Wednesday 18 February 2015

A good day

All's good with the world today. Well, for some it's not so good but in my little world it's been a good day. I've been patiently waiting for the day when I would feel like I'm part of the furniture and when I felt comfortable in my surrounds. I may be kidding myself and tomorrow may go belly up or the next day might be a shocker but what I mean goes beyond the day to day ups and downs. What I felt today was that this is where I am and I know a bit more about how things work. So it doesn't really matter what happens daily, you know what you can and can't do, where to get help and who the 'go to' people are.

If you've been working in the same place for a while can you remember when you started feeling that this was your place, your work home. Maybe you never felt that in a workplace and ultimately needed to leave. Maybe you felt t so strongly you also needed to leave. The latter is the more interesting scenario I think. I've been lucky enough in my working life as a teacher to feel I was so at home in my workplace that it was time to leave. I think you know this when you desire something different despite the many wonderful people and experiences around you. I believe that taking the plunge to leave that safety net and try something different or experience a position that is similar to your current one but in a different type of organisation, or like myself, in a different part of the country.

One of the interesting aspects of moving to a new place to work is whether your strengths are still your strengths and whether the challenges you personally face have a new chance to be taken out of hiding and given a new airing. Prior to moving to my previous leadership role I always believed I was a good team builder. It was, without doubt, the one thing I was most nervous about. Could I do this in a new environment? Would  be successful without the great people who made the teams I led? Thankfully, I believe that this remains one of my strengths but having the opportunity to test myself and face this challenge only happened because I moved from a position and place that I loved working to one where I knew no-one and only loved the philosophy and ideals of the school I was charged to help build. The move allowed me to confirm what I believed were my strengths and allowed me to work on my challenges.

Now I'm at a new school and in a new community it will take time to see what will develop, what my new challenges will be and where my strengths lie. Today, I had space to think and reflect because I wasn't running around trying to understand how things operate. I had time to have a conversation with a colleague around the choices the school made on streaming students in maths and another one with the e learning leader about the introduction of google apps and how I could help. Today was a good day because tings were starting to feel normal.


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