This is the reply teachers may give or indeed think when reflecting on the special nature of their craft. It is about walking part of a person’s journey with them and doing the best that can be done in providing what is possible to within their own knowledge, gifts and skills to help people to move forward on their journey. And where is that? It is where they wish to go. School is likely to help create this aim.

As Principals and other school leaders it is not only students, we are Journeying with but staff as well. When a good staff member comes to see a Principal to let them know they are moving on, there can be a feeling of disappointment and indeed loss. This however should turn to appreciation of their contribution to the school and a shared hope that the next stage of their journey will be really good for them. At this point it is wise to accept that you as the Principal will have indeed contributed to the journey of their career and I believe that is part of a Principal’s job.

Dare I say, if you lose someone weak, you may have to interview in January which can be a nuisance. The wise self-talk is to say “I can now recruit someone stronger. “The next piece of self- talk is to say “I must find someone good - warm and vertical is not good enough.” The staff and students rely on us as Principals to try and get this right. Obviously we don’t always but we must try hard to.

As a Principal there is a particular need to really understand staff and students. Of course gaining this understanding can be a challenging but an interesting journey in itself.

I enjoy drawing portraits, particularly heads, which I do occasionally. I’m not an expert and aspects of what I produce contain a degree of unsolvable, unsatisfiable imperfection. Drawing for me is a solitary occupation and though the dog occasionally looks at me quizzically she never interrupts - she is a true, empathetic companion.

I consider the two hardest challenges of a portrait are crafting the mouth and the eyes. The eyes are indeed the window of the soul and the mouth reflects the years of experience that have been indelibly tattooed on the mind. The mouth is not just a simple line but is made up of sensitive, subtleties which, if ignored in the portrait, will indeed destroy the essence of the person which surely an artist is trying to create.

Creating the mouth in its true faithfulness is like understanding a person. A quick glance may give an impression, but it is when you have studied the person in detail- engaged with them, wondered about them and generated an empathy for them that you indeed start to create an understanding. Often, when drawing, you get it partially right and then spend hours trying to reach perfection. Sometimes, no matter what you try, you miss something and the picture fails to have the true essence of the subject. Unbelievably a line, when analyzed, should be going up not down, or a shading maybe presented better on the other side of the face. Sometimes getting it right is simply impossible, so you cast the picture into the rubbish to be never viewed again. This can be such a pity given that the rest of the picture may be faithfully appealing. Or, alternatively, keeping the rest of the picture, you rub the mouth out and start it again from scratch.

And so it is, strangely, in the understanding of people - applying the skills of the determined artist to the quest to truly understand a person, will bear fruit, remembering that it is often not easy and sometimes, like creating the mouth on a portrait, one needs to start that part of the picture, not the whole picture, again.

Because the eyes are indeed the window of the soul, appreciate what they seem but accept that you have no right to and indeed will never understand it all. But to not understand some of the person to a reasonable depth is a pity and like poorly created eyes in the portrait, you may know the person’s shape but not their depth.

The end of the year comes, students have left, and most staff have embarked on annual leave. I vividly recall sitting at my desk on these occasions and looking out of the window on a very quiet and still campus. A school without students is a strange place as they provide, with the staff, the beating heart of the school. However, though this silence may indeed not be golden, it may rather stimulate reflection. I always think that at this stage a Principal should reflect on the achievements of the year and mentally be proud of them. Sometimes it is good to physically list these and celebrate them . It is essential that you don’t embroil yourself in what went wrong. I believe that there will be no school year, a year of enormous human activity, when nothing has gone wrong. I would suggest that you focus on a limited number of difficulties, maybe 5, and think of strategies which can be created to deal with these. Obviously using the right creative staff in this process may be valuable. Often as human beings it is all too easy to be drawn to the negative, and we forget to celebrate the positive. Remember that nobody is invincible.

Most of the long-term successful Principals I have known, had a good understanding of the importance of being refreshed and consequently they produced much better results than if they had been tired and stale. Good ideas don’t come as readily to the stale and as Principals these are part of our craft, as is a calm exterior and a great determination to avoid “doing your block!” That is certainly out of date.

Here is a short poem for the end of the year:

Listen to that still small voice of reason,

In which Christ has given wisdom to all the world.

That to love neighbours richly in ways that they deserve,

Is to love them as we love ourselves with thought and care.

If we neglect ourselves, believing our sacrifice must be complete,

Then we will strike trouble, exhaustion and depressing times.

When all is going out and nothing has a chance to venture in,

We begin to wither as the grapes upon a dry and shriveled vine.

When we therefore have failed to love ourselves enough,

It is easy for our love of others to fall rather short.

And the Good Book tell us what love to others truly means,

And the need for us to carefully water us as valued vines.

Gold is valued by weight and not by simply what we see.

An old style beam balance can be carefully used.

What we give out must be balanced by what comes in.

Or the balance will not be balanced, in anyway at all.

Schools are wonderful places and they can achieve so much. Today’s World is so stressed and it is as if Humanity has forgotten how to live in peace together. Schools are communities and as such they have the opportunity to model to their students what it is to live in a strong, caring, constructive community, free of fear and hate and committed to providing service to play some part in making the world a better place.

So many schools do this very well and they are indeed our hope for the future. We as teachers have such an important task to foster this. May be in this “sophisticated “ society there has not been given, in general, enough credence to the vitally important “little things”, instead selfishness has been emphasized and society has simply accepted bad behaviour. There is so much room to promote the positive. Christmas is, for a start, a time of Peace.

May the joy of Christmas come to you all and your school communities and may you all be able to celebrate your successes, recharge your batteries and return refreshed for 2024.

Chris Tudor

Principal Liaison & AISNT Historian