Anybody who has heard me speak at a conference will have heard me say there are only three problems running English schools: students, parents and teachers. People, people, people.
Leaving aside the students and parents for now, we are left with the teachers. We need to add admin staff to this, too, and for us, flyer staff.
People are very difficult things to manage. They are difficult to predict, and they are not always 100% reliable. They can break down quite often. They get tired, they get sick; they have emotional and physical needs.
They need refueling often, time doing nothing, and sometimes have the temerity to do things which they have not been instructed to. Sometimes they just don’t show up.
Very obviously, people are not robots.
I eagerly anticipate the AI revolution and the employer (cynic?) in me welcomes an option to replace schools and teachers with programmable, indefatigable solutions.
People, though, are also our largest source of joy. It’s connections to people that make life worth living.
If you can recruit, train and get on with people well, you may well be able to scale your school, but it is far from easy.