As the 2026 school year looms large, I am as excited as always to get stuck in, meet new kids, welcome new families and to just immerse myself in the jungle of school life once again. After teaching for almost 30 years and being a Principal for 10 of these, January still brings some nerves, but more than anything, it fills me with joy and anticipation for I know what lays ahead.
All of which got me thinking about the special role that I have, and that others have within my school, but also in schools and similar roles across the country. For whilst we are all at different schools, as school leaders we are all faced with the same issues in January. These are the sort of questions that are rattling through my head at the moment – I am sure others can relate:
- Did I communicate the start date for our new Preps, year 7’s, Year 11 and 12’s?
- Have we bought enough laptops?
- Is our uniform shop stocked with the right slacks, blouses, skirts, socks, hats etc etc?
- What are our enrolment numbers?
- Do we have our timetables sorted?
- Are our new staff prepped and ready to roll?
- Is that new toilet block installed?
- Has my order of furniture arrived?
Honestly, the list goes on and on!
What I’ve done in recent years is to pull together a bunch of mantras I guess one could call them, or in keeping with the theme of education I call them ‘lessons’. Lesson that I’ve learnt the hard way I suppose and which now keep me on track and remind me of the core traits of my role. They are lessons that I share regularly with those in leadership at my school, or even those aspiring to leadership.
Here they are – The 17 lessons of the leadership game – I hope they help someone….
- To enter the leadership arena means that you don’t merely endure the battle. It means that you embrace it and everything that comes with it—the good and the bad, especially the bad.
- There are different leadership styles, and different contexts require different leaders. Find your own style but recognise what your context requires from you and adapt accordingly.
- Whether you’ve been externally or internally appointed to your new leadership role, it’s important to start off by revealing not only your vision and intent but also who you are as a person. Don’t dampen your audience’s enthusiasm with detail and dullness; lift their spirits with aspiration and ambition.
- Your school is a bus, and you’re driving it. Your first job is to get the seats sorted. Move the right people into those seats. Escort off the bus those who cannot or will not buckle up. Provide good service to the people who buy a ticket to ride.
- A school is strong when the community that surrounds it is strong. Look for ways to build connections, relationships and partnerships. Be deliberate and persistent in this task.
- A vision is the ultimate aspirational goal for your school, the foundation upon which everything else is built. Alignment with the classroom is critical: you don’t want your vision to be a bunch of nebulous flowery words that nobody buys into.
- Get comfortable with being visible. Visibility does more than put a face to a name—it builds your understanding of the organisation and everyone else’s trust in you.
- No-one likes to have difficult conversations, but avoiding them means endorsing bad behaviour, killing morale, lowering standards and losing good people.
- Build your team with mutual respect and clear expectations, and allow them to do the same with their teams. It’s one of the most powerful ways to achieve your collective organisational goals.
- Self-care is a regular meeting with yourself that might just save not only your health, but also your career, your family and your life.
- As dull as it might sound, resource management is a critical part of school leadership. People don’t notice when it’s working, but they sure as hell do when it isn’t. When not done well, it can bring a school to its knees.
- The quickest way to lose the trust of your staff is to ask them to do something that you either can’t or won’t do yourself. Do the hard carry.
- If you and your staff aren’t united in your approach to leading students, you’re wasting your time. Don’t be that person who tries to be liked by the kids only to undermine your colleagues.
- Facilities are nice, but their importance pales into obscurity in comparison to the level of genuine care that teachers and leaders have for a child. Parents hand their children over every day with the expectation that they will be safe, acquire some skills and qualifications, and create and maintain friendships. You can make these things a reality.
- When building or rebuilding a school, start with people first and structures second. Systems, platforms and frameworks should come last. If you don’t know what you want the school to stand for, you can’t put things in place to help you get there.
- The future of schooling will see institutional shackles broken to create greater flexibility, choice and partnerships. Just as the classroom silo has opened up, so too in time will the school silo.
- Good leadership is an accumulation of interactions and decisions that build people, strengthen relationships, and provide stability and direction.
Wishing you all the best for the 2026 school year!
Cheers
Damien