I qualified to teach before I passed my driving test. I probably should have considered that before accepting my first job—twenty miles from home, in a town with no direct public transport. Fortunately, a generous and funny colleague took pity on me, driving me to work each day during my first year.

Each morning, as we passed the junction with the A1, he’d nudge me and suggest: “Edinburgh by lunch?” We both knew we weren’t going to carry on up the road. But the idea that we could—that every day we were choosing to turn left, to go to school—has stayed with me. Robert Frost may not approve, but I still make that choice every day.

This blog is about improving schools and building powerful communities. It’s not a manifesto, nor a step-by-step implementation guide. It’s not a memoir, and I’m not bearing witness to great national moments. It’s a narration of experience—mine—and perhaps a signposting of approaches that may resonate with yours.

On the hardest days of school leadership, I sometimes mutter, half-theatrically, “I just wanted to teach poetry.” Of course, that’s disingenuous. I loved teaching poetry. But I also cared deeply about the decisions being made around me, about the voice I did—or didn’t—have in shaping them. I left the classroom because I wanted to be in that other room, where the so-called “big calls” were made.

I’m at peace with that choice, though I still miss teaching. I miss the creativity, the integrity, the silliness, the gratification that comes from learning and laughing with students every day. Leadership offers different rewards—but fewer of those.

I’m not a management guru. I’m not tethered to any one ideology, and I don’t hold court on educational dogma (though I’ll be unapologetically opinionated when the moment calls). I’ve made some strong choices and some poor ones—professionally and personally—as I’ve tried to make a positive difference in schools.

I know what it feels like to teach five periods a day, every day, for eight weeks straight. I know what it’s like to lead a school when everything is going wrong—when the building is flooding or falling apart, when parents believe you’re making choices that harm their children. I’ve had to make excellent people redundant. I’ve been robust with the right people too late, or the wrong people too soon. I’ve disappointed staff, upset families, and second-guessed myself more times than I can count. And that’s often before the registration bell.

I think these stories are worth sharing—not because they offer perfection or certainty—but because leadership is often only written about in two ways: either by theorists who have never lived it, or by true believers selling a singular method, one that must be replicated with fidelity to be respected. My evidence base is modest, but I hope my experience feels credible.

What I share here isn’t meant to be copied. It’s meant to be useful. In the end, we all write our own stories as leaders. Mine has been shaped by favourable demography, fortunate circumstances, brilliant colleagues, and deeply loved people. I’m fully—and I hope appropriately—aware of how much I owe them. This is simply my account, shared in the hope it might help someone write theirs.