Three school leaders share the biggest challenges they’ve faced since stepping into leadership roles.

School leadership is a tough gig. There’s the workload, the meetings, the managing staff, the policy changes, the pressure for student results. But beyond that, there’s the challenge of feeling like you have to face all of this alone. 

Sharing experiences and learning from other school leaders can give you a blueprint for the challenges you might be facing in your own school. So we spoke to three school leaders about the biggest challenges they’ve faced in their leadership roles and how they overcame them. 

Supporting teachers

Mati, former Head of Maths (VIC)

The biggest challenge I ever faced as a school leader was helping to support teachers in a way that was actually helping them. This included trying to improve teacher expertise and confidence. Teachers are under an immense amount of pressure and expectations, and are often under-resourced, particularly with time. They are often expected to teach outside their comfort zone and if they are brave enough to try something new and take risks they are often criticised and even bullied if mistakes are made. 

As a leader, I tried to encourage teachers to take risks, fought upper management for time as a team so that we could learn from each other, spent countless hours developing resources and shared them with all, fought for opportunities for teachers to attend professional development opportunities and encouraged teachers to take on the challenge of teaching subjects like Specialist Mathematics. 

I also tried to find other practical ways of supporting teachers, such as asking for teachers to have their own rooms that were equipped with things like mini whiteboards, butcher paper and metre rulers. I ran support classes at lunch time for students that were falling behind or needed extra help. I asked for extra support teachers, who were also maths trained, and could join our classroom teachers and support them. This support could be to help run whole class group activities, or to work with students who either needed extension or extra support. The support teacher, being maths trained, could also work with the majority of the class, whilst the classroom teacher worked with specific groups of students. 

Education will only improve if we listen to our teachers and genuinely do things that solve the problems they are facing. 

Overcoming resistance to change

Steven, Teacher and Leadership Lecturer (WA)

From my experience in project and program management roles, as well as that from my current non-teaching responsibilities in education, whatever the change, the biggest challenge is overcoming staff resistance. 

Compared to industry, facilitating change within a school seems excruciatingly slow, much of which is down to the very limited time. Often this prevents leaders from effectively bringing those who will be affected by the change on board. Without being able to understand and then address the myriad reasons for resistance – “I don’t have the time to make the changes”, “I don’t agree that the changes will work”, “I think my way is better for me” – positive change won’t occur. 

But when you consider it, the process of teaching is one of leadership. Your role is to persuade students who are often reluctant, to engage their brains, and make the necessary effort to learn something new. And good leaders use the same skills as good teachers to encourage change – they develop relationships, listen to and address concerns, encourage, set high expectations, have clear objectives, build a safe but accountable environment; essentially they develop trust, and, as much as is possible, avoid having to use authority, knowing any change this elicits is generally short-term. 

The best way to lead is like a great educator teaches. Pay attention to those you are leading because this is where the change needs to happen. Recognise that the ones that complain the most are the ones emotionally invested. It may feel like they are your biggest problem, but take the time to get them on your side, and they will become your biggest change champions. And keep a close eye on the quiet ones. Passivity is as likely to be quiet defiance as it is to be consent, and failure to change will inevitably come from that quarter. 

Finally, be realistic in your timeframes.  Remember that making change occur is like eating an elephant – it will only happen if you take one bite at a time.       

Working with out-of-field teachers

Rebecca, Head of Maths (QLD)

The biggest challenge I have faced in my role as a school leader is managing a faculty with many staff that are not trained Maths specialists. The challenge has always existed but has increased since COVID and in line with the recent teacher shortage.

This challenge was probably the biggest obstacle I faced in my first term as Acting HOD where I had multiple teachers on short term teaching contracts and most staff on maximum teaching loads which just added more strain to an already stretched faculty. I made the decision to harness the benefits of Maths Pathway to the fullest and developed a 2hr workshop which involved using existing faculty staff that were “experts” in particular concepts in Maths Pathway including Mini-Lessons, Rich Tasks, Targeted Intervention and Check-ins, to deliver the workshop during Student Free Days.

This supported building capacity in the team by giving the presenters autonomy, confidence and ownership of their work whilst upskilling new teachers to not only the faculty but also teaching Maths. I also developed a detailed “How To” with screen shots for getting started in Maths Pathway and more specific “How To’s” for running mini-lessons etc. New teachers found these invaluable to refer to as they developed their skills and became familiar with the program terminology and interface.

What I have learnt from this experience is that investing my time to set up the teaching tools early has saved me a lot of time by reducing the face-to-face professional development for each new teacher to the faculty. Developing capabilities within my team and calling on them as the experts has also built capacity, instilled confidence, and developed a team that supports each other which has become a major reason for Park Ridge’s success with Maths Pathway as a Teaching and Learning tool within our Maths faculty.