I started my website in 2018 full of motivation to write blogs about my SBL journey. I kept it up for a while and then it dwindled away. I now find I haven’t published a blog post in four years. Where has all that time gone?
As usual, it is term seven that provides me with the headspace to reflect on my journey and direction. For those not in the education space, “term seven” is how we refer to the summer holidays.
My greatest achievement of term seven this year has been to tidy up my office! This may seem trivial but my desk was drowning in papers – filing I had yet to get around to. Tidying my office up means I will start the next term with a clear mind and I will actually be able to think straight.
Having achieved that in week one I went on to set up calendar reminders for the school year for tasks such as completing my governors reports. I am notorious for leaving the reports to the very last moment the moaning about the (self inflicted) pressure I am under. This year I plan to change that with reminders of when to start working on the papers. I’ll come back at end of the first term to let you know how it goes.
What else has term seven given me the head space to think about? Well, those who have read my previous blogs will know that I moved into school business management in 2015 after 14 years in local government. After two very fulfilling roles, I moved to my current school in 2019 with a massive amount of imposter syndrome. Since then I’ve told anyone who will listen that I am still new to school business management but I’m not sure I can still get away with that after ten years.
The last ten years have been an amazing rollercoaster. I had no idea what I was letting myself into when I moved into school management. I naively thought I’d have 13 weeks of downtime each year and leave work at 4pm everyday. I could not have been more wrong.
However, going into my seventh school year in my school, I find myself able to have a better work life balance. Mainly because I have leaned heavily on my network of SBLs to pick their brains to work out how to do my job well. Gathering tidbits from my extensive network; I’ve picked out different strategies that work well for me and in turn works for my family. I almost never sit down and do work at home but instead opting to work longer days when necessary to get things done.
One of my worries when I took the step into this role was that I didn’t know how to be strategic and would continue being operational. In truth, I am still operational. I’m not sure I can ever step away completely from being operational but I took notes from my Head on how to lead and trust in my teams. After six years, I am much more experienced at trusting the managers that I manage to use their expertise. This trust has allowed me to be hands off and given me the space to be strategic. Thinking about long term strategy now comes more naturally as I know my team of managers are adept at leading the short term processes and procedures.
Over the last six years or so I’ve tried to push myself out of my comfort zone and into public speaking. I’ve spoken at a number of conferences on a range of topics – diversity in leadership, developing an anti-racist HR strategy, the benefits of governance as CPD – to name a few. Without fail, every single time I put myself forward to speak I immediately regret it. I am filled with thoughts of self doubt until the time arrives and then, guess what? I always enjoy it. I enjoy the feeling of sharing my knowledge and experience with my peers. I soak in the positive feedback and it gives me such a boost. I then go away and the same cycle starts again – until the next time!
So if I say it out loud then I will have to stick to it – this year I will actively seek to increase my public speaking profile and lean into saying yes to invitations to speak at conferences. If you see me wiggling out of it, will you remind me?
Briscoe Campbell 