Congrats on your graduation from NIE. Welcome to the real world of work where qualifications and average tier scholarships (ie your TS) are a dime in the dozen. There are several hundred scholarships given out a year and only so few leadership positions available in any given year. You just have to accept the reality before you can do something about it.

Independent schools are honestly not a good place for a newcomer to start, if you desire exposure and accelerated progression. Even if you’re exceedingly capable, you have to outperform many more people to gain recognition. Performance ranking is a process where you’ll be rated against people in the same subgrade as you. For new teachers like yourself, it shouldn’t be too hard to shine because the pool of lower subgrades is smaller. But as you climb, it gets harder to shine.

My best advice for progression on the leadership track is to master your bread and butter - teach well. Master your content. Instill confidence in the leaders that your pedagogy is sound so that you can be trusted with more school-wide/level-wide scale projects. Realistically you may have to wait for several years in your independent school before being considered for a low level middle manager position. If not, apply for a HQ posting after you hit the requisite subgrade, finish your posting, then apply for a low level middle manager position at another school.

Ability, aspiration, and chance. You need all three. If the school doesn’t offer you the chance because of the scarcity in positions, then leave for another environment. There are always positions - just whether you are willing to travel and endure the inconvenience.

Good luck