Navigating the Joy and Challenge of Teaching
This blog is written by HeadsUp4HTs Founder and Director James Pope.
“To be inspired is great, to inspire others is incredible”. (Stacey T. Hunt/Romy Wheeler)
This quote is a key component of the keynote speech I deliver on a regular basis to School Leaders both here, and abroad.
In the keynote I explore the balance and tension between teaching and school leadership as the most joyful vocation and career and the fact that it is also very challenging and demanding.
I first saw the quote painted on the wall of a Sixth Form common room in a school close to where I live. It struck me that it perfectly encapsulates both the sense of joy that is created by both being inspired and inspiring others… and the sheer privilege that it is to be a teacher or school leader, with the chance to inspire other human beings on a daily basis.
In our work at @Headsup4hts we explore the balance between joy and challenge in much greater depth. For us it is through understanding the tension between the two that we can be much more intentional about how we support school leaders with their well-being and consequently create cultures of well-being within schools and MATs.
It is true of the thousands of school leaders that we have supported that they are absolutely dedicated and determined to ensure that those they teach and work with are inspired… it is also true that they are often doing this work in challenging circumstances… It is this dedication and determination that can often create high levels of stress and anxiety and ultimately lead to a negative impact on well-being.
It seems appropriate, on World Teacher’s Day, to celebrate our amazing school leaders, teachers and school staff who are often relentless in their determination to ensure that young people receive the best education they possibly can. It also seems appropriate to offer a word of caution, that to do so at the detriment of your own well-being and your own family, is not conducive to a long and glorious career.
At HeadsUp4Hts we support school leaders to implement strategies and actions that can help them to pause and reflect, to take that breath with the aim of avoiding burnout and the consequences of burnout in the longer term. For people who are predisposed to work in acts of service to others 24/7 this can be very challenging. However, we would advocate that it is vital that school leaders take the time to regularly pause and to reflect, to ask yourself, “How Am I?”, to answer the question with honesty and to act based on that answer. This may be as simple as establishing some boundaries around your working day, it may involve ensuring you make time available for the things in your professional and personal life that bring you joy. It may require greater action such as discussing your well-being with your line manager and seeking some external support.
World Teacher’s Day provides us with a great opportunity to celebrate the amazing work that all those working in education, it also provides us with the perfect opportunity to ensure that those same people remain in education for the entirety of their career, experiencing the sheer joy and privilege of the job, whilst establishing behaviours that help them to maintain healthy levels of well-being.
After all, to inspire others is incredible!
Celebrating the release of our debut book!
Out now with SAGE Publications – use code SAGEAUTH25 for a 25% discount and with free next day delivery on Amazon.
For every headteacher and school leader who has ever felt both the joy and the weight of leadership, HeadsUp4HTs: Supporting Purposeful School Leadership is a book written with you, and for you.
This book grew out of the lived experience of hundreds of school leaders across the UK, leaders who have inspired, struggled, led with courage, and sometimes fallen through the cracks of an unforgiving system. It is, at its heart, a book about rediscovering purpose, nurturing well-being, and reconnecting with the human side of leadership.
A book born from the HeadsUp4HTs community.
The story of HeadsUp4HTs began back in 2019, when a small group of headteachers gathered in Liverpool to share their experiences; the pride, the pain, and the passion of headship. What began as a conversation has grown into a thriving network of thousands of leaders who connect to reflect, reframe and remind one another that they are not alone.
Through their voices, and ours, this book tells the story of what it means to lead with heart in today’s education system. You’ll hear from leaders who have weathered inspection, crisis, and personal doubt, and from those who have rebuilt themselves and their schools with renewed purpose and integrity.
Inside the book
Part 1
HeadsUp4HTs, explores the mission and evolution of the HeadsUp4HTs community, how it began with one headteacher’s painful story (James Pope’s own, powerfully told in Chapter 2), and evolved into a movement for collective well-being and sustainable leadership.
You’ll find chapters that speak candidly about the joy of school leadership and the challenge of it, as well as reflections on the importance of purpose and intentionality in a demanding educational landscape.
Part 2
We introduce our Nine Steps to Well-being — practical, human strategies to support self-awareness, sustainability, and joy in the job. From ‘Being honest with yourself’ and ‘Recognise the need’ to ‘Amplifying the things that bring you joy’ these steps are built on years of listening to what school leaders truly need. We share the experiences of headteachers and school leaders from our community who talk honestly about their experiences of headship, and the impact of being intentional about focusing on their well-being.
Part 3
What Next? is both a reflection and a call to action - to build systems that sustain leaders, not exhaust them. It invites all of us to think differently about how we support the people who hold our schools and communities together. This part of the book invites all of us; governors, trusts, policymakers, local authorities, and leadership associations to think differently about how we nurture and protect the people who hold our schools together. It’s about moving from reactive, short-term responses to intentional, sustainable support.
For every school leader’s bookshelf
we are so proud of our book! This isn’t a theoretical text or a leadership manual that tells you how to do the job. It’s a collection of real stories, shared wisdom, and compassionate guidance that reminds us that leadership is a profoundly human endeavour.
If you are a headteacher, senior leader, or aspiring leader, this book is an invitation to pause, reflect, and reconnect with your ‘why’. To remember the joy of making a difference. To find courage in community. At HeadsUp4HTs, we often ask ourselves just one question:
“Have we helped one school leader feel better about themselves and their impact today?”
If this book can do that, for you, or for someone you know, then it’s done its job.
About the authors
James Pope has worked in education for 20+ years. Since resigning from his post as a Headteacher in 2018 he created Inspireducate Ltd and founded the HeadsUp4HTs community. With a passion for school leadership, education, vision and strategy he works with schools around the world as a coach, mentor and thought leader. Through the founding of the HeadsUp4Hts network he has also become something of an expert in Headteacher well-being, working with and influencing organisations and policy makers.
Kate Smith is a former primary headteacher and ICF accredited coach who has supported thousands of school leaders across the UK and beyond through her values-driven coaching, facilitation and peer support work. A passionate advocate for intentional well-being, sustainable leadership and authentic communication, she specialises in coaching leaders through the rollercoaster ride of headship. Through her work with HeadsUp4HTs, Kate is influencing how the system supports - and sustains - the people at its heart.
HeadsUp4HTs: Supporting Purposeful School Leadership is available now from SAGE Publications and all major booksellers.
📚 Use code SAGEAUTH25 for 25% off
📒 Available on Amazon with free next day delivery
STEP 8 - Reconnecting with your Purpose
We wrote our debut book to help school leaders reconnect with their purpose so that leadership feels sustainable and well again. In this step, we explore abandonment: not giving up, but intentionally letting go of what no longer serves. It’s about clearing space for what truly matters, so you can lead with clarity, humanity and renewed joy…
Your desk is stacked. Your inbox is anthropological. Someone in the corridor needs you. Something urgent is happening in Year 4. Again.
And there, in the middle of the rush, sits the list.
The things we keep meaning to do.
The jobs we never quite get to.
The documents that haunt us a little.
The projects we agreed to because they sounded good at the time.
The commitments that made sense once, but don’t anymore.
And still, we keep adding.
New initiatives. New priorities. New expectations.
Always more. Always forward.
Because schools are full of hope, and headteachers are full of care.
But here’s the part we rarely talk about:
We are brilliant at adding.
We are less brilliant at letting go.
This is where the idea of abandonment, borrowed from Sir David Crossley, lands with real power.
Not abandonment of people.
Not abandonment of care.
But the intentional abandonment of tasks, expectations and practices that no longer serve the purpose we’re here to honour.
Because purpose is the anchor. Without it, everything becomes equally urgent.
When we work with headteachers through HeadsUp4HTs, we often hear the same quiet confession, said gently, often with a tired laugh:
“I know there are things I just need to stop doing.”
Not because they’re lazy.
Not because they don’t care.
But because the to-do list has become an untamed creature and they are doing everything except the work that nourishes their purpose, their joy, their leadership, their humanity.
So we do something quite simple.
We look at the list together — and we ask:
What purpose does this serve?
If the purpose is unclear, weak, fear-driven, or simply inherited from a previous moment in the school’s life, we explore three possibilities:
- Let it go. Not everything belongs anymore.
- Do it differently. Purpose shapes the approach.
- Reimagine it. If it matters, it may just need to look new.
Take the school self-evaluation.
For many headteachers, just hearing those words tightens the chest.
It sits on the list for months.
It drains energy before a word is even typed.
And when we ask why it’s being done, the answer is almost always the same:
“Because OFSTED.”
But fear is not purpose.
Purpose is knowing your school deeply; having clarity about your strengths and an honest, rooted understanding of what needs to come next. It is feeling proud enough, and safe enough, to say those things out loud. And when that sense of purpose is reclaimed, the tasks themselves begin to shift. Some fall away completely. Others feel lighter. Some even become joyful again. But the greatest change is in you: in your time, your energy, your sense of autonomy, and your reconnection to why you chose to lead in the first place. This is the heart of our work at HeadsUp4HTs. We are not here simply to help leaders cope, but to help them choose what is worth carrying. Leadership is not sustained by resilience alone; it is sustained through intention.
Abandonment, when done with care, is not a loss. It is a liberation.
You can read more about abandonment, and other strategies for more purposeful leadership in our debut book.