This past week was probably the busy week of my professional teaching career to date. Here are the reasons;
- New build IT procurement deadline (handed over to me in January)
- My wife was away from home Tuesday through Friday on a residential course, experiencing the demands of a single parent to a 19th month old son
- Whole print solution for the new financial year (Started in November and perhaps rushed through for April)
- Pending Ofsted and extended SLT meetings
- HOD interviews (February, interviews planned for pre Easter)
- Year 11 coursework deadlines – Headteachers demands for improved performance and increased students marking as the deadline draws closer.
Lack of foresight may be cited as a contributory issue but remove the ‘uncontrollables’ points 1, 2 and 4, I would feel this was perhaps unfair criticism.
What did I learn this week? Lets review the 6 identified factors.
- Spare capacity is essential. Always leave room for unforeseen requests, jobs, situations. It is essential to work efficiently and effectively, but not at full capacity.
- Simply, I gained more respect for single parent working families / staff and more appreciation for the teamwork and support my wife offers me every week.
- This links to capacity, but realistic time-scales are essential. Knowing we needed to be ready for April 2010, we started the print solution way in advance, so far in advance that at the start we thought we started too early. Simple lesson, those jobs that are ‘programmable’ plan with time to spare.
- The schools pending Ofsted means longer meeting. Somethings are not under your control – I am still unsure how to best manage / influence those things.
- I sincerely believe in investing time in recruitment. Recruitment is not the weeks leading up to advertising the post, its listening, observing and talking with teaching professionals at every opportunity. Our last three appointments have been recommendations or internal staff development.
- Results – teaching is about building relationships with learners to support learning. This year we held ‘Accelerated ICT Workshops’ in February half term (we were the only dept offering ‘revision.’) This has led to stronger relationships with students earlier, more students completing the course with time to spare, therefore more student peer support for one another and increasing capacity for staff to support the students less likely to achieve. Still the pressure remains firmly on us.
All this personal reflection in same week that Twitter offers #newleaders a range of tweets to digest. On the point of New Leaders, I have been collecting writings on the subject of challenge and inspire. Many of these have a leadership slant. I hope you can find a use for them or simply enjoy reading them.