Whether it is your first taste of being on SLT or you are a seasoned school principal starting at a new school, the first days in a new management or leadership role are an exciting but slightly daunting time.
The challenges depend on context, but they ultimately come down to building new relationships. Moving to a new school will require learning names, new systems and processes and finding your place within the senior leadership team. Meanwhile, stepping out of middle leadership onto SLT working in the same school will require you to redefine existing relationships 鈥 you may well be line-managing former peers and colleagues who you consider friends.
So here鈥檚 some tips on how to hit the ground running:
You only have one chance to make a first impression
Your first meeting sets the tone. This is equally true whether it鈥檚 your first departmental meeting as a subject leader or your first full staff meeting as a new principal. What you say and how you say it will have impact. Plan ahead. Practise in front of the mirror (or better your smartphone so that you can see how you come across!).
Beware everything is exaggerated
One of the challenges of the first few days in a new school is that your new colleagues will be trying to work out how things are going to change for them. This is particularly the case when you come into a school as a new principal. Staff and parents will have very little information to go on and will latch onto anything that gives a hint of the new direction of travel.
Everything that you say and do will be scrutinised and takes on a disproportionate importance that will not be case six months down the line when stakeholders have much more information on which to base their judgements. So if you watch a boys鈥 football match, make sure that you drop in on netball practice and a choir rehearsal lest you set WhatsApp groups buzzing that you are only interested in boys鈥 sport.
Avoid throw away comments, even in jest, if you don鈥檛 want to set the rumour mill going.
Be clear and simple about key messaging
For all the time spent in meetings, it is remarkable how little truly lands in the first busy couple of weeks. You may think that you have said it before, but it is worth following up your beginning of year keynote at subsequent staff meetings through the first half of term.
Everything that you say and do will be scrutinised.
I find it best to settle on a handful of key messages at the start of the year which the team communicate clearly. Be prepared to repeat those messages over and again. Get your team on board to reinforce them when they are in front of staff.
Beware multiple audiences
One of the greatest challenges of being a school leader is that you are serving a range of stakeholders, often who want and hear slightly different things. For example, an emphasis on setting and giving might be welcomed by a constituency of motivated parents; seen as an additional burden by others who don鈥檛 have time to support their children at home; and as extra workload by the teaching staff. It is always worth breaking down how any announcement will be received by different stakeholders before key messaging goes out.
Be out and about and keep your eyes open
The first few weeks in a new role are always daunting 鈥 everyone wants to meet the new boss, which is important but time-consuming and draining. It鈥檚 too easy to end up sitting in one鈥檚 office with a stream of back-to-back meetings with people introducing themselves.
In this context it is vital that the school principal or headteacher gets control of her diary and puts in at least an hour each day just to walk around the school. In my experience, it鈥檚 much better to see people in their natural habitat and for conversations to be informal, than to have a meeting in the head鈥檚 office.
Don鈥檛 waste being a fresh pair of eyes
Starting in a new role, particularly in a new school, you will notice things that those who have been in the school for years simply take for granted. Rather than continually pointing out how things were done differently in your previous schools or asking a stream of 鈥渨hy do we do it that way?鈥 questions, I find it best to keep a log of initial impressions which can be worked through once the dust has settled.
The first few weeks in a new role are daunting 鈥 everyone wants to meet the new boss
Likewise, I try to tap into the fresh eyes of the new staff. Ask yourself how often have you groaned internally and squashed the new colleague who says, 鈥渋n my last school, we used to do it differently鈥? That not only deflates, but it also misses an opportunity.
The reality is that in their last school, they might have done it better! Ask new colleagues to note down their first impressions and feed them back to you at a one-to-one meeting a couple of weeks into term.
In summary
Be present. Build trust. Build relationships.
