Nearly six years ago, I wrote this post about being a mainscale teacher, holding a middle leadership responsibility for a long time and being happy with that. This week has given me cause to revisit it, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I interviewed someone very experienced for a HoD role this week who felt she needed to explain, in the interview, why she wanted to move sideways, and I felt compelled to tell her that she was preaching to the choir; secondly, because I have, this term, accepted a promotion to Associate Assistant Head, filling in for my AHT line manager, who is now on maternity leave. Feeling slightly traitorous, I have been reflecting on how I got to the point of applying for this role.

I’m now coming to the end of my 20th year in the profession. In 2020, I was promoted to Head of Humanities, a new role created by the previous principal that offered me the privilege of being able to build a faculty of subjects of my choosing and work more closely with an absolutely inspiring bunch of women and man. The job arrived at a good time for me: I had just applied for my first non-teaching education job, had been stunned to reach the interview stage and, while not disappointed not to be offered the role, a little disappointed that there would be no new challenge. The new challenge was instead provided at school. When the principal exppressed her understanding of the HoF roles as extended leadership team posts, I was clear with her that I was not interested in an SLT role.

But she was wily, that principal, and she knew what she was about. The act of managing subjects and specialists outside of my own specialism taught me a lot of new things. I enjoyed the new challenges, mostly, and I started to see how my impact could be scaled and how I could grow as a practitioner by looking outside of my own beloved subject. It taught me more humility and highlighted how I could better use my skillset. Gradually, I started to come round to the idea that being SLT was something I could do, which in my professional life I prefer to come before ‘I want to do’. I duly signed up to complete my NPQSL, mainly because I had a faculty issue I felt I needed more training to solve, but of course this only added to that growing can-do feeling.

What probably accelerated this process was the crushing by Ofsted that my school received last year. A 12-year gap between inspections led to a catastrophic fall from top to almost-bottom (no measures but still down there) and there’s nothing like seeing your school in dire need of assistance to crystallise your thinking. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think I’m Batman, but I’ve had seven years of this school supporting my career and lifting me up, so if I think my skills could be helpful, I’m going to offer them. This year at school has been one of extreme hard work, deep frustration and, if I’m honest, a little boredom. It feels ridiculous to have worked so hard and say I’ve been bored, but that about sums it up. It’s been 20 years, yknow…everything really is just cyclical.

I’m pleased to say that this is the most junior of senior roles. It’s an Assistant Head role, split among four of us, for a year. I’ll be responsible for ECTs, ITT and Professional Learning: what a joyful thing to take on! We’ve got a new head starting after half term and she will doubtless want to make her own decisions and appointments, so I feel quite secure in the insecurity. We will see how it works. I’ll keep hold of Team Hums for the time being and always feel immensely proud of the work that I have done alongside Marianne, Sophie, Hazel, Katie, Gemma, Claire, Maggie, Nat, Sheila, Luke, Elaine, Emma, Tamsin, Nabiha, Bethan and a few other supporting cast members over the past few years. We really are the best team.

So, here we are. I didn’t expect to get here. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking. It’s amusing other people have already started to refer to me as being in this role when I just feel like I’m just pootling along, doing my usual thing. I expect that amusement will quickly fade once I’m added to the SLT email group.