Speaking as a man I can confidently say that term six is a lot like going through childbirth for a second time. You recall that it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park the last time…but surely it wasn’t as bad as this!

It’s just so busy. I mean, like, crazy busy! And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Now, that should mean that it’s going to be over soon but my list of ‘stuff that needs to get done’ doesn’t seem to be reducing as swiftly as the days are disappearing.

I know that this is true for every person working in schools at the moment but, trust me, it’s especially bad for me this year. I promise you that I have it worse. If there was a competition for how busy we all are I would definitely win it but I wouldn’t be able to attend the award ceremony to pick up my prize because, well, I’m just too darn busy.

What with staying up all night to get the SATs results the second they’re released, finishing the appraisal cycle for teachers, attending all the Year 6 performances, reviewing the SEF, writing a final head’s report, reading and commenting on 420 children’s reports, transition week, meeting the new Reception parents, FGB, the summer fair (where, this year, I am literally getting taped up to a wall!) attending the leavers’ assembly, cheering through the sports day, preparing and attending the review meeting with the local authority, going on camp, and, meeting with parents who don’t want their kid to be taught by a job-share next year, this term puts the ‘if anyone bemoans teachers having six weeks off in the summer I’ll punch them right in the sangria’ into busy.

On top of that my school is undergoing significant curriculum changes next year. To cut a long story short we’re throwing away the rule book and running a subject specialism model. This involves teachers not only having their own registration class for most of the week but also having to teach every child in the school their subject specialism for two days a week. It might not sound like fun but we’re all very excited. It has however tripled the amount of work that needs doing to be September ready. So, before we’ve had time to be exhausted from all the usual term 6 hoopla we’ve also been writing schemes of work, thrashing out the logistical nightmare that is a subject specialism timetable, presenting the idea to parents, assuring governors that our standards aren’t now going to disappear and carrying out trial days followed by immediate reviews.

On top of that…I’m leaving my school at the end of the term. I’m handing in my pass and heading to a new school and a new challenge. Hurray me…but blimey, that don’t half add to the workload. I’m normally pretty nonchalant about trying to get everything ‘done’ by the end of the academic year. I usually operate on a more existential level safe in the knowledge that school development has no knowledge of the summer holidays. Some things will happen by the end of the year, others will quite happily wait until September. But now….I want to get it all done!

So how, dear reader, does one cope with these pressures? Especially at a time when your reserves are pretty low? How do you look ahead to next week’s set of deadlines without bursting into tears? How do you enjoy being a visible Headteacher when you only have the time to be in your office getting stuff done?

My advice? Go with the flow. Accept the fact that a ‘strategic workflow’ (or peace and quiet as I like to call it) is going to be an absent friend for the foreseeable future. You can do this because you know that you have successfully carried out 99% of these tasks before. Admittedly, you may not have completed them in such a concentrated time-span before but you DO know what to do and you CAN do it. So, allow yourself to be buffeted around like a pinball, as you bounce from event to event, safe in the knowledge that your performance will be consistent and more than adequate.

Also, forgive yourself if a day swallows you whole. Don’t worry that nobody saw you or got to speak to you for the whole of yesterday afternoon. Chances are, they didn’t notice because, like you, they were too busy trying to get through their mountain of summer-term-stuff. If they did notice then they either have a highly astute level of emotional intelligence which means they should at least offer you a cup of tea, or, it means that they’re not working hard enough.

So, close your eyes, grit your teeth, and get ready for the next day. And remember, just like when your giving birth: breathe.

Less than a year ago I had to sit through a meeting with the Regional School’s Commissioner for the South West. During that meeting, the (then new) RSC, Rebecca Clark, challenged all the Heads in the room to try and think about how to deliberately improve schools. This was brilliant rhetoric because I, for one, had literally never done this. She explained that this was probably because I was a Local Authority Head. This made sense. I looked around the room at all the other LA Heads and I thought, do you know what Bex, you’re right, these guys are chumps. Take that LA Head over there, for example. She went into a school that was in special measures and had never achieved any decent outcomes for the children. I mean, yes, she turned it around and now it’s an outstanding school and one of the top performing schools in the city, but, obviously she didn’t plan that…it just sort of happened. Then, take this guy: his school only recently got ‘good’ and has only recently secured progress measures that any school in the country would be proud of. Coincidentally this all happened once he became Head but he didn’t mean for all that to happen, it’s just a happy accident.

The room was full of these LA clowns. Thank goodness Bex Clark was here to tell us how to do it right. And please don’t think that the RSC was just plugging away at the old Academy agenda. She wasn’t. She was very clear that it wasn’t her job to turn us all into academies. However, if she did her job well, then we would all be in a MAT within the next three years. But in no way was she just saying that MATs are the answer. It’s just that MATs are, you know, better.

They’re better because they are more strategic, more motivated, more cleverer, and more motivated to improve the lives of poor people. I remember that last bit especially. She talked about how LA schools had only cared about disadvantaged pupils when they were properly held accountable for them. When it had been purely down to us feeling a moral ‘purpose’ to help the disadvantaged families in our society things had been terrible for them, but now, through the pupil premium grant, we finally had moral ‘imperative’ and things were finally improving. I’m not sure why MATs feel this moral imperative more keenly than LA schools (with their independent admissions authority and ability to permanently exclude children with no apparent repercussions) but according to Bex, they do and that’s why MATs are better.

I was sold.

‘Sign me up, captain, my captain!’ I said as I stood on my chair and saluted the high priestess of the South West. ‘I want me a piece of that.’

So, imagine my surprise and disappointment when I learned yesterday that Rebecca Clark is stepping down from her role as RSC to become Ark’s regional director for secondary schools. You could have knocked…me…down…with…a…feather. A regional school commissioner leaving their sacred post to go and join a MAT? I think that now brings the tally to four. Four big beasts of the RSC office who have jumped off Big Dave Carter’s magic carpet ride (he prefers to call it his magic MAT ride but that doesn’t really make sense). But why have they abandoned ship sorry, MAT?

I can only assume it is to do with the amount of moral imperative she was offered. So sensitive these ex-RSCs must be to the power of moral imperative, over moral purpose, that when faced with a truckload of imperative they cannot resist. I can only imagine how much more moral imperative Bex is feeling right now as she takes on her new role. Obviously, I don’t know. Maybe there is no more moral imperative for her at Ark. Maybe she’s taken a moral imperative cut and is going to be working with less moral imperative than when she was wrapped up in Dave’s rug sorry, MAT. I don’t know. All I know is that she’s gone. She’s abandoned the South West and we must go on without her. How will we do this? I honestly don’t know. We’ll have to get our old moral compasses out and hope they still work. We just have to hope we can continue on our journey to MAT-enlightenment without Rebecca Clark lighting up the way with her moral imperative beacon.

I wonder who will replace her? I wonder who Dave has in mind. I’ve got an idea. It’s a really good one even though it’s borne out of the deep frustration that I will have to soon listen to another tediously weak message from the new RSC about their role in the South West’s education community. I’m not sure I could listen to another speech about how MATs are the ‘answer’ from a person who is likely to sod off the minute a more grandiose offer from an academy chain pops up. It’s enough to make me want to swear, and I’d hate to upset David Didau.

So, my recommendation is for David Carter to employ Siri. She’s a strong voice. She’s portable. She can stay on message. She can repeat that message ad nauseam. She doesn’t react when people get cross with her. She won’t hand in her resignation a year into the job.

More importantly, we can all press mute.