Something happened this weekend, I become an Award-Winning Skydiver… But Not Because I’m Any Good

I’m an Award-Winning Skydiver… But Not Because I’m Any Good

This weekend was the British Skydiving Expo, and I wasn’t planning to go. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I know myself well enough—I would have absolutely booked more tunnel time than I should. So, I stayed away.

Then the messages started. Photos, mentions, and then someone said I’d been nominated for an award. I hadn’t entered anything. I didn’t even know nominations were happening. And then, completely out of nowhere, I was announced as the British Skydiving New Skydiver of the Year 2025. Wow. Just wow.

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How It Actually Started

What makes this even more surreal is that I’m about to celebrate 44 trips around the sun, and skydiving only came into my life because I was trying to process the grief of losing my Dad. One jump turned into something more. A moment of “I need something” became a hobby, and that hobby became something I chose to invest in—time, energy, and money.

Not because I had to. Because I wanted to.

That decision—to learn something new, purely by choice—is where this story really starts.

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The Question Schools Should Be Asking

This whole experience has left me thinking about something we don’t always stop to challenge in education: when did learning become something we think we finish?

In schools, we talk about lifelong learning all the time. We build it into values, we encourage it in pupils, and we position it as something essential for the future. But for many adults working in schools, the experience of learning feels very different.

Training becomes something scheduled. CPD becomes something attended. Learning becomes something that gets fitted around everything else. And somewhere in that process, the idea of choosing to be a beginner again quietly fades away.

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Knowing vs Doing (Especially Under Pressure)

The reality is that schools are full of people who already know what to do. The challenge isn’t knowledge—it’s application. It’s what happens in the moment, under pressure, when emotions are high and time is limited.

That’s where the real gap sits.

It shows up in difficult conversations with parents that get softened or avoided. It appears in conflict between staff that isn’t addressed early enough. It’s there in the balance between building trust with pupils while still maintaining boundaries. And it’s felt in those relentless days where consistency is harder to hold.

Growth doesn’t come from what we already know. It comes from what we are still willing to learn and apply in those moments.

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The Risk of Feeling “Finished”

The idea that we can reach a point where we are the finished article is a quiet but dangerous one. Because the moment we believe we’ve arrived, we stop stretching. And when we stop stretching, we don’t stay where we are—we slowly lose the edge that makes us effective.

Not overnight. Not dramatically. But enough to feel it over time.

You see it in classrooms. You feel it in staffrooms. And eventually, it shapes the culture of the school.

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Lifelong Learning Isn’t a Programme

Lifelong learning isn’t about attending more courses or collecting certificates. It’s about mindset. It’s about staying open, even when you’re experienced, busy, and already carrying a lot.

It’s about being willing to say, “I don’t know this yet,” in environments where it can feel like you’re expected to.

And more importantly, it’s about choosing to learn—not just when it’s required, but when it’s meaningful.

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A Question Worth Asking

So here’s something worth sitting with.

What was the last thing you intentionally learned for the first time?

Not something you had to learn. Something you chose to.

Because you never really know where it might lead. It might be a new approach, a shift in confidence, a better conversation, or simply a different way of showing up in the moments that matter most.

Or, in my case, something that started in grief turning into an award I didn’t even know I was in the running for.

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What Are You Still Willing to Be a Beginner At?

Maybe the real question isn’t “What’s next in your role?”

Maybe it’s this.

What are you still willing to be a beginner at?

Because that’s where growth lives.