The world is changing rapidly, becoming more complex as we juggle the apparently impossible pressures that seem to increase daily. Your journey to work takes longer, your colleagues moan about everything, your diary is impossible, you’ve missed your latest deadlines, your e-mails stack up, complaints tumble across your desk, your in-tray never seems to empty, you’ve got more work to do than ever… and your work-life balance doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

I know that sometimes the challenges we face can seem impossible to manage. It’s at times like this that we all need to regain our perspective, take a deep breath, relax and unwind and remember what is important. We want all our schools to be good, improving and inclusive and we want all our children and young people to be happy, healthy, safe and successful… and it is only these outcomes that really matter.

We need to understand that, against this background, when things go wrong it isn’t a problem… it’s an opportunity to learn. We need to understand that, in our world, the only people who don’t make mistakes and don’t get things wrong are those sad individuals who do nothing, say nothing and subsequently achieve nothing. We must continue to do the right things but as we do we mustn’t be frightened of the dark forces, of the critics, of the angry voices, of those people who don’t want us to be successful.

If we are going to see a step change in outcomes for our children and young people especially those who are most at risk this isn’t going to be easy. If we are going to achieve ‘the impossible’ we must transform, re-invent and re-imagine our schools, our communities and our organisations. If we are going to build brilliant learning places we must all continue to be brave and we must continue to lead, inspire and release the magic. Let’s all determine that when we get to the end of this journey we might look back and regret some of the things we have done but we will never regret that we did nothing!

Keep the faith
Chris