My route to where I am has been unconventional. I never really wanted or planned to be a leader or head teacher. I was quite happy being an early years teacher and then early years lead. I didn’t know all these other roles existed, but the landscape of education changed significantly around me, creating roles which had previously never existed. Growing up, I had no role models of family members who had been teachers. Education is a very middle class profession and I didn’t realise for a long time how many people benefit from having someone in their immediate or extended family who’s been a teacher or in some other educational role.
Teaching wasn’t something I considered when I was at school. I was quite naughty, I was a looked after child, SEN and FSM. My passion was film production and when I left university I worked in media. As part of my job, I enjoyed working with children from similar backgrounds to my own, teaching media, editing and music production. My affinity with and understanding of those hard to reach children and their families was a motivation to teach. I thought I would work in secondary, but ended up on an early years PGCE. When I became a subject lead, I became further interested in inclusion, this led me to a role as assistant head for inclusion in a tough environment.
I started to think about headship when my eldest daughter said to me that she never saw black or brown people and women like me in headship. When the opportunity to be an executive head came up, again, I realised that there very few people who look like me in those roles in the country. Part of my drive and motivation has come from my understanding of the importance of my presence in a leadership role.
