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A teacher knocked on my door one day.

“I feel really bad asking, but if there’s any spare money for a new laptop…mine’s really slow and sometimes just randomly closes down.”

The teacher’s understanding that finances are tight in schools was clear in the apprehension with which they spoke.

Yet my response wasn’t to suggest they eke it out a bit longer. Straight away I logged a ticket with IT to see if it could be fixed and, if not, authorisation was given for a new one to replace it.

This wasn’t me being frivolous with taxpayers’ money. It was me recognising that precious, expensive teacher time was being wasted waiting for a laptop to turn on.

Those minutes don’t sound like much. But over the course of a school year they add up.

Incremental gains

I’m a lover of the Tour de France, the greatest bike race in the world, and for three weeks every summer I’m glued to the highlights. (I’m a headteacher - I never get the chance to watch it live.)

One of the ideas that fascinates me most is “marginal gains”, a philosophy developed by Dave Brailsford during British Cycling’s rise to dominance that led to Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour in 2012, the first Briton to do so.

The thinking is simple: if you improve lots of small things by just 1 per cent, the cumulative effect can be extraordinary.

Rather than searching for one breakthrough, Brailsford’s teams became obsessed with identifying and removing anything that created unnecessary friction.

Some of the improvements were surprisingly small. Riders brought their own favourite pillows to improve sleep. They were taught better handwashing techniques to reduce illness during long races.

Individually, these changes seemed insignificant. Collectively, they helped win the Tour de France.

Finding the friction

It made me wonder where the friction was in my school and what we could remove to make teachers’ lives easier, and in doing so turn incremental gains into major improvements.

For example, I knew from past experience how cumbersome some school systems for accessing simple suppliers are - endless requests, trips to locked cupboards, a parsimonious approach to providing just enough materials.

That’s why, in my school, teachers have unfettered access to our stationery cupboard. Yes, the bill has ever so slightly increased. But it means teachers can get what they need, when they need it and get on with the job.

After all, the job of preparing lessons and teaching is where the bulk of our costs actually go. So whatever I can do as head to give them more time on that is a cost-saving.

Another example saw us redesign our behaviour logging system. In the past, there were endless clicks and data forms to fill out to the point that sometimes smaller incidents were never logged.

We redesigned it to make it easier to enter the key information and reduce the time it took. The result was more data logged, which gained us more insights so we could identify patterns and act on issues sooner.

Improving how folders were labelled relating to shared resources also reduced time spent hunting for documents.

There are no more generic “Planning Week 3” folders; instead, a process for naming ensures specific labels - “History Y4 Vikings Wk3 King Cnut Scaffold”, for example - so teachers can find what they need quickly. Small change, huge impact.

See where it takes you

Even installing a better, more efficient coffee machine has helped - after all, less time spent waiting for a hot drink in a short break means more time able to enjoy a small comfort and recharge before the next task at hand.

None of these is big or glamorous leadership processes. They are simple, everyday changes. But that is the point. Better hand washing or letting riders bring their own pillow would hardly sound exciting in the world of competitive cycling.

But those sorts of changes across a system won a Tour de France. As such, it’s worth looking across your school estate and considering where the marginal gains are - and then watching to see where the improvements take you.

Lucy Rundle is headteacher of a primary school in Leeds, West Yorkshire