Teaching would be a very easy job if it wasn't for the people. It is extremely important to understand who's who in the zoo.
“If you want to see how a company works,” a management consultant once remarked “sound the fire alarm.” This cryptic remark means that when a fire alarm sounds, the entire staff of the company are lined up in the car-park, sorted into tidy groups. Some employees, especially those relatively junior in the organisation, are always taken aback at how many people, how many teams, how many entire departments in the company they don't recognise or didn't know existed.
This observation often holds true for schools as well. In many schools, the teaching staff barely represent half the payroll, and it is often remarked that they are not the most important. If a headteacher is absent from work, the lessons continue as usual and the school does not close. If, however, the cook or the man who lights the boiler is not around, the school may indeed have to close. There are several people in the school, outside the teaching staff, that you really need to get to know, and if you can remain on really good terms with them, well, your life will be that much easier.
In order to work efficiently, you need to be able to work as part of a team with these non-teachers, which means knowing what they do, and knowing their names. You also need to remember that in well-run schools these guys are busy. They are entitled not to be asked to do things in a hurry, not to be talked to in an agitated tone, and not to be asked to do things which aren't part of their job.
If you want to know why, click here.
In different schools, things are organised differently and jobs are given different names. You can not, therefore assume that a certain task is done by 'the caretaker' or 'the office'. You need to know a name, where they work, a telephone extension and ideally a job title. When you join a new school you should – as an absolute minimum - find the name of all the people listed here.
In addition, of course, you need to know the staff that you will be introduced to automatically: the senior leadership, your colleagues in the department, teaching assistants and so on. They, however, are rarely as relevant to this website.
In amongst all these people, however, there is one group of people who are very relevant to this website: this is the group of people who you may delegate work to. Of course, most teachers have no staff to delegate to. However, we do have other help available: teaching assistants, The Office, parents and those smaller humans who crowd the classes and corridors. We need to think about how to use their help and how to keep them happy to help.
If you are joining a new school, here is a list of things to learn which will help you in your non-teaching work.