When was the last time someone told you they were proud of you?

My dad regularly tells all of his daughters that he’s proud of them. He’s proud of our families, proud of our professional achievements and proud of all that we’ve managed to achieve in our lives.

There are now other people in my professional life who I know are proud of me, they don’t just verbalise it, they show it in their actions and how they speak about me to others.

This is a slightly strange feeling to get used to. In my previous job I was continuously told that I wasn’t doing my job well enough (which I must have been for the children to make progress and achieve the levels that they did) and my management role was micromanaged to within an inch of my life. This led to me questioning my abilities, becoming demotivated in my work but feeling a need to find ways to support the other staff within school who were feeling the same way. Over time this became too much and I started looking for a new post. Fortunately I found one quickly, others there have not been so lucky and are becoming more and more demotivated and disillusioned by the education system as they think all schools are like this. They’re also becoming convinced that they aren’t good teachers and won’t get another job anyway.

I’m now in a job where I feel valued and trusted, which is a huge motivation to work and do the best job I can. It makes me angry that I was treated like this and it forced me to consider whether or not I could/ should teach and, having moved to a new school, I realise that it wasn’t me but the fact that the school leaders in my previous school couldn’t effectively manage their staff or their institution. I wonder how many good teachers have been lost from the profession due to the same reason.