Several months into my new position as CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching, I have finally had the opportunity to draw breath and consider what has been achieved.

I moved into the job full-time in January, having left my headship. The mission was to launch membership of a professional body for teachers - a new chartered college that needed to distance itself from previous failed attempts to launch via crowdfunding and with overtones of the almost universally disliked General Teaching Council. This was a challenge similar to the one I faced when I took over a school in special measures, except this time I felt I had cameras trained upon my every move.

There are many parallels between those first days of headship and my current position. These are my top five:

1. A new job title and role for which my capacity to succeed was untested.

2. The need for an audacious vision, where the view was that nothing could be done to effect change.

3. Leadership of an organisation with a tarnished image and reputation.

4. A daunting range of tasks to undertake that all had similar urgency.

5. Bravery in the face of knowledge that educational failure attracts more attention than success.

When news of my appointment to the college was announced, friends and colleagues spoke of congratulations and “huge challenge” in the same breath. The same had been true when I told people that my first headship would be in a school in special measures.

Now, I am beginning to dare to feel encouraged. Our national launch conferences were attended by more than 600 teachers, and videos of keynotes from the secretary of state and inspirational colleagues such as Professor Rob Coe have been watched by many more. Membership reached 1,000 teachers within days and continues to grow steadily.

Our first journal will be published in May and we have more than 500 colleagues registered as regional advocates. Our director of research, Cat Scutt, is in post and we have welcomed Miriam Davey from Bloomsbury Publishing to our editorial team. We are working with learned societies and subject associations to begin planning scholarship routes towards the status of chartered teacher, and have commissioned research into teacher voice.

Since Christmas, together with Dr Tim O’Brien and other colleagues, I have travelled to nine regions; we have visited early years settings, FE colleges and schools for young people with profound and multiple learning difficulties. I have been inspired and humbled by what I have seen. I have delighted in the pride of sixth-form students keen to show me their art and by child ambassadors thrilled with their role as tour guides. I have attended meetings with school leaders and teachers from schools across the full range of Ofsted categories and, without exception, I have witnessed humility and an urgent desire to do the best for young people.

In short, the mission to build a more coherent, collaborative, informed educational landscape has taken on huge importance for me. If I were ever in any doubt about the need for a well-led chartered college to unite and build our profession at a time of morale, staffing and budget pressures, I have absolutely no qualms now.

Transformation of our education system can be achieved only through the emergence of an authoritative professional voice. Together, we have an opportunity to seize hold of our profession, to learn from each other and to resist policy that ignores evidence.

Dame Alison Peacock is chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching