There’s a tightrope to be walked, this term, and its an unenviable job for those who lead departments and schools. Balance is tricky, and finding the balance between when to focus on department/school improvement, and when to consolidate (if only to try and stand still for a moment) is hard. And it’s made harder by focus from above — from outside agencies, Ofsted or MAT directives that view the term and year ahead like any other. School Improvement Plan to implement, policies to roll out, action must be taken.
But it isn’t shaping up to be a normal term, any more than last term was. Infections running out of control, catalysed by Christmas and New Year mixing; a lack of testing; ongoing Ofsted inspections; Y11 exams on the horizon for the first time in two years (for now). Combine this with the behaviour and safeguarding issues arising from previous lockdowns and the impact on school environments. Combine this with a natural, human instinct to worry about our own health and that of our family and friends, going into packed vectors of transmission on a daily basis. Personal anxiety and stress combined with the workload pressures of covering absent staff, combining and collapsing classes, preparing an online learning offer for those isolating, and running the normal gauntlet of day to day school realities — parents evenings and GCSE options, running detentions and sports fixtures, revision classes and form groups.
It seems to me that, at times like this, with the profession holding on with its fingers in the dam, willing back the tide while the cracks slowly spread … it seems to me that for now, less is more. All the well intentioned development points, action plans and implementation timetables mean little when the day to day reality of teaching is keeping your nose above the water for another day, another week. It seems to me like my job — as a department head and more so as a senior leader — is clearing that path. Remove the unnecessary or the hopeful until there’s mental real-estate for it to be built on. For now, it’s just about keeping the dam together.
