For variety and excitement you can't beat being a headteacher - The Jewish Chronicle

School leadership. It is not the easiest job in the world but it must be one of the most varied and exciting. It is never dull.

As I reflect on the first two hours of my working day, it is almost too much to take in. I have led a meeting of senior colleagues discussing the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence among the student body, checked and ratified financial predictions and staff salaries as part of a £9 million budget, responded to various parental and communal emails about our pupils in the local community and carried out a breaktime duty in the corridor just outside my office — all before 11.00 am and my first classroom teaching assignment of the day.

After 16 years of headship in two different Jewish schools, I still find it interesting, challenging and fun.

As a headteacher you get to shape things as you see fit. You get to think about your own educational vision and use that to make key decisions. For me it has always been about placing the Jewish ethos of the school at the very centre of what we do, about creating schools that look and feel like our own Jewish homes so that as soon as you enter and walk around you know exactly where you are.

The school should be at the very heart of the local community. Pupils, staff and parents should feel like they are part of something special and be proud of the things for which the school stands.

It is a privilege to be a headteacher and to be able to influence so many young people over such a long period of time.

Why then, is it so difficult to persuade people to go into teaching in the first place and into school leadership in particular? This is not just a Jewish community problem but one that spreads right across the world of education, but maybe for us within our community there are even more pressures than elsewhere.

When you are head at a Jewish school, going to a local kosher restaurant means meeting pupils and their parents and grandparents and answering questions between every mouthful, while going to shul on a Shabbat can result in employing any manner of avoidance tactics when bumping into school families, particularly at kiddush when the excuse that you don’t like to talk in shul is no longer valid.

Jewish heads often feel bombarded by demands at the school gate and from parental emails. which can arrive at any time of day or night couched in sometimes hostile language demanding attention at the drop of a hat. These are things which can turn headship into a very demanding job.

The school of 2023 is a very different beast to what it was five or ten years ago. It is expected to teach to the highest of standards across all academic subjects, to monitor and improve pupil mental health, to act as a family counsellor when things break down, to put in place healthy lifestyle education so that young people make the right choices and much, much more.

Perhaps as a community, we can think about ways in which we can further support our schools and school leaders. Be it through positive messaging at home, by letting schools know that they are appreciated, or even by making contributions to show just how grateful we are.

Most crucially, school leaders need to know and feel that they play a vital role in our community and they are appreciated for what they do.

new PaJeS logo

To get more from community, click here to sign up for our free community newsletter.

Topics:

Schools