Q&A + Baby

This is white noise in the corridor calming him down.

Today, baby and I faced our biggest professional challenge yet: appearing as panellists at the Teach First annual offsite conference for Teach First employees and partners. This meant two 60 minute Q&A sessions in Nottingham (I live in London) exploring the ideas behind The #maternityteacher Project and achievements to date.  This required a lot of energy, and our smartest pair of shoes, but I found that repeating motivational mantras to myself gave me the encouragement to get up and go. 

"I am the change I want to see in the world," I said to myself when I got into the shower at 6am. Baby farted in his sleep and sighed in a satisfied way. 

"Be 10% braver," I said to myself whilst getting baby up and changed. Baby pooped all over the changing mat three times. Clearly very excited, maybe a bit nervous about his guest appearance. 

"Coffee is always a good idea," I said to myself as I left the house with a Baby Bjorn bouncer frame over my shoulder like Huckleberry Finn's mum, to join the 7am commuters. Baby stuck his tongue out to suck up the tube breeze and dribbled. 

"I am a super woman," I said when my train was cancelled and I approached station staff to request to be re-routed. Baby chewed his whole fist and sicked a little down his chin. 

"Thank fuck I don't have to do this every morning anymore," I said as I put the bouncer frame in the luggage rack and released baby from the sling. Baby pooped loudly and smiled. Achievements come in many varied forms. 

Note: professional shoes.

When we finally got to Nottingham, the panel itself was very exciting, if a bit overwhelming. In true #maternityteacher style, we arrived a million hours early, reconnaissanced the room, set up the bouncer, had a feed and a cup of tea and finished the last chapter of 'Jungly Tales' by gumming it aggressively before the first audience members arrived and baby became an instant sensation.  

Now, here's a tip if you're considering doing a similar event with your baby: your baby is the most beautiful little person in the whole world; he is making an appearance at an event where babies do not usually appear; everybody loves an adorable, smiling baby, and everybody wants to touch said baby.  I'm normally very happy and proud to hand my baby over to other people for cuddles - often I take pictures of him with various professional celebrities - but I was surprised at how worried I was that he would be overwhelmed by all of this attention, and yet at the same time I would have been offended if he had been ignored!  This was probably a projection on my behalf, but something to think about if other people touching your baby is not your favourite thing.

Yes, my baby is PERFECT.

Once I'd calmed down my inner control-mother, I delivered my introduction, realising that I was the only one who had brought notes.  Part of me felt like a school girl rather than a serious, professional person; the other half of me got flustered and distracted when the baby screamed about his wind so was very grateful to have a set of bullet points to follow whilst most of my brain was actually worrying about him.  Use whatever personalised strategies allow you to multi-task in this way, even if they do make you feel like you're laying out your shiny new pencil case on your desk on the first day of school.

After all three panellists had spoken on different aspects of women in leadership, there was an explosion of responses that I am going to have to take a whole day in my pyjamas to process.

Amongst the ideas that stood out was the importance of choice. Whenever anyone starts talking about parenting, discussions become very personal, very charged and very defensive. Am I doing enough? Am I doing it right? Have I met expectations? Am I a good mother? Am I a strong woman? One thing I maybe didn't emphasise enough today was that the inception of The #maternityteacher Project was motivated by fear: I am bad at doing nothing; boredom scares me; I have to build structured relaxation time into my day so that I don't feel guilty; I was deathly afraid of getting post natal depression because of such a dramatic shift in my pace of life. I couldn't find any examples of parental leave that didn't include Baby Jazz or baking, and these things don't float my boat half as much as improving my understanding of 19th century literature or facilitating a session on EAL for trainee teachers.  

Note: engaged speakers, vacantly staring mother.

It was really interesting to see and hear how the idea of The MaternityTeacher PaternityTeacher Project was received by a whole range of parents - from those who had told their Mums that they were going to complete PhDs whilst on maternity leave, but had ended up happily lying on a beach for nine months, to those who thought that the responsibility for bridging the gap of parental leave lay in changes to organisational structures, not programmes of 'catch up' like this one.

This raised the question of revolution vs. evolution. Do we need a social revolution that completely changes the way that we perceive parental leave, women and men's roles, and childcare? That makes certain gender-focused events obligatory for men or maternity leave coaching a legal requirement for all organisations? Or will the only effective change be a result of a trickle down effect whereby this #maternityteacher supports and inspires three other #maternityteachers and #paternityteachers who go on to inspire nine more... until eventually there is no need for a revolution because organically, there will be a more even balance in the education system (and who knows - the whole country) between the sharing of parenting and leadership roles?

My personal, and very self-centered response to the evolution vs. revolution question is one of time: I have three months left of my maternity leave and if I wait for a revolution, I'll end up sitting in a classroom three days a week at 52, sipping my bitter coffee, reflecting on the career opportunities I sacrificed in order to raise three boys who were now contributing to the hateful patriarchy.  As it is, I am bored now. I am acting now. I hope to inspire and support now. I'll leave all this talk of revolution to my French husband. 

Another interesting suggestion was that schools are awarded with a sort of 'Gender Equality' award, a bit like an Arts Smart or an Eco Schools Award that recognises the efforts made to ensure gender equality amongst staff and to teach these values to students in schools.  I'd have to get my head around this one and the dangers of positive discrimination and tokenism vs. meritocracy, but I thought it was a creative idea to suggest, which could have some potential. 

A final resounding comment came from the only man in the first session: it had been intimidating and uncomfortable to attend the event as the only man in the room but it had been important, relevant to him and very interesting. At lunch time, he and others who had been at the first session actively sought out other men and said, 'You should go to this Q&A panel after lunch. This crazy woman has brought her baby.'  After lunch, there were at least ten - maybe more - men in the room. They were all interested, they were all engaged.  One of them sadly reflected that he had missed the opportunity for a cuddle, now that the baby was asleep in the sling.

It was so exciting to hear from Team Dad and have my suspicions confirmed: we are all on the same page here. Time away from the office/ classroom to spend with your child: good. Flexible CPD to develop your skills in areas of interest or reflect on career pathways: good. Shared childcare responsibilities that means everyone gets to enjoy magical smiles and dribble: good. Greater equality in educational leadership: good. None of this is exclusive to one or other gender. So encouraged am I by this that I'm changing the name of this Thing to The MaternityTeacher PaternityTeacher Project.  It's longer, but The ParentalTeacher Project sounds weird.  I'm also going to keep asking for someone to put me in contact with a male teacher who has completed CPD whilst on parental leave to be my @paternityteacher partner in crime. Are you out there? Do you have Twitter?

Please zoom in to his facial expression here.

Amongst all of this excitement and intense chat, baby was mostly an absolute legend and at all other times he was a baby and did all the normal things that babies do. He got grizzly and needed to be bounced in the sling to fall asleep. He made noises (delightful) as if he were in the Houses of Parliament  during the other panellists' anecdotes. When he got wind and screamed, he had to be taken outside. I think it was too cold and we are not used to cold as it has basically been sweltering since he was born and he has spent most of his life in just a nappy, and he got clingy and didn't want to stay in the bouncer and chew on 'Jungly Tales' by himself. I've since realised that he is in the middle of an angry rain cloud on my Wonder Weeks app, but the only person who seemed remotely bothered by all of this was me. 

I had one brief moment of wondering whether it was all a bit too much and I was a terrible, selfish mother but then the baby massage elicited an enormous fart and suddenly baby was fascinated by his audience again (and then he fell asleep). 

We ended the day a little overwhelmed by all the potential and opportunity and relevance of the project and basically got home and collapsed and made vowel sounds to each other and smiled and dribbled some more. Nottingham is quite a long way for a small baby. Tomorrow we will do a lot of lying on the carpet and we might try to look for Spot the Dog again. We keep losing him. 

Case Study: Chance Encounters

Kathryn Wright (@kathrynfenlodge), freelance RE Advisor, RE Advisor to the Diocese of Norwich and Lead Consultant for Teach: RE shares her inspiring #maternityteacher experience.

I am writing this blog because I passionately believe that parental leave can be an opportunity for career development and I want to support The #maternityteacher Project. Let me explain why...

Very few people can probably claim that their career took off during maternity leave, but this is what happened to me about ten years ago!  In short, this was partly due to being in the right place at the right time, but also due to the incredible support of colleagues who saw the opportunities that maternity leave provided for flexible working from home.

Ten years ago I had a nine-month old baby, and a toddler running around; I had been an RE Adviser to the London Borough of Newham for a number of years, but had decided to explore other avenues of work to fit better around my family and avoid the long daily commute from to London from Cambridgeshire.

A Chance Encounter

During my maternity leave I started to run a toddler group – slightly out of my comfort zone as I am secondary trained!  However, I required some resources to help me, and whilst searching for these, bumped into an RE Adviser.  She suggested that whilst I was on maternity leave I trained to become a Section 48 (Statutory Inspection of Anglican Schools) Inspector, explaining that I could choose when to undertake inspections so that the commitments worked around my children. I took her up on this suggestion and whilst on the training course met another Adviser who told me they needed a secondary RE specialist to work with schools in Norfolk! My new ‘freelance’ career had begun!

Networking

The RE community is strong and vibrant.  There is probably some kind of network meeting taking place every week for teachers. There are similar networking opportunities for Advisers too, and I decided to pop along to my local group. I was fortunate that my husband was working shifts, so had the children for the morning.  It was here that I met Mary Myatt (@MaryMyatt) who at that time was an Adviser in Suffolk. Mary saw the possibilities and opportunities of my situation and supported me in my early days as a freelancer by opening doors for project work, and inviting me to events to help me network with others. She also always understood the constraints of being a parent, and I never felt pressured.

Flexible Working

Lastly, a number of organisations contacted me during my maternity leave because they knew I would be based at home.  I would have more time to write, apparently! So I wrote articles; I helped prepare a bid for funding; I wrote material for a website; I acted as a consultant for a media organisation… many of these opportunities came about because of the creative thinking of other Advisers in my field – other Advisers who did not have time to ‘write’ because they were in schools had the foresight to pass these opportunities on to me.

Opportunities for All

In my work as an Adviser now, there are a number of ways in which I try to support those on parental leave leave, I think partly due to the way my own career has developed. One of my roles is as Lead Consultant for the distance-learning TeachRE Course, which has many flexible routes and pathways that enable teachers to complete it remotely – perfect for those on parental leave!  If this sounds like the right CPD opportunity for you, then we’d love to hear from you!

One of the aims of The #maternityteacher Project is to provide parents with role models by sharing stories like Kathryn's so that teachers on parental leave can explore different options of CPD that are most appropriate for their circumstance.  If you have a #maternityteacher or #paternityteacher story, we'd love to feature it on this blog!  Get in touch with the #maternityteacher on Twitter - @maternityCPD.

Live Stream

Today, this #maternityteacher made a joyful discovery.  Please keep in mind during this anecdotal blog that despite my incessant Tweeting and blogging, watching me try to navigate social media and many forms of technology is a little like watching your grandmother trying to use a computer mouse for the first time.  ("Right click, Nanny.  Click.  On the right.  With your ring finger.  Right click.")

Imagine me, if you will, doing a mix between ballet, dry ice-skating and aerobics in my living room at 11am this morning, in my pyjamas, to a soundtrack of Paolo Nutini, with a baby attached to me in a sling.  Why would I do such a thing, you might be wondering.  Well, the baby had just had a significant poop explosion whilst seated in the bouncer - that genius piece of equipment that allows me to get on with blogging and Tweeting and researching during the day - and it was now out of action.  Baby refuses to sleep during the day without some form of intense lunging involved, so it was rather resentfully that I swapped my morning coffee with accompanying bouncer for a sling fit work out.

Eventually, exhausted, I sat down to Twitter only to find that the whole world apart from me was talking about ResearchEd. "Oh gawd!" I thought, with severe feelings of FOMO, "The whole world is progressing apart from me.  Interesting learning discussions are happening and I'm sweaty and still in my pyjamas at 11am and the baby has begun to dribble in my cleavage!  Maternity leave sucks!"

But oh how wrong I was.  When I clicked on the @ResearchED1 handle, I saw this magical Tweet:

"What is a 'Livestreamed'?" you may be wondering.  Well, #maternityteachers, I asked myself the same question, and curious beyond measure about what kind of Narnia this digital wardrobe door might lead me to, I clicked on the link and was greeted by this:

This is @daisychristo talking, in real time, about the Ark Academy's research into comparative moderation, and here I was, with a baby, in my living room, with dirty hair and sleep-face, listening as if I were in the Theatre of the Capital City Academy with all the other gazillion CPD-ing teachers. Amazing!

I obviously then had a fantastic morning with the live stream playing on my laptop in the background, a bit like Wimbledon or the Olympics whilst I went about breastfeeding, burping, playing, tummy time, laundry, Tweeting, Googling, drinking cups of tea and performing baby massage on a very disgruntled and windy baby.  "Being on maternity leave is fantastic!" I thought, "You can come in late to presentations without offending anyone; I don't have any marking or planning to do that's keeping me from concentrating on what @PhillippaCcuree is saying, and I'm not sickened by the idea of anything to do with education on a Saturday because I've lost track of what day it is today!  Plus, I have time to really think about lots of big ideas and put them into action.  How, for example, could research bodies mobilise the teachers on maternity leave out there who are not drowning under the weight of their teaching load to contribute to their projects?"

Life got even better at 2:05pm when this chap turned up:

What Teach First ambassador doesn't love a bit of Brett quoting familiar statistics?  Way to reconnect with the mission!

The best thing about Live Stream, I discovered, was that it doesn't just exist for ResearchEd; this chap Leon Cych at least, films loads of education-related events and Teach Meets so that they can be accessed from any remote location with Wifi.  Can you think of anything more compatible with the #maternityteacher lifestyle?

So, here's what I think we should all do:

• Explore further opportunities for live streaming.  If there is a conference you want to attend, but can't, what infrastructure do the facilitators have for creating a live streaming link?
• Learn how to do live streaming with @periscopetv - apparently you can do this with your own smartphone!
• We should all make friends with Leon Cych (@eyebeams) and ask him to partner with The #maternityteacher Project to make all of our live streaming dreams come true.
• If you attend an event through live streaming, you've attended that CPD event! (You just didn't get lunch).  Make sure you include it in your CPD record or on your CV so that you can use it to impress your Principal on your return to work.
• Use social media to record and maximise upon your attendance: blog about your reflections; network through Twitter; follow up on introductions and ideas.

Even better, I have just discovered that ResearchEd is family-friendly, so you have two options for their next event in Washington (!?): get a ticket and put your baby on a plane, or grab a cup of tea and a muslin and access through live streaming!

Networking + Baby

 Phew!  Baby and I have just returned this evening from our first networking event with people we don't know!  We were so excited that our attendance was given the all clear by @WomenEd founder @Miss-Wilsey that we spent the whole day considering which outfits would best convey our professional personas.  We needed something that said, 'high powered' but accessible; informal gravity; a baby of the people, if you will, and eventually decided that Power Dinosaurs was the look we were after.  (Mummy wore a blazer, but didn't quite make it out of the chinos.)

Now, I have a great deal of experience in networking events, from very posh charity fundraisers to casual coffees with complete strangers, so I can say with authority that one great thing about maternity leave is that it provides you with ample opportunity to hone your networking skills.  Almost universally, Mums seek out other Mums in their area, be it through NCT groups, baby classes or by just chatting randomly about co-sleeping during a tram ride, and then they get together and they have coffee.  It's true.  Mums do this on maternity leave.  And when they're having coffee, they're having very pleasant conversations with near-strangers, mostly about babies.  Mums are expert networkers, and because of this, chat invaluable breeze to prospective parents on Open Evening and Parents' Evening.

The mismatch for me, though, was where baby would fit into my professional networking calculations.

• Parent with Baby + Parent with Baby = Networking  
• Colleague + Colleague = Networking  
• Parent with Baby + Colleague = ... totally unprofessional?

I have never seen a baby at a networking event, and I can't imagine that it is a common occurrence around the country, unless that event is specifically about babies or families, but the more I send politely worded emails that waffle in my attempt to articulate my request to bring my baby along with me because I don't have childcare but I still want to be part of important debates and discussions, the more I am met with arms wide open in welcome.  

For those of you hesitating about whether to attend an event with your young baby, therefore, I encourage you whole-heartedly to just be 10% braver and go for it!  Many of the practicalities of doing so are the same as suggested in my post about facilitating workshops with babies - things like timing, settlers, being prepared, knowing yourself and your baby, clear communication and normalising are transferable skills in the #maternityteacher #paternityteacher world - but there are a few things I would add on the back of my experience today:

1. Exit Route: 

Today was the first time that baby was a little grizzly in front of a professional audience.  He'd just had a feed and yelled about his wind.  There was a fairly small crowd at this event so it was easy to get up and leave to respect the conversations being had in the room, but having had to do this today, I'll pay more attention to my exit routes next time, especially in bigger rooms or more complicated buildings.  What I found particularly helpful was access to fresh air and the confidence to wander in and out of the room as he settled so that I could continue to listen and contribute to the discussion.  What I didn't think about was a baby-friendly flat surface, which would have been helpful because all he needed to settle was a bit of a massage to release the enormous shart that came later!

2. Sit Down Stand Up

This event was small enough to be had sitting around in a horseshoe formation, which was great for weary teachers on a Friday night, and for breastfeeding mothers!  Often, however, networking events are stand-up affairs, which, if baby is clingy, gassy or needs to be fed can present problems.  Establishing your presence at an event where you can sit down if need be without being excluded from the conversation, but where you are also at liberty to wander around with your baby in a tiger-in-the-tree pose or to jig up and down as necessary is ideal, so arriving early to scout things out and make requests for chairs or stools is advisable.

3. Buggy Access

To buggy, or not to buggy?  It's a tricky decision.  For many activities, I find the sling highly preferable: it's easier on public transport, it's an almost fail-safe method for getting baby to sleep, it leaves my hands free and takes up no room, but at the same time, it's hot and burdensome, whereas a baby sleeping in a buggy, or happily staring at the lights and contrast on the ceiling leaves you free to have uninterrupted conversations with other adults without ruining your back.

What occurred to me today, as well, as I approached the multi-storey venue with my heavy all terrain buggy, was that many venues are still wheelchair and buggy inaccessible, so you can't just assume that access will be possible.  Whilst this is not the end of the world - buggies can be carried up stairs or bassinets removed - the unexpected need to faff around with heavy lifting can leave you frazzled and distracted before an event has even started.

Thank you once again to @WomenEd for practicing what they preach and including Mums and babies in their discussions about women in leadership.

@WomenEd Reflections

So.  For those of you who weren’t quite sure what I meant by ‘endlessly optimistic’ and ‘frighteninglystubborn’, here’s a reckless story of irresponsible risk-taking for you: today is my due date, but we know first babies never come on time – I’ve read books about it and heard many a first-hand anecdote.  ‘Plan something for that day,’ a very good friend counselled me, so, instead of sitting twiddling my thumbs, I thought that attending a @WomenEd Lead Meet would be a good idea.  Thus far, this baby has been very well behaved and I am a strong believer in the power of positive thinking.  He is a considerate and thoughtful foetus, I decided, so he’ll work around this networking event.  

It was my first time at a @WomenEd event, and I have to say, even the decision to get on the tube was empowering experience.  One of @Miss_Wilsey's mantras is to 'be 10% braver', and one thing that I am committing to whilst being on maternity leave is to try my hardest to ensure that this time works for me - me as a mother, me as a professional, me as a human being.  If I feel like napping, I nap.  If I need to change nappies, I will change nappies.  If I can complete online learning, I will complete online learning.  If everything has to stop for baby's needs, then everything will stop.  Like the inspiring Karen Edwards who travelled around the world with her baby on her maternity leave, I am determined that there will only be solutions.  I could have sat this one out, just in case, but I decided to be 10% braver, changed out of maternity yoga pants, threw on a blazer, communicated the 'in case of emergency' plan to a colleague and jumped on the tube.

The 'Lead Meet' style get together was run as a series of short presentations from a whole variety of different women who shared lessons and models of leadership based on personal and professional experience.  Even during the event, reflections were being documented in a Twitter explosion (#WomenEd #LeadMeet), but at the end of the presentations, we were invited to reflect more comprehensively on our ‘takeaways’, so here are mine:

1. Networking is important.  

2. Now is the time to inspire.

3. The path of leadership journeys ne'er did run smooth.

Time to Inspire

In my previous #maternityteacher post, I asked the question, 'Where is my inspiration or role model to follow?' in this pursuit of balancing motherhood, maternity leave and career progression.  I have always been very fortunate to have benefitted from coaches and mentors.  Sometimes these have been formal arrangements through schools and Teach First, and sometimes these have been informal or more personal - my mother, for example, just so happens to be a retired deputy head; I have latched on to colleagues who have inspired me and turned to them for advice and advocacy; social media has provided me with a great space to question more distant, but equally inspirational leaders.  What has always been very clear, however, is my sense of a right to this sort of support, and the value of it.  My most profound development has always come out of exchanges, conversations and advice offered by those more experienced than me.

At yesterday's @WomenEd Lead Meet, however, I was reminded (by @benniekara or @cjproflead?) that actually, I have come to a point in my career where it is my turn to lead and inspire and act as a role model to others.  One woman, Ania (no Twitter handle, alas), reminded us that we have a duty to repay the advocacy and 'sponsorship' given to us by our coaches and mentors in some way - loyalty, innovation, hard graft - and other speakers developed this concept by suggesting that at a certain point in our leadership journey, it is our responsibility to repay this sponsorship by paying it forwards and providing the same form of support to others.

Like the majority of teachers, I am familiar with thriving on my role as a nurturer, facilitator, role model, inspiration to the students that I teach.  There's nothing more life-affirming than a student who tells you that you made a difference, or were their best teacher EVER or who managed to achieve a seemingly impossible grade thanks, in part, to your hard work and commitment.  In fact, this feeling of being needed and making an impact is probably one of the most powerful motivations for getting out of bed in the morning, for many teachers, which is why the two weeks of maternity leave before the baby's arrival comes as a huge cultural shift to many women.

As a teacher becomes more experienced, it is highly likely that they will begin to act as a mentor or coach to trainees or teachers with less experience to them, and therefore this sphere of inspirational influence can grow.  The kids still matter, of course, but now that life-affirmation has been turned up a notch and takes the form of hampers and cards from your mentee that say, 'you have simply been the most fantastic mentor, friend and (on occasions) mother I could have hoped for'.  I have also been fortunate enough to facilitate and act as an Associate Tutor for Teach First, and having a room full of sixty trainees hanging off your every word about grammar or shout out involuntarily that your blog is 'VERY HELPFUL' to a room full of people is pretty ego-boosting stuff.

However, it wasn't until last night that I saw this role as anything more than a selfish perk: I like facilitating, I like mentoring.  It satisfies my insecure need to be validated by others and gives me a sense of purpose that keeps the potential mental health demons at bay.  In short, I do it to sustain and reassure myself in a very egocentric and isolated manner, not because I have ever seen myself as part of a bigger professional ladder, upon which, as I climb, I am duty bound to reach down and lend a hand to others below me, as well as demand support from those above me.

Instead, therefore, of continuing to demand inspiration for myself, @WomenEd has inspired me to take a more explicit and active approach to my own duty as a role model, and has left me with the following questions:

• How can I support and lead other teachers who are also on maternity leave?
• In six months, how can I continue to flexibly support those to whom I have already acted as a formal or informal mentor or coach?
• How can I use my maternity leave to advocate for female leaders currently teaching/ in school settings/ in the wider educational environment?
• How can I use the power of networking to present myself as a very clear, open and accessible source of support and leadership to other teachers who do connect with me as a role model?

And now, over to you: especially if you are taking an extended maternity leave (i.e. 12 months or more), this role of coaching or mentoring could be the perfect way for you to flexibly use your experience and skills to benefit others in your industry.  Coaches have such a significant impact on others, but a the training and frequency of coaching conversations in many volunteer organisations has a fairly minimal impact on your family commitments.  Why not check out these pathways to see if anything fits your maternity leave set up:

• Women Leading in Education: a UK government nationwide initiative to provide female leaders in education with free coaches.
• Teach First Coaching: a dedicated team in this education charity provides coaches for NQTs and Teach First 'Ambassadors' (like me!) who might still be in teaching, or other sectors after they have completed the two year programme in 11 different regions across the country.
• Graydin: a London based coaching company who run training for both schools and members of the general public, preparing you to be a competent coach.
• Your former school/ company: what opportunities are there to continue to provide support to colleagues within your organisation, and what training can your companies provide for you?
• VOLO: a charity that connects skilled volunteers with socially-minded companies, including coaching and mentoring opportunities, predominantly for school-aged students.

The Power of Networking

Networking is important: it builds connections and communities with likeminded people.  It enables you to tap into expertise and experience that you don’t have and learn from it.  It can introduce you to lots of lovely, abstract ideas like wisdom, reflection, empowerment and knowledge and is the best way to begin growing a vine of connections that branches out and blooms in all directions.  Did you know, for example, that there is an organisation called the Leading Women's Alliance (@LeadingWomenHT) who actively support women's journey into headship, or that the DfE have a whole programme that offers free coaching to female leaders in education?  I didn't!  This sort of knowledge and bridge building - if acted upon - can lead to very tangible things like interviews, promotions, career changes, support systems, publicity and more events with free nibbles.

The stereotypical image of professional socialising and networking, however - drinks, small talk, golf, long lunches, drunken debauchery - are often male-dominated, and rarely pregnancy or family friendly.  Whilst I am loathe to promote gender-exclusivity in any way, and cannot envision a world where the current statistics on headship and gender in secondary schools were reversed instead of balanced out, anecdotal evidence does seem to point towards the power of networking: those who do it get ahead, those who don't cannot influence or lead in isolation, but stories of powerful CEOs exchanging strategy over a relaxed family picnic or during baby yoga are few and far between.  Fortunately for women, however, in this 21st feminist century, there is a growing movement of more "feminine" networking circles like @WomenEd who simply have to accept and work around the demands of parenting and childcare in order to remain authentic and inclusive of their target audience, in the same way that they are obliged to celebrate and validate single women.

What is great news, in regards to the #maternityteacher conversation, is that - with a solutions focused approach - a lot of networking can be done in baby-friendly environments or on baby-friendly hours, sometimes without the need for childcare and, what's more, mothers on maternity leave are working on far more flexible time than colleagues who are tied into the classroom for ten hours a day.  True, you may not be sleeping half as much as them, but what about the following ideas:

• Many non-school educational organisations work normal office hours.  That means they are allowed to escape their desks for lunch.  Lo and behold, on maternity leave, you too are free for lunch.  If you have a baby that sleeps, or is quiet, or the person you are meeting just loves babies and is thrilled to have a half hour squeeze, you have built in a 30 minute meeting that other colleagues were too busy marking and supervising detentions to even think about.

• If you have a baby that never sleeps, screams, pukes and demands attention at all the wrong moments, and a friend who conveniently works in one of those fancy offices on the South Bank just down the road from your intended meeting cafe and who just wishes they had more time to spend getting to know your baby (this is a real life friend I'm thinking of), pull in the favour and ask them to have a baby-lunch whilst you zip off for your networking event.

• One lightbulb moment at this @WomenEd Lead Meet came when I heard @soph_bailey explain that her NCT group had provided her with amazing connections with leaders in business and organisations that had helped her to form the EdTech Podcast.  Other women who do your job, or who can help you to do your job better, are on maternity leave, too!  The more you talk and engage with social media in your pyjamas whilst breastfeeding, the more of these women you will discover. They might be at events you are able to attend, or friends of women attending events, or made known to you by articles you post on Twitter or blogs you write on StaffRM.  Find them, engage with them, invite them for coffee, coo over each others' babies and exchange tips on sleep patterns as well as strategically planning the next five years of your ascent to power.

• Lots of networking events happen at the weekend, and here is where I can really not be smug or optimistic: my husband works six days a week, my parents live three hours from me, my family-in-law live in a different country.  My best chance for weekend childcare is my sister, who is self-employed and so often has to cancel last minute because she gets a spontaneous booking.  However, as @TBAPTSA advised me, sorting out difficult conversations with your partner as early as possible can save a lot of tension in the long run.  Knowing when these events happen, organising those childcare responsibilities in advance for a set of agreed priorities (i.e. if a networking event falls on a Saturday, then hubby works his sixth day on Sunday/ my parents are visiting that weekend with the express purpose of babysitting on the Saturday afternoon) means that you will be free to attend and make the most of those events.

• When you are able to attend these events, it is likely/ possible that you will attend with a far more calculated agenda than others who have had a manic week and have not had the time to sit down and reflect over their intentions and goals for the conversations they are hoping to have.  I have been in that exact position: turning up at networking events not really knowing the focus of the evening or the people who will be there and mostly wishing I could be back at home with a bacon sandwich or worrying about the lessons that I have not planned.  If you have the time during the week to prepare for these events, however, you are much more likely to walk away having made more productive use of your time.

• Prioritise: teaching is exhausting. Being pregnant is exhausting.  Having a baby is exhausting.  Getting yourself and the baby washed and dressed, fed, in a buggy, getting the buggy out of the skinny corridor to the front door, getting the buggy to the tube platform in a station that has no lift access, on the tube, off the tube, feeding the baby, trying to look professional, navigating the buggy across London Bridge's cobbled streets, into a cafe, feeding the baby, changing the baby, sitting down for a networking chat, remembering any resources you wanted to bring with you, soothing the baby, feeding the baby, engaging with your colleague and then doing the whole thing in reverse is exhausting.  Be realistic about what you can manage - one professional coffee a month?  One professional lunch a week?  An entire day blocked out so that you can come home, change into your pyjamas at 3pm after the lunch and dedicate the rest of the daylight hours to recovering?  If you can't do it all, then think strategically: which commitments are going to make the most significant impact on your goals, and which would be biting off more than you can chew?  

• Be 10% braver: even the thought of this makes me shudder a little at the lack of professionalism, but babies are very real, present human beings and cannot just be left alone.  For the first few months of their lives, especially, they are particularly reliant on their mothers.  In some situations, it's unfortunate that they also make a lot of noise and require attention, but this is just the reality of a baby, and the reality of accommodating and empowering half the world's workforce is intrinsically linked to the tolerance, acceptance and adaptation to these noisy, messy, needy, space-consuming little people.  Is it therefore really a crime to ask, 'Do you mind if I bring my baby?' or 'Will there be childcare provided?' or even to state, confidently, and unapologetically, 'I'll be bringing my baby' or 'What are the childcare arrangements for the day?'  We would never dream of telling a wheelchair user, 'I'm sorry, this event isn't appropriate for you', so why is it such a squeamish, uncomfortable thought to feel self-righteous about the presence of someone that - in some situations - we can't just leave at a left luggage station?  Should we be 10% braver and simply ask, when we have the opportunity to network, if our baby can come along too?  Is a move towards reframing this baby-unfriendly attitude - whether it be reality or simply a mother's paranoid perception - part of the wider struggle for gender equality in the workplace?