1st Edition
New School Leader: What Now? Simple lessons to navigate doubt, embrace challenge and lead well every day
Foreword
Part 1 Navigating doubt
1. Learning to carry the weight
2. The importance of allies
3. Working without praise
4. Plain speaking
5. Speaking from the heart
6. Decisions
7. U-turns
8. Kopfkino
9. Forgetting and remembering
10. Visibility
Part 1 summary
Part 2 Navigating challenge
11. Facing significant underperformance head-on
12. Covering off in a crisis
13. Assertion
14. Keeping perspective
15. Echo
16. Breathing through my feet
17. Real courage
18. Inspection
19. Work and rest
Part 2 summary
Part 3 Leading every day: the basics
20. Curiosity
21. Process, not place
22. Smiling
23. Saying thank you
24. Questions
25. Visits
26. Feedback
27. Next steps
28. The gift of helping to cross steppingstones
29. The importance of preparation
30. Meetings
31. Reading
32. Carrying on
33. Restart
34. Moments that give perspective
Part 3 summary
Part 4 Leading every day: mindset and culture
35. The importance of goals
36. Little things that mean a lot
37. Slowly building trust
38. Positive narratives
39. Quiet ambition
40. The misconception of strong leadership
41. Benches
42. The self-employed mindset
43. The pitfall of the self-employed mindset
44. Threads
45. Tuning forks
46. Pipelines
47. Working sideways across schools
Part 4 summary
Biography
Neil Renton is the headteacher of a large comprehensive secondary school of over 2100 students in North Yorkshire. An experienced senior leader, he was appointed to headship just before the pandemic.
Leadership is in my opinion a much-overused term in our education system and more often than not conflated with management. But the role of headteacher is not the one portrayed by the fictional figures found in James Hilton’s Goodbye Mr Chips, Whack-O’s Professor James Edwards or Roald Dahl’s monstrous Miss Trunchbull but one of a highly visible and accountable position in our society. In modern times it is a position holding expectations of a complex array of knowledge and skills ranging from social worker, site manager to educational visionary.
Yet at its heart is the day-to-day need to work for and with pupils, teaching and support staff and the wider community. And despite the centrality of the role, the way we prepare our teachers to take on the role is open to question. Overnight, a teacher becomes a headteacher.
Neil Renton’s humble and honest insight into the transition is not one that relies on an academic or philosophical take on leadership, but one that speaks from the heart about the challenges and privileges of starting out in headship.
This highly accessible and compelling book walks the reader through the mind of a reflective, pragmatic professional stated in refreshingly plain English. This is not only something for aspiring headteachers to read, but for every person engaged in our schools and colleges to help us all to see inside the soul of a dedicated professional starting out in the role of the head of an educational institution.
Dr Mick Walker Former Exec Director of QCDA; President CIEA; Chair EBEIn New School Leader: What Now? Neil Renton offers a refreshingly honest and open account of his initial steps as a new headteacher in one of the United Kingdom’s largest comprehensive schools. In doing so he goes a long way to demystify the role of the headteacher. This is not to play down or make this hugely significant position seem somehow easier than it might appear but rather to offer invaluable insight and advice about how to navigate the complex terrain of school leadership. That the book is underpinned by such first-hand professional knowledge and experience make it all the more powerful and purposeful. For anyone with an interest in education and, in particular, those embarking on their first leadership position within a modern day educational organisation, this is essential reading.
Dr Paul Wilfred Armstrong Senior Lecturer in Education, University of Manchester
