When you get right down to it, headteachers have a lot of responsibility. They must help educators to teach better and students to learn better, all without disrupting the daily business of learning.

At first, it may seem impossible to do it all. However, veteran headteachers all learn a simple lesson: this is more of an art than a science.

If you’re ready to learn this art and become a headteacher better than ever before, keep reading to discover the best secrets!

The chances are you value your own time and manage it very well. However, are you managing your teachers’ time as well as you manage your own?

There is a kind of modern mania for things like professional development activities. However, most teachers agree that what they need is time to work on their lessons and catch up on grading.

You must start thinking of time as a resource. You can not always give your teachers the raises they deserve, but you can try to give them more time to do their actual jobs and less time attending the busywork of various activities.

If a time traveler from the 18th century landed in modern England, here’s a depressing thought: he would find the classroom very familiar!

This is because we have not really changed how we teach in hundreds of years: one teacher, lots of students, and a single room to contain them all.

To change things up, start imagining your school and your town as one big learning environment. Try to plan things like outside activities and special field trips whenever possible.

You’ll quickly discover an ironic truth: by taking your students out of the classroom more often, you’ll end up with better classroom learners.

We tend to think of headteachers as leaders: captains of the ship who are ready to bark orders at a moment’s notice.

The truth is that the best headteachers are not like this. That is because they have learned the simple secret that learning is leading.

Teachers (and students) look at you as an influential figure. Try to focus on showing them how adaptive you are, open to their needs, and so on.

Instead of the faculty and students thinking that it’s “your way or the highway,” learning is a way of leading by example and making everyone feel more involved.

A really direct way to make people feel more involved is to simply involve them in major decisions.

For instance, many headteachers think that faculty hate things like committee meetings, but the truth is that they prefer these things to the alternative.

When faculty think they have no say in the way a school is run, they no longer feel engaged. To them, teaching becomes just another job. However, involving them in significant decisions can help them feel engaged and invigorated once more.

And while some of your decisions must remain unilateral, make sure you always openly communicate what you are doing and why so that the faculty understand the new direction you are setting for the school.

No matter how hard you try to meet with everyone face to face, there will be plenty of people at your school who feel overlooked.

One of the best ways to counter this feeling of being overlooked is to celebrate success whenever possible. And the good news is that there are many ways to do so.

For students, try to have both public honours ceremonies and classroom moments where teachers note student achievement. This helps the students feel like they are truly seen, sometimes for the first time.

For faculty, note their achievements at faculty meetings. And if you put out newsletters and/or e-mails about the school, be sure to congratulate them for what they have done.

An annoying modern phrase is “there’s an app for that.” It’s annoying because it’s true, as there is seemingly an app for every problem on the planet.

In education, we sometimes get caught up in apps and other technology that we think will change learning. Our advice? Slow down when it comes to getting new technology.

Focus on Whether the technology fits with the school’s teachers. Does it support what you are already doing? That’s fine. But if everyone will have to change the way they are doing to accommodate the technology, then it’s not worth it.

We’ll be honest: being a headteacher will never be a walk in the park, but by following these tips selected, you can make the experience of both teaching and learning easier and more fulfilling for everyone at your school.