LEADERSHIP

You're conflicted. You're passionate about teaching, you give 110% in your classroom, and you're still frustrated by decisions that impact you which seem to be made with zero warning and zero input. So which is it, are you just too sensitive, or is something actually off?

1. Write down the facts.

What you see as being the issue and how it is impacting your role. Divide your notes into two columns - 'My responsibility' and 'School's responsibility'. Some of this may be workload you can adjust, however some of it may be a decision above your pay grade that was never yours to solve, only to raise.

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2. Speak to your immediate upline.

For a classroom teacher, that's most likely your Unit Leader. They might refer you to the Teaching & Learning Leader or the Wellbeing Leader.  Follow your school's chain of command to help prioritise the time that leadership spend on these conversations and decisions. Be direct when bringing it up, "Do you have 15 minutes this week to talk through how this decision/situation affects my classroom?" gets you a yes or a no. "Can we talk sometime?" gets you nothing.

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3. Give it one follow-up.

If nothing changes after a fair and honest conversation, that's useful information too, not a reason to keep re-raising it on a loop. Raising it once, clearly, is doing your part. What happens next isn't an invitation to sell your soul about how much you care about teaching.