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Photo by Benjamin Davies Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of another term. You’ve done it! No doubt there have been some misfires, dropped balls, and a few times when everything has seemed just a little icky and maybe a bit stuck. But you’ve made it anyway; like you always do. It almost seems […]

Photo by Pedro Lastra You have probably heard the story about someone walking along a beach covered with starfish washed up by the tide. The starfish won’t last long out of the water and there are millions of them. Further along the sand is another person bending down and throwing the unfortunate creatures back into […]

Photo by krakenimages I really enjoyed David’s question last week; “What would this look like if it was easy?”  Which got me thinking and I want to extend this just a little bit further. What if you moved through your school, or learning place, as if you were the easiest person to work with? Please note […]

Photo by Ignacio Amenábar Principalship is sometimes described as hard, complex, or challenging, which can all be true at times, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was easy? And interestingly, ‘easy’ is very subjective. I’m guessing we all have aspects of the job that we find easy, but that others may well find […]

Photo by Brett Jordan Last week David provocatively asked “What would you do if you had only two hours a week in your job”. It hit a nerve with a number of people, including, unsurprisingly, me. There were elements of David’s piece that were mighty attractive. For a start, imagine only working for two hours […]

Photo by Waldemar  It’s February 2024 and the newly elected coalition Government has just launched its revolutionary education policy. All principals have been called to Wellington to learn about the fresh new AI derived curriculum and how it will transform their schools. Their excitement is palpable. This huge new project will dominate the next 6 […]

Photo by Kenny Eliason  I’m sitting at a local coffee house here in Timaru. Across the table from me sits my friend. He’s ordered a bucketful sized coffee brimming with three shots, a powdering of chocolate and a jaffa on the side. It’s going to be one of those conversations I guess, so I close […]

Photo by Brett Jordan Some tech experts are predicting that the AI revolution will effectively end email as we know it. Not because it will bring newer, better alternatives, but because AI written spam will overwhelm the system. Maybe. While we wait to see if this dire prophecy becomes true, the good old email reigns […]

Photo by Dylan Gillis    We’re now well and truly into the new Term. No doubt you’re just about to head into another board meeting, or you’ve just had one. Board meetings are always potentially stressful places. The main reason for this is because it involves people and their personalities. A Board meeting can be […]

Photo by Federico Beccari It’s Friday, and in New Zealand, the end of the first week back in a shiny new school Term. For some of you this is the first time you’ve made this milestone as a principal, for others you’ve been here literally a hundred times before. If you pause for a moment, […]

  Today we have a guest post from Saira Boyle. Saira has wide experience in leading schools and  is currently the principal of Mt Hobson Academy based in Auckland. She shares some confronting reality about our job, but also offers solutions that just might be what you need.   What’s your real insurance policy? Over […]

  And just like that we find ourselves at the back end of yet another Term. No doubt there were times when it felt like this Term would never end, but like everything it will and it does and it has, or nearly. This got me thinking about our cultural obsession with being happy. I […]

Photo by Afra Ramió  I was speaking to a newly minted principal the other day who was experiencing a strange phenomenon – they were finding their new job fairly easy! .   .   . I can still remember my first principalship, a week in and sitting at my new principal desk, with the door shut and […]

  As a profession we are relentlessly and continually in a state of goal setting. Our goals are supported by plans that are extended descriptions of how we expect we’ll successfully nail our goals. Often these plans are meticulously descriptive. This thing will happen first, and then this thing will happen and then this thing […]

Photo by Felix Berger  Corner cutting is about taking the shortest or most direct route to where you want to go. You’d think that would be a good thing, but this little idiom also carries the unhappy thought that you might be leaving something important out or are going to hit a metaphorical curb. Imagine […]

  When was the last time? We’re half way through the term and so I thought it might be a good idea just to give you a quick list of things to ponder! Ten things to ask: When was the last time you had a school related meeting in school time in a cafe downtown? […]

Photo by Markus Winkler  What is it about taking your own advice that is so difficult? There’s some sort of paradox at play that makes it easy (relatively) to give solid, helpful advice to just about anyone, but makes it 10x harder to follow for yourself. And that’s a nuisance because of all the people […]

. Things are pretty fraught at the moment. There’s the new restraint requirements, the new curriculum developments, the on-going contract negotiations with the government (are they even negotiations? They feel a bit like dis-negotiations). And there’s the constant wave of Covid sickness. Oh and as we head into the winter months there’s a new round […]

Photo by Roberto Sorin  If you are a NZ principal operating under the “work ban”, how is that going for you? 8am – 5pm on week days equals 45 hours (unless you are managing a lunch break . . . ). Most people that I’ve talked to are finding it impossible to do their usual […]

It’s that time of the cycle again – yup, the beginning of a new term. The winter terms are usually fraught with all sorts of mischief – but then again which term isn’t? So with this in mind, what sort of systems do you have in place that are simple enough to use when times […]

Photo by Louis Smit  Just like the cliché about a day being a long time in politics, contract negotiations can change quickly and the post below was written before the PPCB members settled this week . . . regardless, and no matter whether the NZEI members do likewise, conditions around our jobs simply have to […]

Photo by Chimene Gaspar  It’s the end of the term and so I’ve decided to make this week’s post particularly short. We constantly get bombarded with things that use up our time, our energy and quite often make us anxious. So here is a list of ideas that you can do in the following contexts: […]

  What would make your principal role better? If you wave a magic wand and remove the ‘but’ that floats alongside any honest conversation regarding the desirability of the principalship role, what changes? .   .   . Right now we are pushing for improvements to our employment contracts. Money and conditions (workload/sustainability). These things are outside […]

      Hi everyone, there are some of you who will be aware of this, and some of you who won’t, but after 28 years of principalship, I’m having a break. While no longer in the role as a principal, I feel as though I still have plenty to add. So I’m really happy […]

Photo by Nicole Baster Resilience is not singular. I wrote this last week after a chat with some awesome Wellington principals. We were discussing tactics that school leaders could use to make the job better and more sustainable. As we discussed deliberately recovering after periods of intense work, I could see people nodding but with […]

  Ok I’m going a bit OTT here, a bit Off The Topic, a bit off the reservation so to speak. But I’ve got to get this off my chest, and well, that’s gotta be a good thing for my well being and my ability to function as a human being. When I was a […]

. “At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half-mile before my hands start shaking.” – Matt Damon as Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity. I’ve always loved this line from the movie, even though my personal experience of running ‘flat out’ never left me with shaking hands . . . legs, heart, […]

Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN Ralph Waldo Emerson has a way with words and sentences. Especially with the inspirational type. He has this wonderful knack of saying the most sensible things when it comes to that thing that we all do every single day; living. Even more amazing he does so through the mist of time. […]

Photo by Eric Rothermel  Two weeks in . . . how did that happen?! There’s no denying that launching a school year has one very consistent and familiar pattern for me – it starts fast and then gets faster! And I’ve been lucky. I had a great holiday break. When the checkout operators asked me, […]

Photo by Brett Jordan As you’ll know by now with my writing, much of it is happenstance. That is, there is a lot of time when I have no idea what to write, only to happen upon something that catches my eye. Maybe I’m the magpie of writers? There’s a simplicity about this which is […]

Photo by Hal Gatewood  There’s something about holidays and the freedom it gives to clear out the clutter in your mind and just sit down, or lie down in my case, with a beer in hand (or your favourite beverage), and chew the fat with one of your besties. Holidays give you this freedom, and […]

Photo by Markus Winkler   Congratulations everyone, you’ve just about done it. You’ve just about made it through to the end of another school year. And, except for a few brain cells or so, you’ve largely got through intact. I’ve got a feeling that I said something similar at the end of last year, or […]

Photo by Thomas Bormans  How’s your list going? You know the one – the one with all the stuff you have to get done before the end of Term. I’m currently finding mine is tricky to control. Even if I beat it with a metaphorical stick, it still seems to fight my need for order. […]

  A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog piece about the reset buttons on a computer, Ctrl Alt Del. I thought they were a useful way of looking at your own reset when finding yourself in troubled waters in your school. Term Four is the term where everything comes towards you at mindboggling […]

Photo by Casey Horner  A fortnight ago I wrote about the privilege of going on a school camp and the fact that even though it left me well behind with other important work, I didn’t care – it was worth it. Sitting here 14 days later, I’m reflecting that I may have tempted fate with […]

  Ok, so it’s been a few weeks now. And to be honest I was hoping that maybe over time the feeling would’ve seeped away and that maybe, just maybe, I’d have pulled on my big boy’s pants and just gotten over it. But I haven’t. Gotten over it I mean. I’m talking about the […]

  I’m just  back from camp. Four days with our Year 8s in the beautiful but wild Arthur’s Pass deep in the Southern Alps. It rained day and night for the entire time we were there. Not wimpy east coast rain either, but real hose like, soaking, proper rain. And it didn’t matter, because the […]

Photo by Ridwan Meah  You’ve made it through the first couple of weeks of term. Some of you are beginning Surplus Staffing processes, some of you are fending off complaints, some of you are walking along the appointment tightwire, some of you are arguing dollars in the budget cycle, and some are just finding it […]

  If you would like a guaranteed way to feel mentally ‘lighter’ in less than an hour, try scheduling 60 minutes of work-based decluttering next week. All you have to do is block out 1 hour in your diary and devote it to; Deleting any openly displayed piles of paper in and around your office […]

Photo by Önder Örtel In a complex, often demanding job like ours, everyone has times when things get a little ‘wobbly’. This is true for newbies and 20 year veterans alike. The trick is to recognise it happening as early as possible and then lean hard into the stuff that creates your own wellness. What […]

We’re now well and truly into the busyness of Term. We’ve got nine weeks under our belts, and if you haven’t already hit the “rocky times” of the Term, then chances are you’re about to.  “Rocky times” tend to arrive when people are tired. Patience flows out the door like the outgoing tide, and with […]

Photo by Milad Fakurian It’s 7am and we’re in a van convoy (well 2 vans going the same way) of local principals heading to the NZPF Annual Conference. We’ve got a two hour drive ahead of us and people are beginning to settle into the early rhythm of this adventure. There are multiple conversations starting.  […]

Last week I found myself getting ready to write my blog. I was on school camp, at the base of Mt Hutt. I’d snuck away from the energy and locomotion of the 32 Yr 7 and 8’s and set up my laptop outside on a deck overlooking the Canterbury plains. The evening had an early […]

. “The world is changed by your example, not your opinion.” Paulo Coelho author   There’s truth and power in those words. As an aspirational 40 Hour Principal how you do your job has an impact on others. And from the 40 Hour Project perspective, the others I’m talking about are your colleagues. When you […]

. I’ve never been a big fan of the two words Supervisor and Supervision.  Whether I look at the official definition or not they still both leave me with an authoritarian overseer feel about things. Like you’re been watched and well, you know, supervised. For me there’s an emotive judgment to the word that suggests […]

  There’s a great kids movie called Wall-E that came out a few years ago. It’s one of those early Pixar animated films that actually has a story line. It’s 2085 and the world is a mess. Humanity has abandoned the (broken) earth and for generations has been travelling through space looking for a new […]

Photo by Alessandra Caretto    Around the corner of the building ran Brian. “Mr Zee, Mr Zee!” he yelled in a frantic tone. Each “Mr Zee” sounding more and more urgent and concerning. Me, being the Mr Zee in question, well I couldn’t avoid these cries. It was the end of the day, well, the […]

Photo by Vladislav Babienko I have a growing feeling that the next few weeks are going to be huge. There’s a weird sort of vibe in the wider cosmos and I have a suspicion that winter needs to make way for something better – quickly. I don’t know how things are looking in your particular […]

  In Arthur’s Pass you’ll find a number of amazing walks. Some take you further into the mountains, up the mountains, over the mountains and down into the valleys on the other side. These walks in New Zealand are called tramps. One of my favourites is up a very steep mountain side called Avalanche Peak. […]

Photo by Sear Greyson As you read this, here in New Zealand we will be celebrating the appearance of the star cluster we call Matariki. These stars can be seen at mid-winter and using the Māori lunar calendar, mark the start of a new year. A new year is always a perfect time to take […]

  . On the way to work, when I’m feeling particularly naughty, I do the adult equivalent of a kid dawdling to school. I take the long way. In Timaru there is never a long way to anywhere, so I have to be a little creative Maybe this is a form of procrastination, but it […]

Photo by Lukas Blazek  Time, the most precious gift and the one thing that we can’t replenish – when it’s gone, it’s gone. Each of us gets 168 hours every week. You, me, and Elon Musk got exactly the same amount last week, and each of us used it differently. I don’t know about you […]

. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece that said when I get sad I get awesome.  Well, I try to at least.  And in the article I encouraged leaders to go out and find their “awesome trigger” – that thing that fires the belly! For me, my awesome trigger is finding something […]

. It’s been a while since this blog kicked off – 25 July 2019 to be precise when we published a post by Steve called, “Leave it At the Gate”. Every Friday of Term time since then we’ve pushed out some thoughts to people such as yourself somewhere in the multiverse. Mid 2019 . . […]

. Someone said at the end of last week … “Man, it’s been a long term!”. Yes at that stage we were only two weeks into the Term, and yes, that someone was me, but yup, it had been a long term already. Three weeks in and I’m already looking for my awesome trigger. Awesome […]

Photo by Vitolda Klein Luckily, I’m a teacher not a builder. I say this because while I’d love a new Ford Ranger (with EV stickers on it), I’d be so slow in my job that I couldn’t afford to run it. Why? Because I’ve realised I’ve got a problem – I like projects to be […]

. Have we been looking at this all wrong? I’ve been sitting at my keyboard for quite a while now. Waiting for inspiration to hit and for the words to begin to fly from my fingers. I’ve got this feeling that I want to write something epic! That I need to write something epic. Something […]

Photo by Fran on Unsplash We’ve all been younger versions of the person we are today. And most of us have been younger versions of the principal we are today. These two things are linked but not the same. Unless you are very young (and hence not likely to be a principal) there’s a lot […]

. The other day I found myself daydreaming. Or maybe it was procrastinating. Sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell. I was about to pick up the phone and have a difficult conversation with a parent. They’d already rung and told me they weren’t happy with something, and I’d told them “calmly” that I’d be […]

. There are plenty of tough bits in school leadership right now, but there are also gems of goodness that are shining through and need to be kept and built on as we move past the current challenges and onto the inevitable new ones. .   .   . Somewhat perversely, one of the perennial difficulties that […]

. Anyone who knows me even a little bit will be able to tell you that I love music. And I love lyrics. Both talk to me in a way that most things don’t. And when I grow up I want to be a rock star. I’ve been waiting to grow up for a very […]

Photo by Aren Nagulyan It’s been another interesting week to be a 40 Hour Principal. And as usual, the challenge is partly around the doing, and partly around the mental load of juggling too many balls at the same time. But there’s also another challenge that is becoming more and more evident in conversation with […]

. Now that our lives seem so dependent on wearing a mask every day and in almost every location, it got me thinking about the many masks, metaphorically, that we wear in our role. A mask is something that is there to protect and hide. Covid N95 masks protect us from the dreaded lurgy and […]

Photo by Nadine Shaabana (For those who would rather listen to this post, the 4 minute podcast is below.) It’s been a hell of a week for troubling news. Floods, war, pestilence – it seems everyone on the planet is experiencing some sort of disaster. At least that’s what you’d think if you skimmed the […]

.  Today we have a guest post from Danny Nicholls of Te Matauru School in Canterbury. Some of you might know him for the awesome mahi he does helping administer the NZ Principals’ Facebook page. This week Danny is offering up some very inciteful and timely suggestions for how to move past the present inertia […]

. Save your eyes – instead, try listening to this post at the bottom of this page. Mmmm, so the other day, as I worked through my Business Continuity Plan for the seventeenth time: adding more, making things clearer for the reader/readers, colouring in the blank spaces left by the Ministry’s faint lines …. Trying […]

. Last week Steve gave you a nice positive To Do List. A week after considering this excellent advice I’m going to give you another way to stay healthy, happy, and hopefully sane. I’m going to call out some things that you shouldn’t do – my plan could well be titled The Don’t Do List. […]

. Welcome back everyone! (And before you read another word, you can scroll to the bottom and listen to the post if you prefer.) By the time you read this you will (if you’re reading this in New Zealand) have just about navigated your way through the first week of term. Congratulations! Well done! You’ve […]

Photo by Lucas Davies   The Forty Hour Project is all about encouraging school leaders to think (and do) differently. To challenge the status quo and to provoke as much “what if” thinking as possible. Well, 2021 didn’t need much provocation. .   .   . Recently, I looked out my office window at the children playing […]

  . Eight things that you should read during the holidays: 1. Everything is F@#ked by Mark Manson …. This is the follow up to his much easier to read, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F@#K. It’s a bit of a gruesome read from time to time and there’ll be times when you […]

  . Even a hardcore, intentional ‘40 Hour Principal’, is likely to be fully stretched at this time of the year – particularly in this year! We’re in the sprint to the end with a deadline for everything and a lot of other people’s urgency crowding our days. There’s stuff that just simply has to […]

. Woah! I don’t know about you, but recently it has been a bit of a challenge. Ok, so I’m underselling that – it’s been a nightmare. Recently I found myself working with a boy who needed a hand. He had two “go-to” emotions that underpinned all of his own challenges. He was either angry; […]

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP From a 40 Hour Principal perspective, school leaders in New Zealand are currently operating right out near the middle of a very long tightrope and someone or something keeps giving it a playful shake. We’re not so much ‘leaders of learning’ but rather amateur psychologists with a side specialty in clairvoyance. And […]

. Last Friday when David published his awesomely simple “The Positivity Button” blog, I found myself with something that hasn’t happened in months. An empty calendar. It was hard to believe.  An empty calendar. Don’t get me wrong, there was still plenty to do, but an empty calendar is pretty rare these days. Unheard of […]

Photo by Moises de Paula Right now we all need a positivity button. In New Zealand, the shifting sand of managing this pandemic is taking its toll. The ‘rules’ change frequently, unpredictably, and quickly. Good people (that’s you) turn themselves inside out trying to lead their schools well in this climate. Lay over the top […]