A New Chapter

I’m starting a new job in two weeks.

It feels really weird to write that. 

I’ve been granted a career break from Owenabue for next year and I’m going to be working with Educate Together National Office as School Support and Volunteer Officer. I’m genuinely excited about the opportunity. It feels like a huge privilege to get to work with Educate Together, to support schools in a different way, and to work alongside some incredible people, including people who have inspired me in leadership for many years now. I hope I can add something to the team and support and inspire others in the same way others have done for me.

But this was never going to be an easy decision.

When I was diagnosed with MS earlier this year, one of the things that became very clear very quickly was that I couldn’t just go back to doing everything exactly as I had been doing it before. I couldn’t keep doing everything. Something had to give.

Stress is a trigger for MS relapse, and reducing stress has to be one of the biggest priorities for the next year, alongside getting fitter and stronger and figuring out what my new normal actually looks like. I need to assess, to prioritise and to put myself and my health first, which is not something that comes easily. A lot of the next year is about controlling the controllables.

What I didn’t want was for getting sick to mean walking away from all the things I love doing. I still want to work with schools, to support principals and leaders. I still want to keep doing the work here with leaders and aspiring leaders through courses, webinars, resources and all of the other things that have grown over the last few years. But it wasn’t possible for me to keep going as I was. I couldn’t keep doing everything, at the pace I was doing it, and expect that to be sustainable. So it seemed like I would have to pull back on all of this to make Principal-ing more sustainable.

The job advert came in during the last week of June and the timing felt strangely serendipitous. I hadn’t been looking for another job, I was planning to come back, but I was already doing a lot of thinking about what the next year needed to look like. When I saw the role, it just felt like something I had to consider. Long chats with family and friends all let to them saying 'Trina, this is a no-brainer'. My just retired DP asked if they'd just written the job for me because it sounded perfect (they definitely hadn't, this role isn't new 😂)

This feels like a chance to reset a little. To look properly at work-life balance and to keep doing work that matters hugely to me, while hopefully creating a bit more space around it.

Leaving Owenabue is the hardest part of all of this.

It has been an utter privilege to have been given the chance to open a new school, to create a vision and build what you think a school should be. Very few people ever get the opportunity to start with literally nothing and help create the culture, the feeling, the acceptance and inclusion, for children and for adults. I will always be grateful that I got to do that.

Over the last six years there have been incredible highs and heartbreaking lows, but the relationships built through all of it are the things that live with you forever. The children, the families, the staff, the board and all of the people who have been part of building Owenabue from the beginning.

Walking away from a start-up school, even temporarily, feels a little bit like walking away from your baby. But I also know I’m leaving Owenabue in exceptionally capable hands, and I know it will thrive.

A friend said to me recently that you can never swim in the same stream twice. Things change and move on. Different people lead differently. And that is all a positive thing. In a couple of years, Owenabue will be different. I'll be different too.

The hope is that the structures we built and, more importantly, the culture we grew together stay central to whatever may come.

I don’t know what the future will bring, professionally, medically or personally. I’m in a good place now. I’ve started medication, I’m figuring out a little bit of the new normal and I’ve spent a lot of the summer sitting in the sun in my egg chair thinking and reflecting on all of it.

For now, this chapter is closing, for me and for Owenabue and a new one is beginning.

I don’t know how long this chapter will be, or where it will take me, but I’m excited to start writing it.