Every year it’s the same. We’ve been back at school for a few days only, but it feels like weeks. This is not a moan. The collective energy emitted from colleagues during our training days could have powered a small town. (Blimey teachers can talk, loudly! And I’m as guilty as anyone). Moreover, the enthusiasm and positivity that characterised our Year 7 and 12 induction sessions was palpable, and it’s been genuinely lovely to welcome all students back to school and get them up and running ready for fresh challenges and opportunities ahead. But… the holiday already feels like it was ages ago.
Like many colleagues, I find myself in and out of school and often working from home during the break. But the holiday I do take, those weeks to properly unwind, I protect as best I can. This has not always been the case, but I am getting better, albeit slowly, at looking after myself and thus my family too in this regard. Last week, for the third year running, we went camping to Wales during the final week of the summer holiday. I like where we camp, except when it’s blowing a hurricane hooley in the middle of the night and the prospect of being flung into Cardigan Bay seems likely! However, the location is beautiful and, significantly, there is no mobile phone signal at our cliff top field. To find a signal requires a walk and mystic powers of divination involving haphazard wafting of a phone, arm’s length, above one’s head.
Like others, I get organised, get ahead of the workload, and this allows a moment of pause before the start of term. But I do feel a little guilty, I admit. I’m the boss. The first person in at the crack of dawn and the last to leave every evening, and so on and so forth. But those few days of calm, of peace, before the rush of a new school year make all the difference and I believe I am better placed to lead BGS when term begins because of them. I am learning how to blend work and play. It’s taken a long time and things are far from ideal, but… perhaps there’s benefit for others when senior colleagues in any organisation prioritise their own wellbeing and thus empower others to do likewise. Maybe? And it’s a two-way street, I have been inspired by colleagues and students to go out for a run one lunch time each week, a commitment I intend to keep, adjusting my work pattern to make this possible.
Thinking a little harder about this, I have to admit that the concept of work-life balance is one that grates a little with me. Ideally, life and work should not be in opposition. Work can and should be enjoyed, (accepting that some days will be ‘trickier’ than others to say the least), as part of a rich and healthy life. High workload is not automatically a recipe for unhappiness. Many of us enjoy it, provided, as far as I can see, we can enact some agency and control over our work patterns and make opportunities to decompress from time to time to do other, restorative things, like go camping.
Little things can make a difference. The Deputy Head, Bursar and I have agreed not to send emails to colleagues between 7pm and 7am, inclusive of weekends, and to only email colleagues during holidays when it is essential. If a matter of urgency arises, we will phone each other, ensuring that there will always be at least two of us available in case anyone happens to be in a remote corner of Wales (this agreement now runs alongside a routine duty rota).
Will it make a big difference? Not likely. But lots of little adjustments, that all colleagues can make, not just those emanating from any senior leadership team, will add up eventually. Might we roll out the email protocol, if we want to call it that, more widely as many other organisations have done? Possibly, let’s see how we go. What works for one organisation won’t automatically work for another. One Welsh cow field will not provide the required balm for all angsty Headmasters! But what is clear is that we can all do more, not to balance a work vs life false dichotomy, but to enact greater agency to manage busy lives more effectively. Like other schools, staff wellbeing is something we are re-examining at a senior level at BGS. Being less busy is unlikely to be a realistic option, if we are honest. But being in greater control of our lives, which includes work, can be an achievable ambition with the right mindset.
And so, we embrace another hectic, joyful, maddening, exhausting, heart lifting, bonkers, satisfying, exasperating, surprising, happy and uniquely rewarding school year. Meanwhile cows moo, rain falls, grass grows, and a cliff top field is never that far away.
“Moreover, the enthusiasm and positivity that characterised our Year 7 and 12 induction sessions was palpable, and it’s been genuinely lovely to welcome all students back to school and get them up and running ready for fresh challenges and opportunities ahead.”
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