Not counting two periods of maternity leave, this September was my 40th year returning to school after a long summer holiday. (Yes, I really am that old.)

As I spoke to my staff on our first professional development day of the year, I looked out at the troops and found myself thinking: “here we go again”.

Virtually all of our current staff were appointed by me; it seems that the answer to getting the team you want is simply to survive longer than everyone else. Looking at them, I felt very proud and confident that these are the people I would most want to “go into battle” with. They really are an incredible group of people to work with.

The theme of our first session was leadership, and part of it focussed on William Shakespeare’s Henry V. Many of the themes in this play resonated with me, but there was one notion in particular that I wanted my staff to think about.

Creating balance

After Henry V achieved an amazing victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt, he could then have decided to continue on to invade Spain. But he didn’t.

This made me think of how often, as school leaders, we may be tempted to achieve something and then say to staff: “Wow, amazing! We did it. Now, I want you to…”

How much wiser it is to sometimes say: “Wow, amazing! We did it.” And then stop there.

Perhaps too often, us headteachers do not give time to celebrate our successes and are overzealous in our drive for improvement.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I am as ambitious as anyone. But I truly believe that to keep your troops motivated and enthused, there needs to be a balance.

There are so many pressures on everyone working in education at the moment. As a headteacher, you must keep perspective on what is possible in the time scale you have, while also protecting your foot soldiers from burn out.  

So this term, I intend to emulate Henry V. Which leader will you be channelling?

Chris Wain is Executive Head Teacher at Pallister Park Teaching school.

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