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.
