When We Systemise the Predictable, We Can Humanise the Unpredictable

At the end of every school year, I feel it: the compression.

Teachers are finalising reports, marking exams, writing references, and preparing next year’s curriculum and timetables.  Parents are emailing. Students are burning out. What should be a celebratory end to a fantastic year starts to feel like siege warfare.  Everyone is trying to get to the end of their own task lists, and my inbox has exploded.

That doesn’t worry me though. I actually enjoy the challenge of high-speed triage and quick decision-making. I’ve been doing this for years, so I know what to expect, and there’s a familiar cadence to the work.  What does worry me is that when I am busy like this, my capacity for compassion reduces.  How can I possibly respond and be the compassionate leader I want to be when there is no time to do so?

When I was seven or eight, I remember spending hours playing with my dominoes across the floor of the bedroom I shared with my brothers. I’d line up winding routes around the furniture – books propped up as bridges, boxes turned into tunnels. Inevitably, one of my brothers would get bored watching and try to knock them down early. Most times, they succeeded. But sometimes, I’d get them to wait. And when I did, I’d savour the moment – the pause before the tap – when all that quiet preparation gave way to movement and surprise.

Even then, I appreciated that the joy of that final cascade depended entirely on the care that came before. The structure wasn’t the opposite of play; it was what made the play possible in the first place.

That memory stays with me, especially now as a school leader. That’s because schools, too, are delicate arrangements of energy and emotion. They’re built on people (young people), who are gloriously unpredictable. No spreadsheet will tell you when a child will suddenly come to you for help.  No algorithm can predict a conversation that might change a student’s trajectory.

And yet, within all that unpredictability, one principle becomes clear: the more we systemise what is predictable, the more we can humanise what is not.

This isn’t a call for cold, bureaucratic efficiency. It’s a case for compassion enabled by structure. James Clear, in Atomic Habits, shares,

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

When a school’s operational routines (assessment calendars, protocols, reporting structures, etc) are improvised or inconsistent, leaders are forced into firefighting. And that comes at a cost. Time, focus, and emotional bandwidth are spent reacting rather than supporting.

Atul Gawande, in The Checklist Manifesto, puts it another way. In high-stakes environments, it’s not brilliance that prevents failure; it’s design. Surgeons and pilots use checklists not because they lack experience, but because they respect complexity.

Structure gives space for judgment.  Structure gives space for compassion.

Schools are no different. But we often treat systems as soulless, something that threatens creativity or suppresses initiative.  And yes, over-systemisation does precisely that. It breeds compliance, not curiosity. It can create cultures where autonomy erodes and professional judgment is boxed in by policy.  This is the exact opposite of what I think makes a good school.

But under-systemisation creates chaos. It burns people out. It relies on a couple of people (legends) who “have it all in their heads” and leaves too much to luck. And worst of all, it often makes us miss moments that matter.

There is a better way.

We can build routines and structures for the things we know will happen. We know when parents will expect updates. We know when staff need clarity. We know the rhythm of a school year. If we design those elements well, if we create predictable anchors, we can free ourselves to show up when the truly unpredictable happens:

The ping of an urgent safeguarding case.

The sudden death of a student or colleague.

The book-ban petition.

This is the paradox: strong systems don’t dehumanise schools – they allow them to be more human.

The aim of good systems is not control. It’s readiness.  It’s presence. It’s the ability to meet the unpredictable with calm and care.

Some things must be predictable…

…so that the people inside them don’t have to be.