No doubt about it, you need to get noticed to get on!

In education, as with every other career path, the key to progression is to get yourself noticed, get your name known and get your abilities broadcast to as many people as possible.

There’s no room in education career progression for the shrinking violet who hangs back and allows others to take the credit for their actions. There are though ways of getting noticed for the right reasons rather than the wrong reasons – you want to be noticed for what you already do rather than for what you say you might do or might want to do.

The key to getting on in the educational world is a mixture of networking and being in the right place at the right time or almost in the right place at almost the right time.

To succeed you need to meet people. You need to attend meetings both in school and out of school. You need to make your views known at such meetings and you need to remember one of the golden rules of networking:

VOLUNTEER!

Volunteering should be looked upon as a short term means of achieving long term goals. No, you don’t generally get paid for volunteering - but you do get noticed and consequently you do get known. If you volunteer and you make a success of whatever it is you volunteer to do then the next time your name will be in the frame already and…..

Ok, so you might think that volunteering to do something for nothing is a little naff in this day and age. Believe me it isn’t – it’s one of the surest ways to educational success.

Volunteer, do it well, get noticed, get your name on someone’s lips and in someone’s mind then get promoted!

No it isn’t simple and it isn’t easy and it doesn’t happen overnight but it does happen.