Leading Creative and Curious Schools with Tamara Doig

Jenny Cole: 1:02

Hello and welcome back to Positively Leading the Podcast. I'm your host, Jenny Cole, and I'm delighted to have my guest with me today, Tamara Doig. Welcome, Tamara. Thanks, Jenny. Thanks for being here. Tamara is currently the principal of a large primary school in the southern suburbs of Perth, and when she's not at work, she's found at one of the local parks with her seven-year-old daughter and nieces or trying to indulge her inner foodie by visiting new bakeries, cafes and restaurants. And yesterday, I know you survived the royal show. So well done to you. She's been a deputy and a principal of two large schools and I'm really keen to get in and find out more about Tamara journey. So, Tamara, can you perhaps give us a snapshot of your leadership journey to this point, or, in fact, your career journey to this point?

Tamara Doig: 1:53

Sure. Mine's been a bit of an unconventional route actually, because I came into education as my second career after many years dabbling in media and journalism. That was my first degree at Murdoch Uni in media and journalism. My idealistic idea as a teenager was to be a travel writer and travel the world and write about it, and so that's what I set off to do. And so I set off very young, at 19, overseas, and indulged in my love of travel for many years, came back and forth to finish my degree, did a little bit of media here and there, and ended up in Sydney for a couple of years doing an internship at ABC Radio and then found myself in London again with my degree complete and worked for a media company for a few years in London. And it was there actually that there was the turning point. I was there when the GFC hit and I took the handshake of redundancy and decided to head home.

Tamara Doig: 2:46

But the two years previous to that I'd been doing some volunteer work in a disadvantaged school in London working with kitchen gardens.

Tamara Doig: 2:53

Actually it was around the time of Jamie Oliver's work to get kids in the UK knowing the value of food and growing food and I saw that as a great opportunity to just get in and do some community work and that sort of sparked my idea to maybe return home and study education, and so that was my route into coming back home and getting started with my grad dip. And then I jumped into teaching not long after that and, I guess, never had the idea or ambition to become a school leader. It wasn't on my horizon. I wasn't one of these ambitious people. That was the ultimate goal. It just evolved naturally, and ended up finding myself in an acting DP role in a level five school and then sort of made the transition to my next school, which was a level six school, and did some coaching in digital tech and technologies and STEM and then stepped into a substantive deputy position and then took on an acting principal role and now I find myself in my substantive principal role.

Jenny Cole: 3:52

Oh, brilliant. I love those unconventional routes into education because teachers have a lot of transferable skills. But I'm curio us to know what skills did you learn in media and journalism that you transferred into education?

Tamara Doig: 4:11

Actually, there is quite a lot of benefit to the communication side. I think being a skilled communicator in school leadership is really important, and so I learned a lot of valuable skills in that from my previous career being a good writer. There's always a bit of my talent which led me into media and journalism in the first place, and so I think you do a lot of writing. We do a lot of communicating with different stakeholders, and I think that media training really exposed me to being really perceptive to what each audience needed, and so I think those are the key transferable skills. I think, yeah.

Jenny Cole: 4:40

And you said that you did some coaching in digital tech. I know that STEM, digital technology is a real passion of yours. Why is this important for you? I know why it's important for kids. Why is it important for you, as a leader, to be on top of the STEM and digital tech, and how does it impact your students?

Tamara Doig: 4:59

It's about engagement.

Tamara Doig: 5:00

Ultimately, what I saw the benefits were right back at the start of my career.

Tamara Doig: 5:04

Actually, I went as a pre-service student to the maths association of WA conference and at that conference they were shut was right at the beginning of the whole digital device and portable media device revolution and they were sharing. Actually,

Tamara Doig: 5:17

There was someone there called Jenny Jonkst. Actually he's a really skilled digital technology consultant in WA and she was sharing how technology could be used to really engage students and get them to share, give them agency and share what they're learning in a different way, and I sort of saw that as a real aha moment and going, wow, what could that do for kids and how could that open up a new world of possibilities for kids, not just pen and paper to share what they know. And I think that has been the underlying driver is how can we actually leverage the tool to really get in and understand what kids know and understand? Because I think often I know you take my daughter, who's dyslexic what she can share with you orally is far different what she could get down on paper. And I think when you can open up those possibilities for kids and get them passionate and really engaged, I think it's a whole nother world for kids.

Jenny Cole: 6:06

And hopefully we've moved past just replacing pen and paper with the digital technology and we're actually leveraging the benefit of it. Just before this podcast, I was in a rush and I had to send an email and I didn't have time to type it on my phone, so I dictated it and that technology is available in our phones, on our iPads, it's on Word documents, and it is so good for those kids who struggle with reading and writing. I mean, that is available to everyone. Now I also know that pretty early in your career, you volunteered to be part of a project where you were being videotaped See that shows my age Videoed, using videos in the classroom. Can you tell us more about that, because you were obviously a very early adopter? We are still fighting to show teachers the benefit of being observed, and there you were, pretty early in your career, being observed via video. Tell us about that and what you learned out of that and whether you still use do you still observe video your teachers?

Tamara Doig: 7:04

Yeah, it was actually in my first or second year of teaching, actually, and we had a partnership at school I was at with Professor Jenny Lane from ECU, and she was really interested in understanding the impacts of iPads in the classroom and then, more broadly, how video could be used for helping teachers be reflective. So it was something I'm always very much about being a lead learner. So I just wanted to jump in and go yeah, let's see what this is all about, put my hand up to be involved in the project, and part of it was around looking at what the kids were doing. But it was a dual purpose there, because it was also about me being open to reflecting on the videos that were taken in the classroom to really think about what I was doing, what I was saying and just improving my practice more generally. So, yeah, what did I get from that? I think it was really about fine-tuning my practice, being open to new ways of doing things, which is something that I really embrace. I think there's always a new way and a better way if we're open to it, and so that was how I jumped into that, and I really kind of encouraged teachers throughout my journey to give it a go because really you're empowering yourself.

Tamara Doig: 8:08

It's not for anyone else to view, it's not for judgment or for line management or anything like that. It's just purely around being reflective and I've been lucky enough to be in schools where people embrace that quite well and then try to coach and support people through that. If they were a little bit more reluctant. So I still think there's a way to go. Definitely, teachers are a little bit more reluctant. So I still think there's a way to go. Definitely, teachers are a little bit hesitant, like anyone. No one wants to look at themselves on camera, but when you can get past that, I think the value in it is quite extraordinary and just noticing the little things that you do in your practice. So it was just part of that, I guess, journey towards looking at external partnerships, of really looking at ways you can enhance your own practice, but also opportunities for kids, and I see a lot of value in that.

Jenny Cole: 8:51

Yes, so do I, and I am working with some teachers at the moment who have just taken that on as part of a coaching program that I'm doing and we'd probably call it instructional coaching. But what they've noticed is what students that they're not focusing on are doing when they are doing something targeted and focused. They said I had no idea that child was doing that or I didn't know how often she did such and such. It's such a good tool to see what else is going on, because you can't see it. All Classrooms are busy, absolutely yeah, it's such a good tool. It is a great tool. You've talked already about partnerships, so it might be a good opportunity to have a bit more of a chat about that. You've quite clearly, throughout your career, either been involved in projects where there were strategic partnerships or you've gone out and sought partnerships. I know at the moment you are working with Form WA, with Creative Schools. Talk to us about that partnership and how that's developed, you and your school.

Tamara Doig: 9:53

Well, Creative Schools. It's not with my current school, it was with my previous school but we had a good two-year partnership there with my previous school and it was a really nice flow on from the work I'd started at that school around developing a whole school approach to creativity and STEM and digital tech. We worked really hard as a team to move ourselves strategically to this really cohesive approach to what we did. We had these signature pedagogies in the school which were around leveraging that critical and creative thinking and we kind of hit a plateau and we needed something to stretch ourselves a bit further and this opportunity to apply to become part of the Creative Schools Project with Form WA presented itself. At the time I was a deputy and we decided that would be a logical next step for our school and really stretching ourselves in that space. So we launched into that partnership, not really knowing too much about it, but what it is? It's about teachers partnering with creatives in the classroom to basically look at different ways to present the curriculum so you can decide the focus of your project in your classroom as a teacher. It might be that you want to present HASS differently. It might be that you want to present science with a different approach and you can leverage the qualities of the creative to do that and then also think about the creative habits of mind and those learning dispositions that you want kids to develop.

Tamara Doig: 11:13

We jumped into that.

Tamara Doig: 11:14

I was leading it as a deputy and overseeing with my teachers in the classroom and doing the work with the creatives, but what that provided was this really strategic approach to how we might roll that out across the school over a number of years.

Tamara Doig: 11:27

So we had some professional learning with Professor Bill Lucas in the UK, with Lamise Sabra in Perth through Form and Matilda Gib Juber, who's working as the data analyst for Creative Schools Project, and we had just access to this whole world of experts that we wouldn't normally have.

Tamara Doig: 11:45

And so I think those partnerships can just provide you with something different to what you would generally be able to do within your own school and four walls and really expands the possibilities and what that did for us as a school. It just gave us this launchpad for how can we allow students to think and share creatively in different ways than we had previously thought possible, and we had a showcase. It was just fantastic, and the big challenge for me as a leader was to scale that because you could only have two teachers working with creatives. But what we wanted to do then is, in a big school go, how can we take some of these pedagogies and roll these out slowly over the next little while? So yeah, it gave me a lot of research and thought about deep learning and student engagement and ways to approach the curriculum in a creative way. A couple of questions.

Jenny Cole: 12:33

One probably is more of an observation for those new and young leaders listening that feels like a lot of work. It feels like as a leader. That feels like an extra thing to do. How do you fit it in? Was it extra? How do you incorporate that into the wider day-to-day stuff of what a school is doing?

Tamara Doig: 12:54

No, it's a good question, especially the deputy. You've got the busy comings and goings of the DP office, but I think when you're passionate about something, you find that time management, you build it into your day. You schedule those collaborative meetings with your creative schools team or your inquiry team. We had some really passionate staff who were also wanting to drive that alongside me, so it didn't ever feel like it was my own sole project. We had a whole big group of passionate teachers who wanted to meet before school and be part of the rollout and the scaling of the work. So it became a very collaborative project and I think you need to have that in place in order for it to be sustainable. So, yeah, I think it's because of the passion that I had for that subject area and, yeah, starting to be clever about how I manage my time and blocking out periods of time for that big deep thinking work.

Jenny Cole: 13:44

Yes, because passion can only take you so far. Sometimes you just need to find the time in the day to do it. The other question that I had was in today's schools, explicit and direct instruction. In today's schools, explicit and direct instruction making sure that we explicitly teach the knowledge that kids know is rightly taking some precedence. But how does that integrate? How did you fit that in? How does that blend in with a creative or inquiry approach?

Tamara Doig: 14:11

I think it's become a real hot topic lately, hasn't it? It's definitely sort of been these camps of either, or I've definitely been on the balanced approach to that, and I think sometimes that opposition to it can be a bit of a lack of understanding about what it entails. So I think there's certainly. I'm on the view that you need explicit teaching for your core learning areas, and my current school is a real leader in that space spend a lot of time making sure we've got that really strong foundation for kids to be able to think deeply. So I think they have to go hand in hand. There's got to be that really strategic focus on literacy and numeracy and all of the techniques and strategies and news in the classroom so that they've got the the skills that they need in order to be able to then apply it with all of that creativity. So I think you can't have one without the other, and I think there can be a real missing space if you've got just the explicit teaching and no opportunity for kids to apply it and develop those thinking skills.

Tamara Doig: 15:05

I think there's also a bit of a misconception around how you do that. There is a lot of explicit teaching needed to help students develop the capacity to think creatively and critically. It's just all the same strategies you use for literacy and numeracy you need to use with developing how to develop a good idea and how to explore possibilities. You still need to be able to teach kids those things. So I feel like the transferable skills from explicit teaching come across to that side and I think it's around that creative integration of your other subjects in the curriculum your technologies curriculum, your science curriculum, your HASS curriculum. You can teach creatively on those sides and still get your content across. So I think it's that happy medium, not one without the other, not a free-for-all or discovery-based learning, as some people think. Creative and critical thinking is Very much a mapped out, thinking about what developmentally kids need at each level.

Jenny Cole: 15:56

Yeah, I hope we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, because we definitely need both. And I agree you've got to teach some of those critical and creative thinking skills, because not everyone comes fully equipped with them. So just as you need to teach the literacy and numeracy skills explicitly. And so that kind of strangely enough brings me to culture, because again you've referred to whole school or cohesive approaches or an understanding across a school or a staff about how things are going to work. You've led some pretty large schools. How do you get 130 staff on board and what does a good culture look like?

Tamara Doig: 16:36

Yeah, I think, as a leader, that's the space I've had to work into. So when I was a deputy, it was all about the content and your expertise in a particular area and I was typically head down, deep in the space tunnel vision on my portfolio. And when I started to have to step into that principal role, it became about really understanding and having a deep sense of self and that self-awareness and I think doing the Rising Leaders program with you and then the APPP, the Aspirant Principal Preparation Program with the department, really started to develop that sense of who I am, who I want to be. The APPP had that who I am is how I lead was the mantra, and that really resonated with me, I think, because I didn't want to let go of who I am as a person in order to be a leader. Sometimes it's this typical idea of what a principal should be and how they should behave or act and I kind of wanted to challenge that and still be really connected to my staff and feel that they feel seen and heard and valued. That's a real, really important thing to me that I try to connect with as many staff as I can so they actually feel that there's an authenticity there that I've got a relationship with them, a connection with them, and it can be very difficult in a big school.

Tamara Doig: 17:46

It's nearly 130 staff in my current school and I won't pretend I know everyone deeply, but what I do try to do is actually just take that moment when I do see them to have that chat, have that second sentence, not just the how's the weather, but that second sentence where you do have enough knowledge about that person to say, oh, how did your race go on the weekend?

Tamara Doig: 18:05

Or how'd your daughter go with that project? Or because you know them and you've taken that time to really connect. And so that's been a big part of what I do. And I think the other part is there, that you're developing that trust and they're developing a sense of who you are and what you stand for. And I try to make that really clear and transparent. When I stood up in front of my staff here when I moved to this school last year, I really tried to get across what it is I stand for and how I will lead, so that they really understood what I'm about. They understood my boundaries, they understood what it is that I value, the high expectations I have, but that I'll also have that compassion and wanting to listen and understand who they are and what they're all about.

Jenny Cole: 18:47

That makes my heart sing. Of course you know that already, because relationships build trust and trust allows us to do all of the other things. But what I particularly love is you're not an extrovert. You're naturally quiet. You're naturally methodical and careful, although you're friendly and outgoing. Building lots of deep relationships, or lots of relationships with 100 people, I'm sure, is not always your happy place. My guess is you've had to work at that because you know the benefit. Have I got that right? Have you had to?

Tamara Doig: 19:17

work on that, definitely. I've had to work on that and I think that's about knowing yourself that bit better, stepping outside of your comfort zone, the public speaking. In the first part of my principalship at my previous school, I was terrified but I really had to step forward and step into that space and go up to groups and talk to them and get to know them.

Jenny Cole: 19:36

You know that was yeah, it's definitely something I've had to work at over time, and even for the most extrovert amongst us, that amount of relationships can be really, really tricky. We're not actually designed to know and get to know all of those people. But congratulations for stepping outside your comfort zone. Get to know all of those people. Congratulations for stepping outside your comfort zone. So you've talked about what you needed to build and grow as a leader, but you will have worked with other deputies, either as a deputy or teacher leaders, or now, in fact, have those people below you, not that you think like that, but work with other deputies and teacher leaders. What kind of advice do you give to those people who are aspiring leaders?

Tamara Doig: 20:14

I think the best advice I got was be looking over the fence. Don't stay in your bubble and start connecting widely. Because I think the danger is when you're very insular in your own school and you're doing great in your own school but you haven't had that opportunity to understand and learn from a wider variety of people. I think that stagnates your growth. I think it limits who you can be and where you can go. So I think that's the biggest piece of advice I ask for the leaders that I work with, or my aspirant leaders, and even if they're not planning on moving anywhere else, they're happy in their school. It actually just opens them up to, I guess, how other schools are approaching the same kind of area or what can we learn from them.

Tamara Doig: 20:54

It's not always thinking about well, we're quite happy with how we're doing. Well, there could be another way. There could be some opportunities for collaboration, there could be some networking or some ways to work smarter, not harder. So I think that's my approach. I think get out and connect with different associations or attend professional learning, that leadership development. That's going to give you that opportunity to really expand your world, and I think I did that from quite early and so I have this kind of wide and varied network that I've intentionally developed over time, and I think that pays off in the end, because it's not about me climbing any kind of ladder. It's about me having this wide variety of people to call on and draw from throughout my time in leadership and continually learn from people who've done far more than I have, and I think you need to be open to that. So it's about that openness for learning, I think.

Jenny Cole: 21:43

Yes, yes, I know at the moment you're an executive member of ACL, the Australian Council of Educational Leaders, where you're meeting cross-sectorially from ASWA, catholic Air, the department and so on, which I think is such an amazing and it's just an extension of what you've been talking about, that you've been doing all your career. What are you getting out of that high level cross-sectorial group and why did you volunteer? I always love it when introverts go. Yeah, I'll do that. What are you learning at that level?

Tamara Doig: 22:15

Yeah, I think it's about building on that idea of being a lead learner. I don't ever sit here and think, okay, that's it, I've got my substantial principal position. I'll sit back in my chair and kick up my heels Far from it. I just want to keep learning and growing and I can only do that if I'm exposed to, like I said, lots of people who are far more experienced than I am. I want to learn from them and learn with them and hopefully contribute as well.

Tamara Doig: 22:40

But I think it's about this, asil in particular, being cross-sectoral. I don't think there should be a public versus private competition. We've got things we can learn from each other and I really like that about the ASIL executive. We're a really collaborative, really down to earth group who all just volunteer our time to advance the education sector as a whole. There's no competition between sectors that we're promoting and I think you can learn a lot from the way that different sectors approach something and there's different speakers in different schools that we try to give a platform and advance their leadership capabilities.

Tamara Doig: 23:16

So it's been a really valuable use of my time because every time I meet with a base of executive or attend an event, I come away with inspiration. So I think that can only be a useful use of your time. And I think that started actually for me 10, 12 years ago. I volunteered for TeachMeet, and that was back in 2013,. I did that and that was a similar thing. It was cross-sectoral and again, I learned a lot from that experience. So when the opportunity came up to volunteer for ASIL, I jumped on it.

Jenny Cole: 23:45

I really admire that. One of my key learnings since I've moved out of the Department of Education and worked more broadly is just one how similar we are, but also how schools and sectors can do things differently, and just the ability to learn off different people. And I love following people on LinkedIn and even Facebook groups and a lot of the teachers assume that everybody's from their same sector until somebody says oh no, I'm in the government schools and we do it like this. Or I'm in Surwear and we do it like this. I just think it's a really good opportunity to learn from each other rather than compete. I just think it's always better to collaborate than compete. But you said there you were talking about time. You always love the time that you have with that group. How do you manage your time? You're a mum of. I always forget how young your little one is. She must have been tiny when we first met. How do you manage your time in a really busy school? What are your boundaries? How do you manage to do what you do?

Tamara Doig: 24:48

Yes, I have to be pretty disciplined with my time. When I took on the acting principal role a few years ago, my daughter was in kindy and I was really reluctant actually to take up the acting role because of that. I always said I'd wait till she was settled in primary school. But sometimes opportunities don't come knocking twice. So I kind of jumped in with support of my partner and we've made it work. I think I've evolved.

Tamara Doig: 25:09

In the beginning I was far too available and I've learned to switch off at the right times and delete the email app off my phone and model to staff around not replying to parents and demands after school or on weekends. They need to also set boundaries. I set my boundaries with people. I said text me if there's something urgent, but I won't be checking my email so and I really try to stick to that because I think there can be some challenging emails that come after hours and then your thoughts are consumed by that. So I really had to stick to it.

Tamara Doig: 25:41

How else do I manage my time? I think my email calendar blocking time doesn't always work in a school, but I try to block out that time, make it really structured in terms of I know when all my key things I need to be at are because there are a lot of commitments, I think in a big school particularly and also block out time for when I'm going to visit different areas of the school. Been a bit more challenging this term, with a public school review thrown in, but still lots of time to collaborate with people on that review that I wouldn't normally get. So I think you do have to be fairly disciplined with your time and I always walk out of here no later than 4.35 and stick to that, so that I can be present at home for my daughter and my family and make sure I get to all of her key school achievements and events. I prioritize those and block those out because I already work enough. I don't want to miss all of her important moments at school and after school, sport and the rest of it.

Tamara Doig: 26:36

I moonlighted as a t-ball coach last season. Oh no, another one to throw into the hat, I'll leave it to someone else this season. Yeah, I think you've got to just find that balance that works for you and your family. It's going to be different for every single person, but as long as my family know, they're really important in my life and I've been there for when it matters, and then I'm also there at the most important time it matters for my staff.

Jenny Cole: 26:59

I'm impressed because it really doesn't matter whether you've got a family or not. I think that if you're at school much past five o'clock, you're exhausted, you're not doing good work, it's not setting a good example. Go home, have rest, do some more later if you have to, if that's what works for you. And the other thing I'm impressed by is blocking things in putting the things that are really important into your calendar first and then working around it. It's the only way. It doesn't always work. There will always be some catastrophe that happens, but it's a good start. Thank you for that. What advice would you give new and young leaders If you had your time again? Or what just generally?

Tamara Doig: 27:38

Yeah, I think working on self-awareness as your number one priority I think you can have. Like I said earlier, you can have all the content expertise in the world, but if you don't know how to lead people or if you haven't developed confidence in certain elements of your leadership, it can be a really challenging road. Not to say that I've hit the nail on the head in every department by now, but at least I've got a really strong sense of who I am and what my blind spots are or what I look like in shadow self and best self. Take any opportunity to your disc training or your print profile or your LSI. Really just self-reflect on who you are and where you need to grow into.

Tamara Doig: 28:14

And the other part to that, I think, is when I did have my head down and really solely focused on my portfolio as a DP, I wasn't really looking outwards to things like community and how you link with the community and how you can lead a school board, for example, and so I think being part of school boards and getting involved in community partnerships is a really important aspect to your leadership development, because it's really a big part of what you do as a principal and it's often an area that we don't get much experience in prior to that role. So I think, if there's an opportunity to do that, put yourself forward and have a go and get to know the community, and that looks different in every school and every community and every town or city or wherever you are. But I think, in whatever context you are, if people don't know you, they don't trust you, and so I think that's going to be really helpful if your ambition is to step into a school leadership role.

Jenny Cole: 29:05

And to piggyback on that, I think, too, when you partner with other organisations, you see how they run too, because we know how a school runs, but sometimes to see how other organisations or things run, even associations, how they run their meetings or how they do their governance really important. So I love that. I love the idea of putting your hand up to get that experience that you're going to need when you're a principal.

Tamara Doig: 29:30

Anything else that we've not talked about today that you would like to share or talk about I think just read widely, connect widely, find your passion, but also know your blind spots so that you can grow into those and develop that aspect of your leadership.

Tamara Doig: 29:47

And I think it doesn't matter what level you're at, there's always sort of aspects that you'd like to grow and I think you've got to let someone know about those because otherwise you're not going to get the support you need to get that helping hand and move up. That's something I've really focused on once. I've had my helping hand and my sponsors and mentors throughout my leadership journey. I'm really focused on doing the same for others now and giving them those opportunities. But often I don't know exactly what their aspirations are. Sometimes I have to really draw it out of people. So if there is an area that you're really wanting to grow, I think you've got to book a meeting and go and have a chat with your DP or your principal so that you can get it on their radar so they might consider how they could support you in the next cycle.

Jenny Cole: 30:27

Yeah, I love that and we're not just talking. I want to be a DP or a principal. Yeah, I love that and we're not just talking. I want to be a DP or a principal, but I'm okay to run the wellbeing committee or I'd love to have a go at that STEM project or whatever it is letting people know that. Have you got members of your team, current or previous, that you've really seen something in and you've had to convince them that they've got it?

Tamara Doig: 31:01

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I've had to do that with lots of people along the way, or try to support them to find the right pathway if they weren't on that one at the time, because you can see what they can offer, and so I think it's really important to be across that and try to provide those paved away almost for those people to step into what's going to be the best fit for them, because it might not always be school leadership, but you can see they've got some real talent and skills that will be best served in another part of education. So I think, yes, that's a really important part of being a leader.

Jenny Cole: 31:34

We started today talking about transferable skills, and that's a really nice way to come back to it is that we don't all have to be leaders, but we all have transferable skills that we can use somewhere else in our career, and even if that's to take a little break from the classroom and come back again, I often say to people take a break, don't quit break, and then come back and use your skills elsewhere and spotting potential in people. Tamara, it's been an absolute delight. I just love the fact that your career didn't take a traditional route, but I'm loving the know thyself and then getting to know others, and then also, it's not just about building friendly relationships, it's about high expectations that lead to improvement in culture and student performance. So thank you so much for joining me.

Tamara Doig:

Thanks, Jenny, so much.

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