in front of them has the greatest impact on student outcomes so your priority must be in supporting your team (teachers and techs) to be the best they can be.
- Get to know them! (I’m lucky to have an amazingly friendly and fantastically supportive team!).
- Be available (..see be organised below! – you can only make time for others if you’ve got your work organised).
- Give them the equipment they need (if you can!).
- Do anything you can to reduce unnecessary workload.
- Take your time over the timetable (be fair with class allocations and do you very best with roomings).
- Be well-read and pass on any useful current research.
- Know what is actually happening day-to-day. Walk through as many lessons as you can – be proactive. Look out for signs that a teacher needs your support and offer it quickly. It could be anything from T+L support to moral support – it is all your job!
2. Be organised!
Reduce stress levels by ‘having your head out of the boat’.
This is my absolute obsession now – and probably a blog all to itself! It includes…
- Consciously choose the planning tools you will use – I use a filofax clipbook organiser , a Pirongs Teacher planner, a filofax A5 notebook for meetings and a plain notebook for day to day notes I may need to look back at.
- Know the yearly deadlines you will have to meet and have a calendar with prompts to remind yourself what is coming up. Add anything to it that you didn’t know about until it had happened so you can transfer it to next year’s calendar (see image above).
- Organise your time – by day, week and month (I use a filofax and make my own pages for my lists as pictured below).
- Include a space for things you are waiting on so they don’t slip though the system.
- I plan all of my lessons and write my requisitions at the weekend. It frees up my time and reduces my weekday stress levels. I often tweak them during the week but if something crops up I can take it on because my lessons are always good to go.
- In your system make space to reflect on how you would do it better next time.
3. Know who you are!
Don’t underestimate your influence.
This covers a multitude of points but basically I need to be clear of what I stand for and communicate that. I am naturally quite prone to assume that nothing I do or say will be particularly noticed but I need to recognise that what I do and say will have an impact so I must plan what I will do, and what I will say!! Whether you like it or not you are the Head of Science now and so you have ‘become the role’.
- Decide who you are – don’t leave it to chance!
- Don’t let ‘impostor syndrome’ reduce your impact.
- Set out clearly what you think ‘good’ looks like – don’t make your team guess what you are thinking when you walk through their classrooms. If you are passionate about Powerful Knowledge say so. And say so again!
- Be a role model. Don’t expect others to do what you are not doing yourself.
- Most of the decisions people want you to make will simply require your affirmation (e.g. can the mock be on Tuesday?). Know when to say ‘that’s fine’ and what is worth fighting for. Don’t be unnecessarily combative to try to look ‘in charge’. Most people in your school will have student outcomes as their priority and so you should be able to say ‘that’s fine’ to most things.
- Be seen.
- Be positive.
- Look after yourself.
4. Get to know the ‘important people’ outside your department.
- Other Heads of Faculty – you’ll need to make a lot of joint decisions.
- The timetabler!
- The burser, SIMS manager. (I have photos of all of the admin and support staff in my filofax with their roles written underneath).
- Whoever is in charge of organising PGCE students (you want some!).
- Your line manager – a vital link to SLT. It is how you can make changes. Make sure that they know your priorities and hold you to account.
5. Know and own the direction of the department.
You don’t have to do all of the work but you do have to take ownership. Be brave and change anything you are not able to stand behind. But do so with the support of your team! These include things like ..
- Curriculum map
- Schemes of work
- Marking policy
This year has been the most rewarding of my career to date. If you are reading this and considering taking the leap there is really only one bit of advice you need – go for it! You’ll never look back!
comfyteach 