Hi, I'm a current HQ officer in one of the professional wing divisions. What someone else said about curriculum divisions being more hierarchical and things moving slower is to some extent true. After all, curricular design and review is a continuous and cyclical process so you wouldn't expect massive and sudden jolts to the system happening frequently.

On the other hand, policy wing divisions and branches tend to be flatter in hierarchy and are perceived to be more fast-paced - but this all depends on the exact nature of your work.

As an SH, you would be a regular staff officer at HQ, so you would have to do the same kind of work as the GEO staff officers. I think it's drfinitely good to try a stint at HQ if the opportunity is available because it really gives you a greater sense of perspective of how everything in MOE works and why certain things are done the way they are. These are perspectives which may not be as easy to come by if you stay at the school level which is a very localised educational context.

If you are serious about HQ, a good trait to have is proactiveness. Don't just wait for your bosses to tell you what to do. That is one way to waste your stint getting by on bare minimum. Instead of asking "what do i do?", think about it first, prepare a concept and propose it, asking "what do you think?" I feel that kind of mindset has helped me grow a lot in HQ.

So for a start, instead of asking "what is life in HQ like?"... go to the MOE website, look at the organisational structure, read up on all the various divisions and branches, pick out 3 or 4 which look most appealing to you, then come back here and ask specific qns abt those specific places