Shelley McLaren has been teaching for 11 years, 8 of which have been at Craigroyston Community High School in Edinburgh and for the past 18 months has been Headteacher at Craigroyston Community High School.
Shelley decided to take the Into Headship programme when she was depute headteacher, as she was keen to be a headteacher within 2-3 years. However, weeks into the course an opportunity came up to become headteacher at her current school.
“Although I had been at the school for 8 years, I don’t think I would have even been considered for the role of headteacher if I hadn’t been on the course. Doing the Into Headship programme has been the best decision I have made and the best experience I have had! Through attending the programme, I have met so many headteachers and aspiring headteachers and together we are open and honest with each other, we all share advice.”
“The responsibility of being headteacher is huge, as you have so many aspects to managing a school, but the course gave me so much confidence to do my job and helped me to grow my relationships within the school.” “It was really important to me to continue my learning – it shouldn’t just be pupils and students within schools that learn, teachers should also engage and be involved in continuous learning, and this course allowed me to do just that.”
“Just go for it! It is a very challenging course academically and you do need to be committed but what you get out of it is so worth it! The tutors were outstanding with real relevant and recent experience of having worked in a school environment. I learnt so much and created new ideas that I was then able to put into practice back at school. Having the mix of professional and academic reading to support the work was invaluable”