The realities of school leadership - looking after your mental health

The author of this blog piece has requested that this be posted anonymously

On the 24th of December 2016, Christmas Eve, I resigned, over the phone to my Chair of Governors  when they called me, just as I was leaving to spend time with my children to say that there had been a complaint about me. I never went back to that school. I had no job to go to. I was a single parent and I had no savings. It is a story that I had never told in its entirety until New Voices.

Firstly, I should say that I never intended on being a Headteacher so early in my career. I'd been teaching for  six years at the same school in a different county, where I was well respected and very happy when I was offered the post Deputy head at the school about 50 minutes drive from my school. It was a school that was obviously in trouble, not least because the Chair of Governors, at my interview took me aside to tell me he needed a deniable conversation about how resilient the person that they appointed with need to be.

 When I went for my orientation day it was clear that the school had deep rooted problems and that staff had not been on training of any kind for some time. Teachers were scared of people being inside their classroom - and I had just wanted to look around and be friendly! That night, I received six pages of emails from staff, detailing what was wrong with the place, who they like who they didn't like and that they hoped. When I relayed what I had seen, my then Headteacher told me to run, my instincts told me to run, but there is something about me that loves the challenge, and frankly I wanted the salary and was young and arrogant, and so I stayed.

Fast forward six months and I was the acting Headteacher with the previous one being put on gardening leave. I must stress that she had been a good Headteacher over 20 years, and I had nothing but respect for what she had previously achieved, but she very clearly had the beginnings of dementia has not been properly supported by the LEA or the Governors - she had not let them near really. It was sad for everyone involved; the pupils who deserved better, the staff who had stayed loyal to her many many years and the local community who had seen a good school fall. Just before her departure OFSTED had been.  They should have given us inadequate rather than RI -  not least because we did not have a functioning safeguarding policy in place!  In that report it says that the school was given RI due to the increased capacity added to leadership by the deputy headteacher (me) who could drive forward improvements needed. 

There appeared, on the surface, to be a lot of goodwill towards me: and for my part I did not see it as pressure, I saw it as a challenge, I got on well with other Headteachers - in fact some were close personal friends - and I had the unwavering support of the LEA and a strong Chair of Governors (despite the fact the other staff did not like him!) - he was good for me as he had the skills I did not. Support however evaporated from staff the second I was made Acting Head.  I had not been their long, I was unapologetic about the changes that needed to be made and with the pace, given that an inspection was due in 18 months from my appointment.   Although most of them wanted change, they had worked there an INCREDIBLY long time and could not keep up with the pace.  Looking back I often wonder if I could have taken it slower - done things differently...perhaps...but for me I am driven by what is best for the children and at that time we were letting those children down, so there was no time for hesitation.

The governors, the LEA and the parents were like an army of support behind me and the children LOVED the changes to the curriculum, the behaviour policy and the enrichments we made.  It was wonderful.  However on a day to day basis at work, I had nobody to talk to.  Of course there were a few supporters but none within the SLT, and although, at the time I did not feel that it was a problem, that was until...

My personal life also fell apart. In August 2014 the most significant romantic relationship of my adult life fell apart.  I was completely shattered - actually it took 4 years for me to stop being completely and utterly broken.  My Dad, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimers some time earlier, declined, so I threw myself into work.  It was everything to me.  I threw myself into work at the expense of everyone else - myself, my friends (I still have not regained them) and most ashamedly of my own children.  I got up for work at 5 am - 6 days a week - and I came home at 10pm.  My eldest son - who was 15 at the time - cooked for the younger 2 most nights that I was a Headteacher. 

For 2 years at that point I would get in the car in the morning and cry all the way to work - EVERY day...and I mean every day.  When I did have the kids I could not get out of bed - I did nothing with them...or very rarely.  Despite this, I did not recognise that I was ill.  I had never had mental health issues before, I was the strong, unbreakable, dependable one who was most likely to think “ oh for God’s sake just handle it” if someone was down or low.

People DID tell me to avoid burnout - to go home - and then the same people told me to provide 23 policies in the next month as they were all out of date and to get the school to good in 18 months when 0% of observed teaching had been good (note I said observed - that was NOT my opinion of all teachers, in fact one was incredible).  They also told me to delegate and imagine that would be the advice of many, but it is all very well telling leaders to delegate if the staff they are leading have the capacity to run projects - mine had not been outside of that school in 9 years! They did not know how the educational landscape had changed.. It was (with the exception of one) like having a whole staff of very green NQTS - as my boss would say the unconscious incompetent and it was not their fault.  

Obviously staff meetings became inset and training immediately and I sent them on anything the budget would allow me to and capacity began to grow but by then I was trapped in a cycle of non delegation - and I was doing everything from putting up displays to reordering the entire library - moving furniture - as well as everything strategic.  I was much too operational on a day to day basis “putting out fires” - but by doing that I was able to escape from ...life really.  I was not living. 

Eventually with a large teaching staff turn over - most of which was necessary for the pupils - we got to the new OFSTED date with me as Headteacher.   Parentview showed 30% more approval across the board than previously, teaching had been graded consistently good on the last 3 LA visits, children were happier and progress had rapidly increased. Our SEF said Good. The LEA said Good. OFSTED said RI.    I was broken.  Parents - wonderfully rose up to back me and the changes, as did the new staff body, as did the pupils - letters and emails telling me it was all bollocks flooded. Fellow heads were shocked. But in my heart I knew that OFSTED were right -- we were just not there yet. I had just been too scared, and too green to put that on the piece of paper.  OFSTED again noted the strengths of the Headteacher and the rapid changes made but. My SIP lost her job - I imagine not over us but when she wrote to me it is clear that she had a huge amount of regret regarding our school and how we had not been able to “finish the job”.  

What I did not expect was the complete withdrawal of personal support from the LEA - letters implying they knew we were RI were easily refuted by the many visit notes from the LEA - we had a visit every 6 weeks - that stated we were a good school. So they called me to a meeting where they made me cry - sob - they are not here to defend themselves and it is only my word but...they were not nice.  Later one advisor (it had been his first ever LEA meeting) phoned me to say he had been appalled by my treatment and that he was sorry that he had not stood up and said something.  He called it a witch hunt as we were the only school in the area (out of 28) that was less than good.

 I had already resigned from July so I could be closer to home with my family and spend time with my Dad - but then came the call on Christmas Eve that tipped me over the edge of a precipice that I did not even know I was standing on.  “Oh I needed to call as we are missing some receipts” if you cannot find them there is a possibility you will be suspended.  “No there is not.  I quit” 

In fairness to my CoG she had been placed in that position by the LEA - she already knew - before me - that I was ill and she had tried to protect me from them. Yes I should have got a union involved. Yes I should have fought back.  I should definitely have fought for a fair reference.  But I was totally and utterly exhausted.  Beaten down by fighting so hard for this school, where the children deserved better, by the hours, by working straight through holidays, by my heart...just breaking in two.  So I quit. 

I told the kids after Christmas - did not want them to worry where the mortgage came from. Actually I ended up selling the house as I could not afford it and rented - sounds like going backwards but that, and buying a puppy, was the best thing I could have done!  

Leaving leadership quite literally saved me.  It freed me.  I took a cleaning job whilst I signed up with an agency - schools were desperate for someone with my experience.  I had a great reputation with local Heads and had been the Head running assessment and standards committee across 28 local schools so was relatively well known. And so 3 weeks later the same county asked me to support a school who were in trouble via an agency - despite being angry I had a mortgage to pay so I went and did it.  

It was not until this point that I went to the doctor and he told me what everyone apart from me knew - that I was depressed.  Depression brought on by work burnout.  Yes it was work but a lot of that was self-imposed however for me  it was also home.  The end responsibility does and has to lay firmly on my own shoulders.

So how did I turn my mental health around once I had FINALLY acknowledged I had a problem:

Tip 1 - Find the Right School Well after my temporary job, thank God I got given a chance to be in a school again, in a different LEA - for those of you who do not know I work for Mrs O and I think maybe at my interview - although initially thinking why was I stepping back - she saw something of herself.  We share a moral purpose.  Children.  Front and centre of everything.  Even when we do not agree - which we do not always I know that within our school children come first.  It was the chance I needed. Just being back in the classroom (which I did not think I had missed) has given me space to remember why I love teaching.  I also get to work for 3 very different school leaders across 2 sites and have learnt a tremendous amount just from closely observing them about how I want to lead.  I have things I would take from all of them - and things I would leave. Interestingly, they all have very different styles and that has been a great learning curve for me.  It is not just them though that team of incredible people have put me back together in a way that I did not think possible and they cannot possibly know.  I have had time to work out my values as a leader, my priorities how to be strategic and I am actively looking for positions from September

Tip 2 - Get Fit (like yourself naked) I got fit - really fit, and although it has slipped recently that had an incredible impact on my mental health - I lost 3 ½ stone.  The first thing though before my weight that changed was my mental health - almost within a week I felt a tangible difference. I have signed up for a half marathon in March so am learning to run (I hate it) Feeling better about myself helped clear my brain and getting up early and doing it before work helped.  

Tip 3 - Mediate  I get up and meditate every morning, it brought me a sense of calm.   I also became vegan - something I would NEVER have said 1 ½ years ago and has given me a renewed connection to the world around me, it made me read and consider my impact on the world.  I began to live more consciously.

Tip 4 - Connect  I started connecting with people.  I have a flatmate - someone I work with - and our friendship is the world to me. Amazingly, as I was his mentor when he was an NQT we are both able to seperate the professional and personal with no trouble at all.   I go out with my workmates.  I go and see friends.  I make a conscious effort to see my children together and separately- despite the fact they are older and 2 live away from home.  I have a best friend who I go to concerts with and who is someone who I respect and listen to - even when he tells me to “chill out”.  He does not care what I do for a job and is unimpressed by status. He has put my feet back on the ground and I love him.

Tip 5 - Do something you love I have sing with a choir again.  It is my passion.  It is the easiest and quickest way to get to know me.  It is how I express emotion and I did not do it once as a Headteacher

It is not perfect - I still do too much, although I try to stop if you ask my friends I am NOT good at resting, but I keep on trying.I have to tutor to make up the drop in income - I tutor a lot - too much.  I still get up at 5.30 and work - but first I meditate and I obviously eat much better.  

My relationship with my middle son has been damaged almost to breaking point by my depression, by him witnessing my sadness.  It is extremely painful and I miss him, I miss him loving me back - but it is my fault and I will always carry that, but I am in a place now where I have the strength to keep going back and working at reminding him I am his Mum. 

I never fell out of love with my job - I loved being the boss and I think, I know, that the changes that I made were good but I did not have some of the other skills it takes to make a great leader - I could not delegate, I could not get far enough from the building to be strategic (my head was too full), I was perhaps too open sometimes, I did not stand up to the LEA if I felt it was not in the school’s best interests and most importantly I did not look after my whole self and so it led to me making mistakes and I started to crumble under those decisions that unless you are a Headteacher you do not see and sometimes even know about. 

Neglecting my own mental health lead to poorer decisions and when your decision affects everyone that is disastrous.  Ironically I think the very experience has made me a better leader.  Stripped of my arrogance and my previous notion that people should “get over their issues” I have not stopped educating myself since I came to the wonderful school I am at now.  I have secretly taken courses in HR and finance and all those things I was weak on before, I am just finishing my NPQSL, I have become obsessed with research based education but more importantly I am a better human.  I am less arrogant, more empathetic, a better team player, I am kinder ...not weaker...but definitely kinder.   

The biggest asset a school has is its people.  All of them.  From the top down, From the bottom up!  Look after yourselves and, importantly, look after each other.

How I survived career failure and learned to love teaching again. Part Two: Bouncing Back from Career Failure

Post by Kristian Shanks

A version of this blog was presented at New Voices 2019

After my fourth unsuccessful interview for a responsibility post, and knowing that the dreaded formal capability letter was imminent, I resigned without a job to go.

This was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders – now I could focus on what I needed to focus on which was finding a new job.

It took me a long time to process the fact that I’d probably have to look at a mainscale teacher post – I honestly found this a humiliating setback and a clear sign that I was a failure, that I hadn’t performed or hadn’t coped.  The massive drop in pay wasn’t great either – thankfully my wife was incredibly supportive even thought it meant potential changes or delays to her plans to significantly reduce her hours and so on.

I got offered a position on my first interview for a mainscale job at an RI school – but was really impressed with the Head’s vision and ideas which chimed with my own, and with the Head of Department who spoke a lot of sense.  They were also able to look past my struggles at my previous school and could see the wealth of experience and success as a teacher that I could bring which was reassuring.  I also liked the idea of being part of the challenge of helping to improve a department.

The best thing was the fact that I could really re-engage with my subject again, and I think this was another big problem with the SLT job.  A big part of my teacher identity had been built on being a History teacher, a guy who loved his subject, was really passionate and nerd-ish about it – and being on SLT meant I had to move away from that which I found really tough to accept.

Now it wasn’t smooth sailing at my new school – there were still some issues that the school was working through, and coming into a department where there had been huge amounts of supply cover was really difficult.  You can’t just turn that around in one year, especially when learning new specifications on top of this, and the results after Year 1 were the worst any GCSE class of mine have ever had by a long long way.  Again my confidence took a bit of a hit although thankfully my results were similar to those of our Head in a different subject and overall we’d had a really poor year as a school.  Thankfully in Year 2 – the first on the new 9-1 GCSE qualifications, our departmental results skyrocketed and this really helped make me feel like – ‘Oh yeah, I’m actually OK at this teaching lark’.

Again I also felt like I could do more with the experience that I possessed.  That frustration and a sense that I was at a crossroads again led me to apply to my current school in a Head of Department role (having been unsuccessful for a similar job in a different school).  At that point, my feeling was if I don’t get this – I’m out.  I had an interview lined up for a role at TeachFirst which sounded interesting, and a couple of other education-but-not-teaching type jobs that looked interesting.

As it happened, I think feeling like that really helped me to be really candid in my interview for my current Head of Department post and I was successful.  I’m now in a school where I’ve been able to move on, develop my practice, be fairly autonomous in my role and continue to immerse my love for History.

What has helped me to bounce back?

·       Firstly, it goes without saying that having a supportive family and friendship network was massively important and I couldn’t have done it without them.

·       From a purely professional point of view, it was re-connecting with what I enjoyed about teaching which was actually my subject.  I love History and I came into teaching as a way to continue to be engaged with my subject.  I’ve joined the Historical Association, I get to go on network meetings with other History professionals and talk History, and I’m part of a Teacher Fellowship programme with the HA on the Korean War (where I got to go to Athens for a few days) and basically my job and my hobby are really able to collide.

·       I think the online education world has been massively helpful.  I was always fairly traditional in my views about teaching and have always tried to shy away from doing independent group discovery learning tasks on the sly, even if I knew in certain observations making sure I was not seen as the sage on the stage was important.  Having engaged with twitter and blogs I’ve now come across loads of people who think similarly to me, but articulated all those ideas really clearly and had some evidence behind them as well.  People like Tom Sherrington, Stephen Tierney, Ben Newmark, Becky Allen – their blogs were the gateway drug into the Twitter world for me.  It has helped my practice so much, and helped me to firm up what I believe about teaching.  A recent example has been the fabulous work by Matt Pinkett and Mark Roberts called Boy’s Don’t Try.  I’d always hated that ‘boys like competition’ and ‘boys want to learn about war’ rubbish in terms of how we should teach boys.  I’ve always been pretty good at getting boys motivated to do well in History, and I think that’s more because I’m an absolute swot and just try to pack lessons full of interesting content rather than silly games and tasks which just didn’t feel appropriate for that age range and cohort.  It seems that those guys kind of support that view too.  Rather than not having the courage of my convictions, possibly I veer too much the other way when confronted with aspects of teaching that I disagree with (for example, the obsession with made up data, our harmful accountability regime, and weakness over issues of behaviour management).  Managing this is an internal battle I am trying to win.

·       I’ve also sought some outside coaching from a non-teacher – and I highly recommend this if you’re stuck at a crossroads.  Teaching can be a profession where people get trapped because the pay and security are pretty good compared to other professions.  Going to see someone outside of our ridiculous job might help you to have confidence you can do other stuff if that’s what you want to do.

·       Now, I feel like the direction I want to go in is to eschew the traditional management type route and really become a more active part in my subject community and helping to develop other teachers.  We have an NQT in the department this year who is fabulous, and I’m trying to do what I can to reach out where possible to other History networks and our local university History ITT providers.  I’m not sure I can do another 45 years in the classroom or however long Iain Duncan Smith wants us to keep going for, and therefore trying to build a side portfolio of ‘other stuff’ may provide some opportunities. 

Whereas three years ago I was a jibbering wreck and had no confidence I now feel, whatever happens next, I’ve got a bit of a plan and ownership over what I’m doing, and that has been really important in keeping me going and helping me to bounce back.

How I survived career failure and learned to love teaching again. Part One: The Anatomy of a Career Failure

Post by Kristian Shanks @HistoryKss

A version of this blog was presented at New Voices 2019

In April 2015, things could not have been better in my teaching career.  I’d spent five wonderful years at an outstanding secondary school in West Yorkshire, been part of a fantastic History department that consistently gained superb results, I’d been acting up on SLT there for the previous year, and had just gained an Assistant Head’s position at a nearby school as Head of Sixth Form, a job I’d wanted to do pretty much since entering teaching.  To boot, I’d just got married and was soon to find out my wife was pregnant with our first child together.

By May 2016 I’d resigned from that position without a job to go to (a case of jumping before being pushed) and had gone back down to being a main-scale teacher – I’d been badly burned and it felt like I was being relegated back to square one.  To compound matters, I’d bounced round the interview circuit looking for posts with responsibility and failing at that too (and deservedly – I did not interview well at all).  My mental health was probably not in a good place – not ideal when you’ve got a newborn on the scene as much as anything else!  As much as anything I felt like an absolute failure and that it was humiliating to go back to a position I’d not been in since the second year of my teaching career.

Now, I’m a Head of History in a good school in North Yorkshire, and really enjoying the job again.  I now feel in a position to reflect in a more analytical way about what went wrong, what lessons I take from the experience and to hopefully share my story to help others who may find themselves in a similar situation.

What went wrong?

This is a question I’ve thought a lot about most days since handing my notice in for that job.  I identify four key problems:

The weight of responsibility

·       I was not prepared for the weight, or burden of responsibility that SLT brings.  Frankly, I was too inexperienced to live with it, especially in a school context that for various reasons was not as favourable as the one I left.  I’d just live and die with every mistake or problem that came up (and there were many).  I’d get massive ‘Sunday dread’ and work every hour going and it still didn’t feel like I was doing enough – especially as things would proceed to go wrong during the week!  I was just not really prepared to feel this way, and I think a lack of experience was problematic here.  I’d done a range of different roles in my previous schools – but was looking for something weightier.  On reflection, I should have been looking at Head of History roles (a position, crucially, I’d not done before) as I think that would have been better preparation for dealing psychologically with the challenge of leadership.  I was at that time fairly ambitious and wanted to move up the ranks, as it were – in hindsight I should have been more patient and thought much more about what I wanted to do rather than what I felt like I should have been doing.

Lack of experience

·       In addition, I hadn’t worked in enough schools of different types.  When you stay for a while in one school, especially one that’s successful, you can become institutionalised.  That makes it harder to transition to a new context, especially one that did not have a history of success.  I was joining a school graded Inadequate six years earlier (but ‘Good’ when I started), with some financial issues and a school roll that had cratered – affecting the Sixth Form numbers I now had some responsibility for.  I was not prepared for staff who fundamentally mistrusted SLT and seen a revolving door of them come and go (4 heads in 7 years).  I was not prepared to inherit a Sixth Form where previous colleagues running it had both hated each other and both resigned at once and there had been a bit of a void in the direction and leadership and where students, who’d gone through the full gamut of problems, felt a bit betrayed.  Also I hadn’t realised how hard just being new is – you’re nothing when you move school.  It’s not like football transfers where a new player carries a reputation with them.  In a new school, especially one with high staff turnover, SLT or not you’re just another new face that’s probably not going to last very long.  When you then all of a sudden can’t control the behaviour of your class because the personality and systems you’d relied on before were no longer present or didn’t work, you had a problem!

Having the courage of your convictions

·       I don’t think I really knew what I thought then, or at the very least my beliefs were tentative.  For example, I knew at that time I didn’t really feel comfortable with grading lesson observations or work scrutinies.  I wasn’t sure why I didn’t like it – it just didn’t sit right with me.  Now my employer also happened to share that view, which was good, however we were in partnership with another school Sixth Form that didn’t share that view.  We used to do joint QA work and as part of this they did grade some work of our staff, which was then fed back to some of our colleagues directly by that school.  You can imagine the emails of outrage from those colleagues and rightly so.  Why hadn’t I said something?  Why hadn’t I said – “We don’t this here?”  As the only member of our school involved in this QA exercise and as SLT I got a pasting for that one from all corners – and not undeservedly.

Alignment

·       This was a big one – I fundamentally at that time did not share the same view of where the school was and where it needed to go as did my colleagues.  That becomes impossible to sustain when you’re being asked to do things you don’t really believe in.  In particular, it seemed to me that the school felt that the issues were faced were to do with teachers and their effectiveness.  To me, the issue was that behaviour was extremely poor and that fixing this would be the route to improved outcomes.  When my Deputy Headteacher and line manager said to me that basically it doesn’t matter how good the system is, it’s about the individual teacher’s relationship in the classroom with the students, I thought we had a bit of a problem.

Ultimately, I was essentially ‘managed out’ of my position with the informal support plans that aren’t very supportive.  Resigning before anything worse could happen was, in the end, a massive relief.  I could now focus on starting again and rebuilding without trying to cling on to this job that I didn’t like and didn’t seem to be very good at.

 

In Part Two – I’ll explain how I did that!