As a teacher of 13 years and a Vice Principal of 10 years, I think everyone could see my move into headship...except me! My family, my colleagues, my Trust told me that I would eventually become a head, but I was adamant that this wasn’t going to happen…so here is my blog about my first year of headship! Isn’t the world a crazy place?

When I was first approached about taking over Peckover Primary School as the Interim Principal, it was a great surprise. I had worked in a very close partnership with the old Principal and we’d always joked ‘If you go, I go’ and we were certain that we’d both end up working at Tesco’s on checkout numbers 12 and 13 – the ones opposite the alcohol aisle. And here I was just about to embark on the biggest learning curve of my life.

I was very lucky to have a term to get used to the idea and to plan what the school would look like, under my leadership, but when September came around, no one could’ve prepared me for what THAT CHAIR really meant.

Planning my first training day was the first challenge – how did I deliver an inspiring message to the staff and governors that demonstrated that I was a credible successor for the school. Time for my big-girl pants! In previous years, training day had always been someone else’s responsibility. My role had been to support the Principal and affirm and reinforce all the message that were being delivered and now they were my messages! Is it appropriate to say I really wanted to wear extra pairs of big-girl pants to help me?