School Leadership: From the roots to the blue sky

I had been a happy DHT at The Rise since June 2016 : loving my teaching, learning and assessment remit, thriving under autonomous conditions and flourishing due to a great relationship with my head teacher - and friend - Sarah Roscoe (@proudHT). However, headship was thrust upon me, relatively unexpectedly, in September 2018. I felt fiercely protective of the fantastic school community that has arisen phoenix-esque from some challenges. So, I decided that I would take the leap, earlier than I'd ever planned, and apply to be the Interim Head Teacher.

This opportunity has been fascinating, satisfying and exhausting in equal measure. I was recently prompted to consider my vision for The Rise - and ever an English teacher, I like my metaphors and analogies... So I googled "tree clip art", flipped the colour from black to green and made this:

VISION - this is your "blue sky", where you are trying to reach, what heights you want your "tree" to reach.

ACTIONS - your vision is achieved through concrete actions.

VALUES - these are your core. They are vital. It is having a clear sense of your values that will allow you stay strong when you're in challenging circumstances. Hannah Wilson (@hopefulHT) wrote that her values were what allowed her to "bend, not break" during the school lunch furore that she faced at Aureus in June 2018.

FOUNDATIONS - These are equally important. They are the conditions (people, policies, systems & processes, leadership, expertise etc) that everything else will grow and flourish from. You need to ensure you have strong roots or the whole organisation, nevermind the vision, will topple.

People are one of your fundamental foundations. Steve Radcliffe has this really useful reminder of this in his book Leadership: Plain and Simple. He reminds us that NOTHING happens outside of relationships; "You have to have relationships big enough to get the job done" (p56).

It is my belief that when we are "setting the vision" for our schools that you need to review, reflect and analyse our organisation at ALL levels from the foundations up - it is not enough to just consider the "blue sky."

Taking the analogy slightly further...

Also in need of your attention is your organisational CULTURE: this is the soil, the environment that surrounds your foundations. Are you providing a healthy, nourishing, enriching environment which are allowing your roots to grow strong?

The last leap of this extended metaphor are the "winds of change" or the weather!

These represent changes in the external environment (which might be positive or negative) that will affect your school and its vision.

A simple analogy that has allowed me to reflect and communicate clearly about my vision; thoughts (or ways to stretch the poor metaphor even further!) welcome!