Safeguarding overwhelm
Are your students safe at school? Are your colleagues in charge of safeguarding making it everyone’s priority? Are they coping with the overwhelming pressure it can bring?
This week’s highlight from the We Are In Beta community, will equip you to answer ‘yes’ to all three.
We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning (when we build systems to keep kids safe and avoid staff overwhelm).
This week
🎥 How to lead safeguarding strategically without being sucked into operational traps.
🤝 Your new secret weapon to get what you need when you need it.
💼 Jobs with We Are In Beta community members.
🎥 How to lead safeguarding strategically without being sucked into these 5 operational traps
Safeguarding is emotionally draining. It is operationally demanding. It is hugely time consuming. It can be utterly overwhelming.
When it’s bad: Hundreds of reports on your MIS. Very few hours in your day. Very manual and incredibly time consuming tasks. A huge onus of responsibility to do it yourself. The very understandable fear of error and safety risks. Loss of sleep.
What if it didn’t have to be that way?
Charlotte Whelan (Exec. Regional Director) Community Schools Trust is one of the most experienced and effective safeguarding leaders in the country.
She’ll sharing the 5 operational traps that are stopping you from being more strategic:
what they are
how to spot them
what to do instead
📆 Wed 31/01/24
🕟 6pm
🤝 Introducing our new community manager: Tom Pattison
We’re VERY excited to introduce you to our new Community Manager… Tom Pattison.
No, it’s not our Founder, Niall Alcock’s twin brother, in case you are wondering ;)
Tom is a former Assistant Headteacher, football coach, runner and reader. His job is to help you get the most out of the community. So whether you:
…he’ll be able to help you make more connections and get more insight than you would be able to on your own. He’ll even save you time doing it.
Send Tom a DM to ask for a hand whenever you need
Armed with our database of 17,500+ members, he’s your new secret weapon to help you get answers to your questions.
Don’t keep that question to yourself. Stop pushing that item further down your to do list…
In this article he explains what he believes to be true about school improvement, why he left teaching to join We Are In Beta, ways he can help you and how you can get in touch to ask.
💼 Jobs with We Are In Beta community members.
System leadership
🧬 National Lead for Science - Academies Enterprise Trust (London).
Senior Leadership
👥 School leaders ready to be a principal - to join a 5 year programme with a £100k development account - AET (all regions).
📚 Deputy Headteacher (Curriculum) - East Barnet School (London).
📈 Assistant Principal (Raising Outcomes) - Ormiston SWB Academy (Wolverhampton).
6️⃣ Assistant Principal (Sixth Form) - Ormiston SWB Academy (Wolverhampton).
🧩 SENCo - St. Sampson's High School (Guernsey).
Middle leadership
👩🎓 Head of Humanities - Greenwood Academy (Birmingham). View role here.
🏆 Year Leader - Colchester Academy (Colchester). View role here.
📊 Director of Maths - Bridgemary School (Hampshire). View role here.
Teaching
💸 Business (TLR - Quality Nominee of Vocational Courses) - Etone College (Warwickshire).
👩💻💸 Business & Computing - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
👩💻 Computer Science & IT - Etone College (Warwickshire).
📚 English - Brakenhale School (Berkshire).
📚 English & Media - Brakenhale School (Berkshire).
📚 English - Etone College (Warwickshire).
📚 English - The Robert Napier School (Kent).
📚 English - Worle Community School (Somerset).
🌎 Geography - Brakenhale School (Berkshire).
📅 History - Etone College (Warwickshire).
👋 MFL (French)- Five Acres High School (Gloucestershire).
👋 MFL - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
📊 Maths - Brakenhale School (Berkshire).
📊 Maths - Etone College (Warwickshire).
📊 Maths - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
📊 Maths - The Robert Napier School (Kent).
📊 Maths - The Wensleydale School and Sixth Form (North Yorkshire).
📊 Maths - Bridgemary School (Hampshire). View role here.
📊 Maths (Lead Practitioner) - Bridgemary School (Hampshire).
🎶 Music - Etone College (Warwickshire).
🏑 PE (Male) - Five Acres High School (Gloucestershire).
🧬 Science (2 roles) - John Taylor Free School (Staffordshire).
On a personal note... about how I (Fran) overcome overwhelm.
Hi, you might be expecting Niall here, but today I’m stepping in while he’s on new baby duty. A baby daughter arrived this week. 🎉
If we’ve not met, I’m Fran - Associate Director, Community, Learning & Insight - and great to have the chance to say hello.
Earlier in my career, I was in an organisation going through significant change and turbulence. In this time, I started working with a new manager who soon gave me feedback on over-promising and late-delivering.
I kept saying “yes, everything’s fine” then getting to the 11th hour and needing to ask for longer to get it finished.
I was mortified and I took on her feedback with gusto. I did my best to give clearer updates on progress and bumps in the road. I dug into personal effectiveness books and I thought if I worked a bit harder or was just a bit more efficient, I’d get everything done.
And yet, after 2 months, we found ourselves in the same patterns of conversations.
We sat together with all the work I’d taken on that week, and the pieces I was yet to finish. Together, we saw I’d prioritised the right things against a constantly shifting backdrop. But we needed to give more attention to how I communicated the decisions I was making and the changing picture around me which I couldn’t control.
Through it all I’d been frantically trying to juggle lots of plates in the team while keeping a cool, calm exterior as the really capable and accomplished team member I wanted to believe I was - and knew I could be.
I now recognise the biggest issue in this situation wasn’t the shifts and the changes, instead it was me and that I wasn’t telling myself the truth.
In the fug of overwhelm and stress, I lost the ability to make the distinction between:
“I’m not able to do this” - a failing on my part, it would all be fine if only I could be a bit better;
and “I don’t have the resources I need to achieve what is needed - be that hours in the day, members of the team or autonomy in decisions.” - a practical, objective truth of that point in time.
As I couldn’t see the difference in these, there was no way I could communicate it to those who could help me succeed.
Now when I catch myself slipping into operational overwhelm and stress, I have three key questions to help push me to unlock the strategic:
What is the objective truth of this situation?
What’s getting in the way of achieving what’s needed right now?
What resources - time, help, people - are needed to take these barriers on?
If you recognise these patterns, for yourself and those you support, I hope they can be useful for you too.
Hit reply and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for reading.
@Frances Ling and the We Are In Beta team
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