In this episode, Claire meets with Andrew Midgley, headteacher at Raynville Primary School and interim headteacher at Carlinghow Primary School.
Andrew talks about how, initially, he had no interest in a teaching career after seeing how much work his parents, who were both teachers, had to do as he was growing up. However, this changed after he began helping his girlfriend’s son who was falling behind at school. This motivated Andrew to pursue a PGCE at Bradford University after which he ‘never looked back’.
Andrew reflects on how difficult a start he had with his first teaching appointment: a year 6 class with 35 pupils, no teaching support assistant and whose previous class teacher was off ill for a long period of time. On top of this, Ofsted visited to inspect the school and judge it as inadequate in Andrew’s first week. However, from that turbulent beginning, Andrew talks about his journey moving from a class teacher role to deputy headship to being seconded to one of the most challenging and worst-performing schools in Calderdale. Here, he turned around the school achieving good with outstanding features and even receiving an award from the Department for Education recognising the school as one of the top 50 schools in the country for sustained improvement.
From there, Andrew worked in a multi-academy trust followed by supporting leaders and working as a consultant, but eventually moved back to Leeds as a headteacher.
With Claire, Andrew discusses the challenges he has faced in his varied leadership roles and shares his experiences of helping to turn around schools in difficult circumstances. Within these discussions, he talks about the different strategies he has implemented and shares his thoughts on what has been successful.
 
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Being a new headteacher can be lonely.Leadership roles – particularly at the top – can be lonely jobs and, as a new headteacher, there can be very few options for support. Having a mentor or close links to other experienced headteachers can be vital giving you someone to discuss difficult situations or decisions with. Nobody, even at the top, has all of the answers all of the time.
Always be looking to learn from others.This is something teachers generally do anyway, but can particularly useful for anyone aspiring to be a leader in the future. Take time to look at how the best leaders interact with others, what decisions and actions they take and why they take them.
If a task isn’t beneficial, ask why it needs to be done.‘Because we’ve always done it that way’ cannot be a reason to continue doing something that serves no purpose. Tasks done for this reason alone can unnecessarily take up teachers’ valuable time. Leaders can help improve workload by periodically reviewing what staff are asked to do and question the benefits of doing them.
Look for opportunities to gain more experience.Where you can, look to gain experience of teaching in different year groups, particularly if you aspire to lead a school in the future. While you don’t have to work in all phases of a school, it can really help to have experienced teaching in at least several different year groups as you will learn about the differences in approaches and structures which can be valuable in understanding how schools work and for building your own vision for a school.
Always look to make use of other people’s expertise.While having first-hand experience of teaching across a school is very useful, many teachers and leaders have not done this, and it isn’t essential. Few leaders would say that they are experts in all phases of education and the best leaders actively seek out others who are experts in their phase and make the most of their knowledge and skills.
Trust and communication are key to a good life/work balance for staff.Communication between leaders and staff about key events and ongoing aspects of their lives outside of school can really help. Coupled with trust and an understanding that some people, for differen