Nurturing Growth in Classrooms and at Home with Alycia Bermingham

Hello and welcome back to Positively Leading the Podcast. I'm your host, Jenny Cole, and I'm thrilled to have with me as my guest today Alycia Bermingham. Welcome, Alycia.

Alycia Bermingham: 1:14

Hi, Jenny, thanks for having me.

Jenny Cole: 1:16

Pleasure. When I first met Alycia, I was running a leadership program for the Department of Education in Western Australia and she was a keen ambitious and I think you were leading at that point. But you know pretty new to it. And here we are, five years later and she is the head of a learning area in fact, not a learning area, she's head of three learning areas in her school and also works part-time, because the other part-time, or in fact the other full-time she's wrangling a delightful toddler. So before we start, your M has just turned two. What has being a parent taught you about your work or any advice for people who are parents and educators?

Alycia Bermingham: 2:03

It probably sounds awful to say it um, I've just learned to care less. Um, that's really been the big thing. You know, she really is a full-time job and a very worthwhile full-time job. I sort of joke to her people. I say all it took for me to find work-life balance was to add a massive, huge other element to my life, and that being a child. And yeah, it's very much. She has given me back my work-life balance and she's forced me to learn and decide what matters and what is not worthy of my caring about.

Jenny Cole: 2:42

Yeah, yeah, where you choose to put your time and energy. Yeah, yeah, excellent. So you've had an interesting and varied career schools across metro and country. You're currently in a regional school, but you've also taught in Christmas Island. However, I know that one of your career highlights has been part of the TDS or teacher development school process. Do you want to explain to people what that is, what that entailed and maybe what you learnt out of that?

Alycia Bermingham: 3:14

Yeah. So 2017, it was kind of one of my career goals or aspirations that I had was that I would be leading a team, leading a department that would be rated highly enough, that we would be able to become a teacher development school, that I would be working with people skilled enough and confident enough to share their practice, that we would be successful in an application. So, 2017, we put in our application and were successful and we won the role for 2018-2019. It ended up being, you know, we had to reapply at various stages and some rolled over thanks to COVID, but we ended up doing it all through until the end of 2022 when the initiative came to an end.

Jenny Cole: 4:03

And can you explain to people what a teacher who perhaps might not be in WA what a TDS is?

Alycia Bermingham: 4:08

So basically, it's about teachers supporting teachers, teachers being skilled practitioners, being in a position to support one another and it's a teacher-led model of support. That's the term that they use for it teacher-led model of support and so, as a head of department of humanities and social sciences, we were at various stages in that five-year journey. We were the only school and sometimes there was a second school that was providing support in humanities and social sciences and some other areas of strength that we had. So I managed my team to do that and I did a lot of the work myself, sort of my passion project for those years where I would be providing professional learning, both online and in person. You know one-to-one support, someone at the other end of an email, other end of a phone call in order to support teachers with curriculum and pedagogical challenges that they might have been having in that secondary HASS space.

Jenny Cole: 5:14

So yeah, that wrapped up at the end of 2022.

Alycia Bermingham: 5:17

And as the department transitioned across to the quality teaching strategy, the theory being that everyone's curriculum was pretty locked tight. You know, we've been doing Australian curriculum and the. Wa version of Australian curriculum for long enough that people should have that in hand. So now it's about a teacher practice and our cultures in our school. So we have continued to provide support in that TDS space, but not under the TDS banner.

Jenny Cole: 5:43

We continue to offer it as a quality teaching lead school and so does the school, do you or the school, get extra time in order to provide that support? How does that work?

Alycia Bermingham: 5:54

So I'm kind of spewing. Really, we got a very decent budget every year that would have provided for me to drop a class and do it as a point two role and for 2018, 19, 20 and 21, 21 being the year I was pregnant, I didn't do it using that 0.2. I did it above and beyond my role. So at that stage, as a head of department, I taught three classes and had my 0.35 allocation of admin time, and then I was doing TDS on top of that. So come 2022, I was able to continue doing some of that work while I was on maternity leave in a very casual fashion, and then it came to an end.

Alycia Bermingham: 6:39

So I did have the money there, but trying to staff my classes took priority every year and, being a country school, you know we, just we struggle more than most. So at the end of the day, having a teacher in front of our kids always had to take priority.

Jenny Cole: 6:55

So what did you get out of that process, though, to put your own time into that? What did you get out of supporting teachers who weren't even in the same town as you, possibly miles and miles away, who wanted to know about HASS or had queries about that? What did you get out of putting in that extra work?

Alycia Bermingham: 7:13

I really am passionate about reducing that teacher lottery, that every kid walks into every classroom in our state and should get the same quality of education, same level of education, and so it really was just a very much self-satisfaction, that sense of achievement that people were, you know, taking on challenges in their practice, that they might have been inspired by not necessarily what we were doing, but opportunities that I was able to expose them to at other schools.

Alycia Bermingham: 7:43

A lot of it was finding networks and sourcing excellent practitioners at other schools and asking them to come other schools. A lot of it was finding networks and sourcing excellent practitioners at other schools and asking them to come on board and provide professional learning and support to people when needed. And it really it just filled me with such excitement seeing people grow and learn and experiment and explore new practice. I also really, really have enjoyed that growing the capacity of other people in other schools. A lot of the time I was sort of through networks that you know I might say I need an economist and someone would put me in touch with someone and they'd put me in touch with someone and next thing, I found an amazing economics teacher who isn't necessarily on a leadership pathway or maybe haven't considered being on a leadership pathway and then be able to provide them with opportunities that they weren't necessarily getting in their school.

Jenny Cole: 8:33

Yes, and it's one of the things I'm really keen in this podcast is that you don't need to aspire to lead a massive school as the ultimate principal. You can lead as the economics teacher in a school, wherever you are, and be providing professional learning. That's leadership and development for both you and for others. Can you talk about the value of networks in giving people and finding those opportunities?

Alycia Bermingham: 9:02

Absolutely. You know WA, two degrees of separation at the best of times, but you know, definitely in teaching it, separation at the best of times, but, you know, definitely in teaching it. It is all about networks and all about who you know and what opportunities those people can open up for you. And I've been very lucky that networks have worked to my favour and I've been able to, you know, tap into various networks at various times for different things and they've been to my advantage. So, to other people, to demonstrate to them that going to work every day in your school doing a fabulous job, sometimes they need someone else to open them up to everyone else. You know, it's just that breaking in and breaking out is not always easy. And, yeah, being able to use those networks that have supported me to now support other people has been really helpful.

Jenny Cole: 9:57

And listening to that. There's kind of the technical curriculum, expert networks. You know who are the other people that know the stuff that needs to be known. But I just heard you talk then about opening people up to people who are going to then give you opportunities, and that's more like we've talked about in some of my courses, about mentors and sponsors, and I'm hearing that you're doing this now to other people. You're good at this. Here's somewhere where you might be able to use that and sort of acting as a mentor, as a sponsor. Do you have mentors or sponsors in your career? I?

Alycia Bermingham: 10:32

have had some various I think I've always just called them mentors, I think, as I've developed my understanding of mentors versus sponsors kind of thing, I think I've probably had more sponsors than mentors sponsors kind of thing.

Alycia Bermingham: 10:48

I think I've probably had more sponsors than that, but certainly you know some of the other, some of the opportunities for me. I back in 2012, 2012, 2013, scarsa were expanding their course advisory councils or committees and you know I had someone ring me and say this would be a great opportunity for you to apply for. And and you know, as a consequence of that one phone call, that one application, that I definitely did not feel at all qualified for, you know who could I be to be sitting on this advisory council for a curriculum?

Alycia Bermingham: 11:21

And I did.

Alycia Bermingham: 11:23

I was successful in joining that committee and have remained on it to this day and have been able to affect some really substantial change within history curriculum in WA through that and really expanded my confidence with liaising with SCASA, which has been really helpful for me in having taken on other learning areas that are not my area of expertise.

Alycia Bermingham: 11:51

But you know that all just came back to that one person making that one phone call to me and saying this is what you should do. And you know, thinking about that, that's something that I've made, that phone call to someone at the end of last year when nominations have reopened again, and I've made that phone call to someone and said, hey, this is what you should do and this is the pathway you could take to get onto this committee and this is the way. You know, this is why you should be pushing. But I do have some mentors and I think a lot of the mentors in the doing of my role on a day-to-day basis have very much come through those networks I've built in the leadership space through a lot of your connections, jenny oh, okay excellent you've opened up through the, you know, the positively beaming and positively leading and the wildly wonderful women space.

Alycia Bermingham: 12:39

Like you know, it's certainly provided that opportunity and you know, the membership a few years back, certainly, you know, just gave me that confidence to connect with people at different schools on different levels, different levels of experience.

Jenny Cole: 12:55

Yeah, and what I heard before and which I really love, is that paying it back and opening that door for somebody else, Because when we look back, you know, regardless of what we called them, there was often somebody who was behind us going here you'd be great at this, here you'd be great at this, and it's so nice to be able to turn around and go and do the same for somebody else. My guess is over your career. Because of being in the country, you've had plenty of graduates or inexperienced or new teachers. Talk to me about how you lead those or what you consciously try to do with those people.

Alycia Bermingham: 13:30

I'm really, really conscious around a wellbeing approach and, quite upfront, honest, open with my new teachers out-of-subject teachers, you know, and even you know the random grad that isn't even in my learning area and I see on the corridor really about supporting them by encouraging them to start the way they intend to go on, and you know that's a case of saying you know I'll go out and I will say you need to come and sit down and have your lunch because if you don't eat your lunch. As a graduate teacher you won't have lunch.

Alycia Bermingham: 14:03

When you've been in the game for 20 years, you need to come sit down, have lunch, then return those just really practical approaches to making sure that they are looking after themselves from the first day and you know that very much takes my priority but also giving them the tools and the equipment and the opportunity to be successful. So I'm really reluctant sometimes it's, you know, unhandable to do otherwise, but I'm really reluctant to give it's you know unhandable to do otherwise but I'm really reluctant to give a new teacher the toughest classes. But you know you sometimes have to find that balance there. Maybe a new teacher and they're also at an area, so you can't necessarily give them that extension group, but just trying to find that balance in what I give them.

Alycia Bermingham: 14:51

We work in our team very, very, very collaboratively shared planning, shared resource, locating, all very digital in our way of doing it. But have built that culture that what we do in our team it doesn't matter who is in front of each classroom. The work has been done at a shared level so everyone's able to deliver the the same, have that same quality and reducing that workload and then as a result it also means you know that grad teacher isn't walking in and just being told right, you've got year eight, two, sevens, a nine and a ten and off you go. I'll let you know at the end of the year what grades I hope that you've achieved. You know very much. Here's your programs, here's the assessments, and then also building that skill within them.

Alycia Bermingham: 17:51

I had a grad start in 2017 and she had a baby much the same time as myself, so she'd been on leave since the end of 21. But she's now relocated to another town and doing some relief and her feedback has been about how grateful she is for the work and the supported work that she did right from the start, that she may have been given assessments, but then she was also given the responsibility to write an assessment. She was then asked to write a marking key, but I never then just corrected the marking key and said that wasn't good enough.

Alycia Bermingham: 18:24

I took that time to red pen it and make her rewrite it and start again and really get that understanding of how things work all the way through. And you know she's very reflective that those practices have really helped her understand what she's teaching, not just know what she's teaching understand what good teaching practices look like as well.

Jenny Cole: 18:48

And so you talked then just about your team and we and we. That doesn't kind of happen by accident. How, over the years, how have you deliberately built that culture of we share and we work together?

Alycia Bermingham: 19:04

Some of it's been quite directive. This is just what we do, but it has taken time. My team at present I absolutely love it. I just have an absolutely fabulous team, but it is made up of a couple of senior teachers who have come in.

Alycia Bermingham: 19:22

We sort of joke that we're like the dark side, where they um do things differently in our school, possibly the rest of the school necessarily in a bad way, but some of the ways in which we function and it's very much just about embracing people and embracing our weaknesses and our struggles um, we're very open about those. You, when the grad gets the first, you know parent phone call that's quite aggro or has a bit of conflict with another teacher or the like. You know we can sort of say hang on, hang on, don't worry, you're not all alone. This is something that's happened to all of us. Let us all tell you our stories and you know that transparency about that.

Alycia Bermingham: 20:02

But I've got members in my team that didn't feel like they belong. They started at a school in other learning areas and they've, you know, sort of said they didn't really feel like they fitted or belonged in those teams. But HASS has definitely been where they've found a home and found a sense of meaning and responsibility for their work. But that has also come from then, the team that existed from the outset that they came into, and I think the work that I had to do with those teams was very much about trusting people to be good at their jobs but again providing them with the tools and the equipment to do it in the way I needed it to be done.

Alycia Bermingham: 20:42

you know, not just saying on, you've been teaching this way for 30 or 40 years and now I'm here and I want you to just do it this way, but really bringing people on board to do the work and commit to it. I don't remember where it was. It was at APL, it could have been yours, possibly or a different one, but I remember we were shown a video of a man dancing on the hill, and then Not mine, it's like at a music festival or the like.

Alycia Bermingham: 21:11

And you know he gets up and starts dancing and everyone's looking at him really strange. And then other people get up and start dancing and you know, next thing, everyone's dancing and everyone's doing the same thing. And right when I first saw that, I showed that I had a much older teacher who you know was sort of in the heyday years and you know I showed that to her and she got really inspired, that she felt that she could be the man dancing on the hill and I think being really honest with her and saying, yes, I believe you can be the man dancing on the hill, but let's do this work and let's modify this, has been really important. The other thing has been the five love languages probably from yours, that one maybe, yes, but those five love languages and applying that to my people and really understanding what their love language is and being really transparent with them, that I'm working in that way that you really need time, so therefore I'm going to do these things for you. That will free up your time.

Alycia Bermingham: 22:17

I know that you know some people do want to walk in the office and find a chocolate bar on their desk and a hey, thanks for everything you've done, and knowing which people don't want to be celebrated loudly and which people do. So that's really, I think, just being really conscious about the things I'm doing, so that I'm doing that with integrity as well. It matters to me. That's why I'm doing it, not just because I went to a PL and it suggested that you should think about this, so I've come back to do it.

Jenny Cole: 22:46

And what I find really inspiring and refreshing is that I know that naturally, you're a very processed person. It's like I write a plan and I execute it and I do it. But I'm hearing and it's really lovely to hear that you know that your team works best if you get the members of your team, you understand what lights their fire and you understand their love language and you give them the support that they need at the particular time. So well done and congratulations. But, as I said, I know that you're a planner and you're a strategic thinker. Where do you find time for that or where does that fit in to what you were just describing?

Alycia Bermingham: 23:25

Well, it usually happens about two o'clock in the morning In my dreams, I must say not. Actually I sleep very well, I'm certainly not a sleep-deprived person, and yeah then I mean I love my work, I really do, and you do find the time for what you love and it's not necessarily draining either.

Jenny Cole: 23:45

No.

Alycia Bermingham: 23:47

So, you know, often driving to Perth, I might sort of find myself sending myself a few voice memos going yep, yep, yep. This is what I've just thought about yep, yep, that'll work. But it's also then about I think back to what I said about like kind of caring a bit less, really taking that big picture and going what things are actually going to make a difference or have an impact and then investing my time there. You know, for me, I had a teacher back in 2015 who tested me on a level that don't think all leaders have necessarily even experienced the level of this teacher and at the end of the year I kind of was reflecting back on the whole thing and I decided it was all my own fault.

Alycia Bermingham: 24:39

I must have been responsible for everything that had gone wrong in the year with that teacher and I decided that it was because a lot of it was in my head, a lot of my expectations. So the most cathartic thing I did over that summer was I wrote a handbook.

Alycia Bermingham: 24:54

I wrote the handbook for in my learning area and I put everything down and you know I linked it with in word with clickable hyperlinks to pages, and that's been something I updated every year and it doesn't take me long to update because it's really pretty comprehensive. That then gives absolute clarity to my teachers that this is the expectations and here's the guidance and here's the support material sitting in the appendix for you to do that. And you know, when those questions arise and if people you know go off on a tangent, it gives me something to be able to say actually, here is the policy in our team for this and you know you've stepped outside of that, so I need you to rein it back in. Or is this policy that we actually have here with these procedures? Is this not working? Do we need to reflect on this? And you know, sit and work that through together. So I think you know that sort of allows me to be very streamlined and process-driven myself, but still honour the differences in my people.

Jenny Cole: 25:59

I love that. I'm sure you're going to get plenty of people saying, can I have a copy of that? I'm sure you're going to get plenty of people saying, can I have a copy of that? But I love it because it goes to that piece about setting expectations. So you naturally have very high expectations and you can beat yourself up that nobody's meeting them or you can make sure that you communicate them and say these are kind of the expectations. Let me know how I can support you to get there. You know here's some stuff, but if you need more I'm here. It frees up a lot of time. I'm sure it took a lot of time to make, but it frees up a lot of time.

Alycia Bermingham: 26:36

So much so. And you know just the way I physically set it out in Word with all the different. You know everything on a clickable page it does. It just means if someone said, if someone's doing something, I'm going oh, and I'm starting to get really seedy behind the scenes about they're all not doing it right, I just pull up that page, attach it to an email and I can just say, per the handbook, this is how we do these things and you know, and and I again, it's the strength of the team that allows people to go. Okay, fair enough, and I think, because I support my people so well in all layers of their work, they're happy. I believe they're happy to fit to what I require, even when it makes them uncomfortable as well at times, because they know that it's sort of part of a bigger picture.

Jenny Cole: 27:25

Yeah, and it doesn't sound unrealistic, as long as those expectations come with the support, yeah. What do you look for in a leader? What do you admire in other leaders? What pushes your buttons?

Alycia Bermingham: 27:40

I really respect feedback and continuous feedback and continuous like thinking out loud around things and leaders who are happy to let you have input, even if your input isn't going to count or they've already decided or whatever, that they still let you have that input and and they acknowledge that your having input is important, even if your opinion isn't. I really respect those that can admit when they've made mistakes and can abort mission and redirect instead of just going, no, this is what we're doing, this is what we're doing, this is what we're doing, we're headstrong, it's going to happen this way. Those that can say, oh okay, yeah, no, this is not working or what I. No, this is not working, or what I'm doing is not working or what I'm doing is working, but clearly, you know we haven't communicated it clearly to the people. So therefore we need to abort mission, reset, start again, throw it away, whatever it might.

Alycia Bermingham: 28:39

I Also respect you know sort of the hierarchy that's important to me. I think that hierarchy we do have in schools, because it's a hierarchy of you know, responsibility that sits alongside, I guess, the privilege of having that higher level. And you know, I respect people who themselves respect that and are conscious of not giving information to someone who shouldn't have that information because you know they're not in that position, or I don't know that I'm necessarily explaining my thinking right, but I just I really struggle when there's a lot of leapfrogging.

Jenny Cole: 29:22

Right.

Alycia Bermingham: 29:23

Yeah.

Jenny Cole: 29:24

Give me an example of what that might look like. You can make it up.

Alycia Bermingham: 29:28

Doesn't have to be a real life example, but what leapfrogging might look like yeah, I think for me it's a lot of you know in the context of the school. You know day-to-day issues that maybe need to be brought to a hola and then it's for the hola to then work out who to take that to and then wait for those people to give answers and then it goes to that next level or it's resolved. But it's when people you know I guess mostly have the impatience or want to have the information and they skip those steps and they go where they want to and they're not necessarily privy to the whole situation.

Alycia Bermingham: 30:03

So yeah, I do. I find that really problematic.

Jenny Cole: 30:07

And I'm wondering if one of the problems I find with that is when someone's leapfrogged over those middle and the person at the top actually answers that question and they sometimes get it wrong because they don't have the full context or when they don't come back or send the person back and go. This is really not at my level. You should have been speaking to your head of department about this, or that's something that's handled by the XYZ deputy, because it just makes things really messy, doesn't it?

Alycia Bermingham: 30:37

It does, and I think some of that doesn't give credit to the big picture or the strategic thinking that's happening at the middle leadership level as well. You know we are reaching a bit of a crunch point with our room space at school. Realistically, it's because we're not running full capacity classes. So to my mind, you know, everyone can have their own classroom, provided they have classes of 32 yeah, if they don't have classes 32, we've got to have some room sharing.

Alycia Bermingham: 31:07

So this has created some angst.

Alycia Bermingham: 31:09

At the end of the year, as a few people have realised, they're going to have to share rooms.

Alycia Bermingham: 31:13

And you know, I sort of look at it and I go okay, well, we really need to change the way in which we think about classrooms and think about classroom ownership and think about where teacher work needs to be occurring and how's this all going to go towards collaboration. And you know, I'm sort of escalating it into this really big thing. But you know, for the teachers they're just kind of going well, I've lost my room, so I'm going to go to this person and demand that I get, you know, a desk to help me to do this and this and this and this. And you know that's something where I'm kind of going hang on, hang on, hang on, like let's just stop that right there and let's reflect on these big questions together and then we will resolve it, instead of going, and you know, demanding that we get bought a new desk for our classroom, and you know the corporate services manager going oh, okay, yeah, no worries, you can have one. That's a little bit of a petty example.

Jenny Cole: 32:13

No, no, it's a really. It's an everyday example Correct, correct, correct. And it's a really good example of how a middle leader can get caught in the middle because you can see both the big picture and the small details, whereas a teacher might get stuck in the weeds of well, I don't have a desk. And you're thinking where are we going to put the other 300 kids on these days? And, da-da-da-da-da, not 300. You're thinking from your learning area perspective, but understanding that the school has a perspective and it's a really tough place to be in because you have allegiances but also responsibilities, both down and up. It makes it really hard.

Alycia Bermingham: 32:46

Yeah, and I think you know. Back to that question you asked about what do I respect or not? Yeah, yeah, it's that I think you know that's an example of leapfrogging yet again and that, yeah, you know, I think those higher levels need to be saying hang on, hang on, hang on. This request needs to come from your whole lot, so I will wait for it to come before we resolve it. And you know that empowers middle leadership to think strategically as well as operationally, yeah, and it's a really good example also of communication channels.

Jenny Cole: 33:17

You're not doing it to thwart people or to say I'm too important to answer that little question. It's just like the communication flows better if it flows the right way and minimizes things. Anything else that you love in a good leader or that you've seen in really good leaders.

Alycia Bermingham: 33:34

I think their ability to realize that they have achieved that level and that other people are aspiring to that level, so they don't need to keep everything for themselves. Um, and I think that sort of you know is a bit of my approach with my teachers as well. If I didn't have to take the upper school atar classes and I've got a teacher that could well, I would like that teacher to take it. I don't need to prove that I can do it. I've already proven that and I think that applies at all levels of leadership. You've won the job. You own the job. This is your job.

Alycia Bermingham: 34:12

You know letting other people have a go at some of your things or involving them in challenges and trying to find resolutions. It's not going to undermine you, but it is going to build their capacity and the leaders I've had that have done that. That, you know, have put the timetable on the desk and been like Alycia, can you come and have a look at the timetable and you know, see if you can see what I can't see gives you that opportunity to build a new skill, whereas you know some leaders sort of go no, it mine and I'll do it because I have to do it and I have to prove it.

Jenny Cole: 34:47

That's a really fear-based or ego-based response, isn't it? Which is, if I give too much of this away, it might not be mine or people might not think I can do it, but the opposite is true. You know, share and empower with others, yeah.

Alycia Bermingham: 35:02

And I think that you know just goes to giving you know acting opportunities and you know just goes to giving you know acting opportunities and you know, short term, longer term opportunities, you know, acknowledging that, yeah, people might not be quite ready for it, but let's give them a go and they'll work out if they want to be ready for it.

Jenny Cole: 35:18

And that seems to be a real theme of today's podcast and of your leadership, which is find opportunities for other people to shine, find ways that you can promote them, build their skills, you know, empower them to do what it is that they can do if they just have someone behind them, giving them the support that they need.

Alycia Bermingham: 35:37

Yeah, I mean. Ultimately I became a holder after five years of teaching, so I was, you know, very young. Good collection of uni degrees on the wall.

Jenny Cole: 35:48

To make a perfect house, hold on.

Alycia Bermingham: 35:52

But you know we got there in the end and you know I was new to it. But at the end of the day a punt was taken on me. You know, I like to think that it was a worthwhile punt that was taken and that other people need that same.

Jenny Cole: 36:07

Yeah, great. So to finish up, answer all or any of these questions best advice you've ever been given, best professional learning you've ever been to or best book you've ever read? What's something that you want to pass on and share with perhaps new or aspiring middle leaders?

Alycia Bermingham: 36:25

I absolutely loved doing cognitive coaching with Lucy Fisher that the Women in Leadership initiative ran. I did that back in 2013, 2014, and that's really been influential. Just the ideas that sit behind that really works for me. You know, I guess probably I would hazard a guess most of your guests will say you know, you read everything that Brené Brown's written.

Jenny Cole: 36:52

Well, I hope so. It's very important to read everything that Brené Brown's written. She's your Bible.

Alycia Bermingham: 36:58

She's even written a parenting book, you know.

Jenny Cole: 37:02

I did not know that, but I did not need to know that, but it's good to know. Thank you it I did not know that.

Alycia Bermingham: 37:06

But I did not need to know that, but it's good to know. Thank you, it's an audio book only and it was very good to read it. It was Brené at home and it was great. But yeah, and I would just say, like sort out how to use digital tools you know how to manage your emails using your calendar.

Alycia Bermingham: 37:25

You know how to manage your emails using your calendar task lists. Teach your people to use teams and use tasks and planners. The more you can digitise it honestly, the easier it is, and you know, even if it makes things uncomfortable for you to learn. It's certainly the world we're in, and my other one would simply be, I think, as I've said before. Anyway, though, but trust your people.

Jenny Cole: 37:51

Yeah.

Alycia Bermingham: 37:52

Yeah, trust your teams. At the end of the day, you get kids a year later and you ask them what they learnt last year and they can't tell you much. So at the end of the day, really you know, people can't go too wrong.

Jenny Cole: 38:05

No.

Alycia Bermingham: 38:06

If you're leading them right, but you let them. You know, give them a little bit of opportunity, they'll do good, and they'll do good by the kids.

Jenny Cole: 38:14

Yeah, because most people turn up with the intention of doing a good job every day. I truly believe that, and if you trust that that's true, then they will. Yeah, yeah. Alycia, thank you so much for joining me. I'm just going to say this right at the very end, because Alycia knows this and and anyone who knows me really well knows that I don't particularly like small babies. I'm not one of those people that goes gaga. But when Alycia started posting pictures of M on her various feeds, I was besotted. What a delightful character you have created. She seems curious and funny and all of those things. So congratulations one on being a fabulous leader in a country school, which we all need, but also congratulations on your motherhood journey. It looks like it's really suiting you.

Alycia Bermingham: 39:09

Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Jenny Cole: 39:11

Alrighty, we're going to finish there. I want to thank you, Alycia, again. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd really love you to rate or review or follow us so that you can hear the next episode that we release each week. Bye for now.