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Teamwork - the missing piece in the rat race
24th January 2025
I have a rat problem.
I discovered this recently when I went to get some cat biscuits from my old brick outhouse and something had been trying to eat through the bottom of the wooden door. Being a resourceful sort of teacher, I found a baking tray and a brick and thought that would stop their endeavours, only to find that the next morning they had moved further down and gnawed again. Not a problem I thought, as I reached for a log to barricade the way.
The following morning however, I noticed they had started eating round the window frame. At this point, I started to admit defeat, moved the cat biscuits and picked up the phone to the Rat Man, not without feeling a new-found respect for the rat and a modicum of guilt that I had scuppered his plans.
This got me thinking about how we all approach problems in our own ways – some of us like the rat, not giving up, finding a new route or a different pathway, with others meeting the baking tray and admitting defeat. The world of education is constantly throwing up problems for us to solve and we are having to become increasingly resilient in finding new and creative ways to resource our schools and solve issues.
Within our school teams and the wider Trust lies the solution. If we work together we can find solutions and solve problems, of which very few are unique in schools (I won’t mention the snake story here but you can ask me) and in my experience, educators are more than happy to share ideas and help each other out – it’s why we came into this sector in the first place.
My rat was incredibly resilient but if he hadn’t been working alone he would have got through to the biscuits on the first try and been long gone before I’d even picked up the phone...
I have a rat problem.
I discovered this recently when I went to get some cat biscuits from my old brick outhouse and something had been trying to eat through the bottom of the wooden door. Being a resourceful sort of teacher, I found a baking tray and a brick and thought that would stop their endeavours, only to find that the next morning they had moved further down and gnawed again. Not a problem I thought, as I reached for a log to barricade the way.
The following morning however, I noticed they had started eating round the window frame. At this point, I started to admit defeat, moved the cat biscuits and picked up the phone to the Rat Man, not without feeling a new-found respect for the rat and a modicum of guilt that I had scuppered his plans.
This got me thinking about how we all approach problems in our own ways – some of us like the rat, not giving up, finding a new route or a different pathway, with others meeting the baking tray and admitting defeat. The world of education is constantly throwing up problems for us to solve and we are having to become increasingly resilient in finding new and creative ways to resource our schools and solve issues.
Within our school teams and the wider Trust lies the solution. If we work together we can find solutions and solve problems, of which very few are unique in schools (I won’t mention the snake story here but you can ask me) and in my experience, educators are more than happy to share ideas and help each other out – it’s why we came into this sector in the first place.
My rat was incredibly resilient but if he hadn’t been working alone he would have got through to the biscuits on the first try and been long gone before I’d even picked up the phone...
