When I first started secondary school, I was given my own desk - a wooden affair with a lid that revealed a shallow storage place in which I was to keep my books and stationery (and, being a small boy, any aniseed balls, dead frogs or copies of the Beano that I managed to accumulate); it even had a space for an inkwell.

From my desk, I would set out for lessons in classrooms and laboratories across the school with the mild terror associated with being an ickle firstie reduced by the knowledge that somewhere (in room A18) there was a desk that was forever (well, until the end of the year) Handscombe.

At the end of that year, I changed school and moved into a world of classroom tables: I still had a form room and a regular seat within it but there was no space I could call my own, nowhere to keep a dead frog. I came to terms with the challenges (and gave my dead frog collection a proper burial) but, despite seven years in the new school, I never really found a space I could call my own.

Once through university, I returned to schools - this time as a teacher - and faced the challenge of imposing order and mathematics on my occasionally recalcitrant charges.

My first school was one where territory was an important thing: the established teachers had their seats in the staffroom (and woe betide anyone who sat uninvited in the wrong area); the students had their outdoor space (and woe betide any teacher who went alone past “smokers’ corner”); and I, as a new boy once more, had nowhere.

Out of nowhere

It was a whole year before I found the time and energy to go through the cupboards in my teaching room, throw out my predecessor’s detritus, rearrange the seating, get a lock on my desk drawer, and feel that the space was mine.

There are lots of reasons why teaching in one’s second year can be better than as an NQT, but in my case one reason was the sense of ownership that I felt: the confidence I had that it was my room and therefore my rules. I kept my desk in better order, welcomed the students rather than merely admitting them, and walked around as if I owned the place.

Once I set foot on the corridor outside, however, things were different, I put my head down and ran for the staffroom (not quite literally but not far off).

Gaining confidence

It was not until my third school and my second year as head of department that I felt a degree of confidence on the corridor. The maths rooms were in a line along the first floor and I took pride in the behaviour of students in that part of the school.

I would stand outside my door and make sure they lined up properly; I’d ask them to tuck their shirts in: those 20 yards of corridor were my kingdom - and I made sure that it was well governed.

The rest of the school was someone else’s domain and, while I was developing a sense of whole-school responsibility - and while I knew that the students would follow my instructions just as surely outside an art classroom as they would outside a maths classroom - I just didn’t feel that security. I was, therefore, a less effective presence.

Two schools later, as a deputy headteacher in charge of premises, I made a deliberate decision to start talking about “my school”, to deliberately walk around as if I owned the whole place.

It was not until my third school that I felt a degree of confidence on the corridor

I worked hard to get to know students. I went into other teachers’ classrooms to talk to them and get to know them and, when the snow came that winter and the students were snowball fighting on the field, I gathered my courage and walked, quakingly, among them, anticipating a snowball to come flying towards me but determined to hold my head high. This was my field, after all; these were my students, and so it was my rules.

The confidence that comes from feeling that a place is “yours” is enormously empowering, and the feeling of having nowhere is a sorry one. My story is straightforward - clearly a deputy head is in a better position to say “mine” than a Year 7, or even an NQT, but it’s not just a question of growing seniority. I think there has been a realisation that “mine” doesn’t mean “not yours”, that feigned confidence is powerful, and that with ownership comes responsibility.

If you “own” a place, then you are the one who welcomes guests and makes them feel at home, and you are the one who picks up the litter. To walk around as if you own the place is not to strut about spitting on the lesser folk but to look for ways to make it better, to make newbies feel more welcome, to create something you can be proud of.

I’m a principal now and I talk passionately about “my school”, but I don’t want it to be just mine - I want everyone in the community, staff and students, to realise that taking responsibility grants ownership.

If you welcome guests and newcomers, pick up the litter, hold doors for others, and work to make the place better then you earn the right to say “mine” when you talk about it and to walk around as if you own it.

James Handscombe is principal of Harris Westminster Sixth Form @JamesHandscombe