On Principal

When law student Tim Watson entered the education sector 29 years ago, he could never have imagined he’d end up at the helm of one of sydney’s top christian schools. The principal has imbued northern beaches christian school with the mantra ‘love learning’ and it’s driving results like never before.

- Michael Wayne

NAME:

Tim Watson

COMPANY:

Northern Beaches Christian School

POSITION:

Principal

LOCATION:

Sydney, Australia

Tim Watson never wanted to be a teacher. Despite an aptitude for the role, his parents were teachers and he understood the challenges of raising a family on a teacher’s pay. Instead, he pursued law studies and even considered the Christian ministry, but he found he could never outrun the siren song of education. “My brother put it pretty nicely,” he says. “He said, ‘I reckon you prefer to argue with school kids rather than the judge.’ I’m adept when it comes to putting across a point of view, so he wasn’t wrong.”

Tim’s first step into a larger world came when he started working in outdoor education. “Then I moved into the classroom,” he says, adding that he stayed at Redlands, a Christian grammar school on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, for the next seven years. “I realised the satisfaction and value in the work is much more significant than what you get paid for.”

From there, he spent four years at Abbotsleigh School and then 10 years at Roseville College as Deputy Principal (both are Anglican schools for girls). “There’s a multiplier effect,” he says of the shift from classroom to office. “You go from being a classroom teacher to head of department, and all of a sudden you get to have an impact through half a dozen of the staff. Then you get to be deputy and you have an impact through even more staff.”