I thought today I would be recovering after feeling knackered towards the end of the week, and from running an event. However, the opposite; I am energised, I am proud and I am fired up for anything and everything that can be thrown at me.

Yesterday saw the first Step Up Network event of the academic year. Friday saw me leave school on time to travel to the station and meet up with one of our vice chairs and friend, Christine, who was co-hosting the event with me. As we travelled down, as usual we put the world to right and talked all things education feeling inspired and empowered ahead of Saturday morning’s event. We met with Sean and Mussa, both attendees of Saturday’s event for our pre-event meal. All of our events are designed to blend development, networking and wellbeing together. Our pre and post event meet ups really help the connections.

Following a comfortable night sleep (what Premier Inn’s are known for), Christine and I attempted to get to the tube to find part closures on key lines. Many people were affected, but this was not going to stop us from pulling off a fantastic event. As the Uber pulled up outside of the Natural History Museum, we made our way to the venue, MPW London, an independent sixth form college. We were shortly joined by our volunteer colleagues: Adam, Vina and Zeenat. And then followed by our speakers and attendees. 

The buzz around the room was palpable. Christine kicked off the proceedings exploring our journey so far and what Step Up stands for as an organisation. 

I then followed with the Step Up story. This year rather than sharing the same story at each event I am breaking down the story into smaller chunks and segments. At this event I focussed on ‘Know Your Worth’, reflecting back to a conversation I had with one of our speakers, Christalla, prior to Step Up launching.

Then we started with Patrick Cozier, known for his calm leadership model, shared all about how we can ensure leadership is for the long term. I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Patrick for an hour so he did well to summarise in 20 minutes.

Continuing on the theme of wellbeing, Kimberley Evans gave an informative and reflective talk which enabled much time for thinking. She shared many different strategies for both ourselves but also the organisations that we lead.

And last but by no means least was one of my leadership idols, Christalla Jamil. Christalla gave an inspiring, authentic and emotional talk reflecting on her leadership journey. She emphasised how anyone could do it and how important challenge and standing for what you believe in is so important.

We ended our event with many conversations and for some this extended further by continuing the connections over lunch.

We were of course incredibly sad that Yamina Bibi was taken ill, but don’t you worry we will be finding time and space for her to present at one of our events in the near future.

As always it’s an absolute pleasure to spend time with such amazing people. I’m so honoured and grateful for the many people that make up our community. It was just what I needed this weekend and I’m feeling so empowered to smash this coming week!