Blog: School leadership Tips
Can I offer a different take on resignation season?
What if losing someone didn’t automatically lead to ‘oh no’.
What if it meant space.
Space to strengthen.
Space to raise standards.
Space to shift the balance of your team.
Recruitment isn’t just about filling posts.
It’s about increasing the number of people who make your school stronger.
It’s exam season.
If you’re leading a school right now, you’ll be feeling it.
The preparation.
The pressure.
The responsibility.
But here’s the thing — you’ve already done the work.
When someone resigns, it’s easy to panic.
Advert.
Replace.
Move on.
But sometimes that instinct costs more than we realise.
Before you automatically refill a post, there’s one smarter question you’ll love asking!
Soon, it’ll be recruitment season.
Adverts to draft.
Job descriptions to tweak.
But for now, there’s that ‘back of the mind’ question:
Who might leave?
Can I say something slightly uncomfortable?
I often hear leaders say pay is the reason people leave.
But… most teachers don’t leave because of pay.
31 May is closer than you think.
It’s resignation season soon.
And even if nothing has happened yet, there’s often that little flicker of:
“Here we go again…”
Before the notices land, there’s one simple shift that makes recruitment season steadier and stronger.
There’s a particular kind of tired that only school leaders understand.
It’s the tired that comes from holding the impossible —
and still creating magic anyway.
Every head I’ve spoken to this term has carried some version of the same heartbreak:
There isn’t enough funding.
There isn’t enough support.
There isn’t enough of you to go around.
And yet…
There’s a particular kind of tired that only school leaders understand.
It’s the tired that comes from holding the impossible —
and still creating magic anyway.
Every head I’ve spoken to this term has carried some version of the same heartbreak:
There isn’t enough funding.
There isn’t enough support.
There isn’t enough of you to go around.
We live in an age that feels uncertain.
Globally, the world order we’ve known seems to be shifting.
Nationally, politics feels less certain than it once did.
And in schools you’re facing a new Ofsted framework, the White Paper, rising complexity in pupil needs and parents who understandably expect more than ever before.
It’s no wonder leadership feels uncertain!
Some days it might even make you think about quitting.
Or retiring earlier than planned.
And yet…
When you’re in the thick of school life, it’s easy to forget this simple truth:
You’re closer to great than you think.
I’m reminded of it every time I walk into one of the schools in Outstanding Against the Odds.
None of them started in an easy place.
Many began where you might be now.
And yet they moved.