Are You Ready for School Leadership? In Conversation with Natasha Hilton

Kai Vacher (0:00)

How do you know when you're ready to lead a school in your own right? And what does effective leadership transition look like? How do school leaders make sure they don't feel alone in what is often considered a lonely role? To explore these questions with today's Natasha Hilton, Principal of Nord Anglia International School, New York, who has just taken up the role this month, her first headship.

Natasha, congratulations on taking up your first headship at Nord Anglia International School, New York. How is your week shaping up?

Natasha Hilton (0:36)

Busy, as you can expect in New York. All of the kind of stereotypical things of a busy city and everyone running around is definitely what I'm feeling from a city perspective. School perspective, things have been actually pretty, not slow, but just we're easing in slowly.

We have new staff in at the moment for inset and then we've got existing staff starting on Wednesday. We don't have students back until the 8th because we have Labor Day, which means that we have a really long inset, which has been fabulous for me because it means I'm really getting to know everyone and I don't have the panic, panic, panic, and then get into school. That's helped me to not feel too under pressure. Then life in general, we have an apartment, which is quite challenging here in New York.

But I've got really, really supportive staff. The team at NAIS has been great. Then Nord Anglia overall has been great. Just finding an apartment here is, I think there's a reputation for the challenges of finding apartments in New York, but actually everyone around has been fabulous.

Kai Vacher (1:51)

How long has the lead in been so far? So you're starting back on the 8th of September. When did you arrive in New York?

Natasha Hilton (1:59)

I arrived the 29th of July, I think it was. Officially started on the 1st of August.

So I've had a pretty good run in before we've got children coming in to help me to settle myself but also really get to know the school and the staff, which has been great. I had a lot of run up to this as well. So after my interview, I came and did a visit, had some time here with what was there, the principal, met the staff, met effectively my boss, the regional manager, he came over as well. So yeah, just a lot of time to get to know things and really, yeah, scope out the scene.

Kai Vacher (2:45)

Okay. So it sounds like you're gliding into your first headship. So let's step out and also back a bit.

I think you've been preparing for this role for quite some time. I mean, I think when I first met you back in 2014, I think it was 2013, you were already going into schools in London and you were helping leadership teams improve their schools. You've had a very wide range of experience. How did you know or when did you know that you were ready to lead a school in your own right?

Natasha Hilton (3:21)

It's a really funny question actually, because I thought I was ready before I was ready.

If there's any message that I give to anyone, it's only at this point which I'll explain in the moment that you know you're ready.

When I really fully understood the inner workings of the school, so when you really understand the operational side, when you really understand that finance element, when you really understand the Mac element, that's when I knew I was ready to run the school. I think the pivotal change for me was, when you're getting to that phase and you're ready to step into that leadership, I think everyone will always question the principal. You're always, oh, you never see them, they're never in the school, they're not even teaching anymore. So you have that kind of attitude around the leadership in the school. And actually, it's only when you realize they can't do that because they're running the school that you're ready to run the school. And that moment there was for me. You absolutely still need the visibility, you absolutely still need to be around, you need to be on the ground. But I realized that I was ready once I recognized that I can't be in class full-time teaching and running a school at the same time. And that kind of looking at the leadership team and being like, oh, actually, they're running the school, that's why they can't be in the classroom teaching all of the time was the moment I realized, yeah, I'm ready now. Running a school is not like being the primary or secondary head of the school where you can be on the grounds, the teaching and learning bit all of the time. You've got people around you to do that.