Dealing with Dissenters – A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

Posted on by Opher

A school functions smoothly if everybody is pulling in the same direction. If there are universal standards and responses the students know where they are and what will happen if they do certain things. If the rules or boundaries, punishments and rewards, are applied differently in different classrooms it can result in students taking advantage, playing people off against each other or becoming confused.

The Head sets the tone. People who disagree either need to be brought into line or removed. However, everyone should have the right to be listened to and their arguments weighed up and everyone deserves respect and clear answers and instructions. Heads cannot be draconian despots. They need to have a degree of flexibility.

Excerpt – A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

Those who are not buying in need coaxing, re-educating, telling or getting rid of. This is why you hold training sessions, meetings and apply your management skills.

Most important is that the students are educated in the way you want them educated, treated how you want them treated and valued and respected in the way you want them respected and valued.

Nothing else matters.

The problem is that people don’t always agree with their managers, feel strongly that they know better than those above them, can be awkward, emotional, lazy, argumentative or plain bloody disruptive.

They have to be brought on board.

The greatest weapon, if weapon I can call it, is praise. Every one of us has a seat of insecurity inside us. Everyone, no matter how old, tough and experienced likes to be told they are doing a good job. Simply by going around praising the things people are doing well inspires them to do more of the same even better. You don’t even have to mention the things you are not so keen on. They rapidly learn what they are being praised for and work accordingly. They work to please.

Children, teachers, grounds-men, office staff and Head teachers are all the same. We are animals. We love to please. Praise fills us with a warm glow. It makes us feel good. In my opinion you can’t get too much praise and recognition. It’s how you train dogs, tigers and elephants. Indeed every animal on earth responds to reward. Negative reinforcement, in the form of punishment or admonition, is nowhere near as effective.

There is nothing more infuriating than working your socks off and nobody notices, or, even worse, the boss takes it for granted, or worse still – claims it as his or hers. That is guaranteed to create resentment and it has happened to me on more than one occasion.

So rule number one – tour smile, praise, listen. By focussing and rewarding the good things the focus shifts. By downplaying the not so good things those bad things become fewer.

You set the tone.

People pick up on the small things.

To reinforce the positive it is important to set up a system of rewards and recognition for staff to make them feel valued.

One idea I was working on was a termly reward, a box of chocs, for the member of staff who was doing one of my pet things best i.e. The prize for the member of staff who had the most positive relationship with students this term is ……….. I held back on this as I thought that it could create jealousy and resentment. But it would be a public recognition of something I held dear and the focus could be changed termly. It might have been worth a spin.

You can’t beat the boost a little note and a chocolate placed in a pigeon-hole can make, or a silly email, a phone call, a beaming smile, word of praise, a personal special visit. They are as important as the policies themselves.

For those whose efforts were ineffective there was always the maxim ‘Don’t work harder – work smarter’ according to the wisdom of Mr Jones who was frequently heard to repeat the phrase at every opportunity. It made sense though rarely seemed to alter people’s behaviour. Some people were doomed to repeat the mistakes of their methodology and were impervious to suggestion.

It works exactly the same with students. Your personal smiles, comments and general announcements and assemblies make them feel loved and valued.

This is the oil that makes the machine operate smoothly.

This was the part of the job that I loved and gave me most reward. There was nothing contrived or insincere about it. It was the element that came naturally.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher eBook : Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher – Managing people is hard.

Posted on by Opher

For me there is nothing more important than education. We, as educators, are shaping the future. By expanding minds and nurturing questioning we create lively minds, harness idealism and energy and unlock solutions.

To do that you have to get the whole team rowing in the same direction.

Excerpt – A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher – Managing people is hard.

There are lots of complicated issues around people. No two are the same. Many people are working flat out doing a brilliant job. Some are coasting doing a good job. There are always a few who are working themselves silly but doing all the wrong things, driving themselves into the ground and being ineffective. Then there are the lazy ones and skivers who need a nudge or a kick, the ones who are working hard but not doing it in the way you would like and the small number who are useless or deliberately antagonistic.

As a Head you have deputies and middle managers with a system of line management that is organised to manage these issues. You can direct them to manage staff or student behaviour.

You cannot rely on them.

The first thing a Head needs is a good source of reliable information. There is no substitute for first hand intelligence. Getting out and about, talking to all staff and in particular the students, not only gives you a picture of what is going on but also a good understanding of the people concerned, their worries, concerns, the issues they are up against, their personalities, relationships with other staff and students, how hard they are working, their effectiveness and how things can be addressed.

With a staff of a hundred and twenty it is not possible to deal effectively with all of them. It is important to know exactly what is going on though.

This is no different to a head of year managing their tutors but needing to form a personal relationship with all 130 students in their charge.

A Head needs a network of views. The information coming in from this network gives you an overview of what is and is not working smoothly, what needs addressing urgently and what needs nudging. This network should come from all levels of the organisation. It keeps you informed.

It is essential that nobody else, including your most trusted deputies, know the sources of your information. It is often the case that your line managers are playing politics, keeping things to themselves, not wanting bad news to filter through to you for fear that it might make them look bad for allowing problems to develop in their areas, or simply retaining information to use later to their own advantage. Line managers need keeping on their toes. When you come out with information it is for them to guess as to where you got it from. Knowing stuff before your line managers is always a good idea. It makes them think you know exactly what is going on. It gives them an impetus to prevent things happening. They know you will find out what is happening and there is no point in trying to gloss over things. It also means they have an incentive to tell you before you find out for yourself. You finding out their muck-ups simply makes them even worse.

It is good to keep them on their toes.

It’s all a game.

This is where touring, good relationships built up over a long time, and an open email, open door policy come in handy. It is quite amazing what snippets come out in casual conversation, as a single line email or behind a closed door.

This gives you the edge. You have to be aware of what is going on and have your finger on the pulse.

You also have to know your staff well.

It is pointless using the wrong tactics towards the wrong individuals. You have to tailor your strategies to the individuals concerned. Deploying the wrong tactics is not only ineffective, it is can be harmful. Using a heavy handed approach on some people can create life-long enemies who will hold grudges and become stubbornly entrenched in opposition to everything you are trying to do. They will then ferment bad feeling and be a focus for disaffection. One has to hone ones arsenal. It is all intuitive.

Flattery, praise, recognition, concern, logic, argument, dressing down, punishment and threats are part of the armoury.

This makes it sound cold and dispassionate, calculating and devious. Whilst there is an element of that it is not quite as bad as it sounds. The need to get people on side requires a degree of manipulation. That is the politics of the job. You work with staff the same way that you work with students in the classroom. Your tactics come out of sincere belief in what you are doing and care for everyone in your care. There is no dishonesty in the relationships. You just instinctively know the best way to get the best out of your staff and get them to go along with your policies. I genuinely liked almost all the staff I worked with, including the ones who were troublesome and had to be disciplined. In fact some of the rogues were the most interesting of all. Everyone has their reasons. Most of what you do is instinctive, intuitive and part of your everyday interaction. None the less it does not do any harm to review your tactics to make yourself more effective.

As a Head you have a vision for the school enshrined in your stated ethos. The object of your exercise is to ensure that this vision is communicated repeatedly to everyone with clarity and passion. You constantly harp on about it.

Your next task is to ensure that everyone on the team, in their own way, is buying in to your vision.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher eBook : Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher – PSHE

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As a PSHE teacher you don’t know what is going to happen. You fly by the seat of your pants. You get kids in a circle to introduce a topic. It can veer off in any direction – from raising a family to aging and dying – from revision to the meaning of life – from why we developed religion to infinity and parallel universes. People talk about their emotions, desires and feelings and open themselves up. A PSHE teacher shares of their own experience; they give of themselves.

A PSHE teacher has no hidden agenda. Their job is not to stop people having sex, taking drugs, smoking or drinking. A PSHE teachers helps students explore the issues and arrive at their own personal decisions. A PSHE teacher plays devil’s advocate, raises things to consider, and allows investigation of all sides of an argument. They take no sides, have no points of view and are there to expertly facilitate exploration.

By ‘teaching’ PSHE you learn much about yourself and your own views and learn so much more from the students.

Other teachers have often said that they teach these elements in their subject areas.

That might be true.

They teach these elements – PSHE ‘explores’ them.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher eBook : Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Sex Education – A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

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This was back in the seventies at the start of my career.

Excerpt – A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

I’d never heard of PSE as it was then called. I was a biology teacher.

In the normal course of my lessons I came to the section on reproduction and as a natural part of the lesson opened up various discussions on sex and rounded it off with a lesson on contraception and sexually transmitted disease.

The lads seemed to appreciate it. Some of the questions were obviously geared to attempting to cause me embarrassment but when I fielded them honestly they realised that I wasn’t going to get phased by it. It was obvious to me that there was a huge level of ignorance and interest and a great need.

This was before the age of the internet, in a post-60s culture which still had vestiges of 1950s prim prudishness. Information and contraception were not easy to get hold of. Sex was not freely discussed. They were desperate for frank discussion and advice and very receptive.

I thought no more of it.

Mike my head of department, who wandered in and out of my lab while I was teaching, had noted that I was doing sex education with the lads.

‘Does the Head know you’re doing this?’ He asked.

‘No,’ I replied slightly baffled. Why should the Head know? It was only sex education. Most schools in the country were doing it.

‘I think you’d better check with him first.’

I went and checked. He said NO.

Introducing sex education was a major event. We had to get a majority of the staff in favour of such a controversial venture. He agreed to put it on the staff meeting agenda for discussion.

The staff meeting agenda went up and sure enough there it was at number 11.

We had our meeting and went through seven items.

‘Ah well’ I thought. ‘It will be featured next time.’

The next staff meeting came round and it was now number 14. Seemingly lots of really important issues had come up and required urgent attention.

The following staff meeting had fifteen items but sex education was not one of them.

I fumed.

I drew up a list of staff and went round to discuss sex education with all of them one by one. I even included both deputies. By the end of a week I had the agreement of every member of staff with only two abstentions, both of whom were catholics who abstained on religious grounds.

I went back to the Head and presented him with the fait accompli. I softened it by explaining that it was obvious that there wasn’t time to discuss it at staff meetings with all the pressing issues that had to be addressed. The crux of the matter was that the staff were almost unanimous.

He blustered.

It would need governors’ approval. I would have to take my case to the governing body.

I produced a presentation and amazingly won the approval of the governing body.

At my next meeting with the Head I may have inadvertently had a slight air of triumph.

That was soon put to rest.

The governors were only the first obstacle; the whole idea had to be put to parents. It was obvious from his attitude that he felt confident the parents would disapprove.

Unfazed I drafted a letter to parents with a reply slip and had it sent out.

Miraculously there were no objections and most gave their approval.

I once again returned to the Head’s study.

‘You know, Chris,’ he said thoughtfully, finally admitting defeat. ‘These lads are red blooded Englishmen. You can’t tell me that they can watch films of young girls masturbating without being affected.’

I sat there staring at him.

It was obvious that he had not read any of my information and had his own idea of what was involved in sex education. In his mind sex education equated with pornography. His mind had gone down the line that I would be showing pornographic films to the boys.

It had taken me a year and a half to get approval. I realised, in that moment, that a little bit more verbal explanation might have saved a lot of effort.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher eBook : Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Caning in Schools – a real incident – A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

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This was a real incident from my early days in teaching. I myself was caned at school. I resented it. It filled me with fury. I still feel it. Caning creates violence.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

I was a young teacher in my second year of teaching. The current Headteacher Mr Walton had decided that the field should be out of bounds. The wet weather had created such muddy conditions that the classrooms and corridors were becoming caked with mud. He informed the staff that anyone walking on the grass would be caned. He was hoping this deterrent would solve the problem.

He hadn’t reckoned with Terry. He was a young student from the new comprehensive intake who had been a problem from the start and was no respecter of rules. Indeed it appeared that Terry regarded rules as a challenge. He earned the respect of his fellow students by flouting rules with blatant disdain.

Terry was the perennial thorn in the side of the school. He was loud, aggressive, rude and surly. He disrupted lessons, picked fights and openly defied everyone and everything.

I was walking down the corridor when I was asked by the Head to assist with the apprehension of young Terry. He had been brought to the Head for flagrantly walking on the grass and when he had ascertained his fate he had promptly got up and run away. This was not playing the game. The Head was used to Grammar School boys. They took their punishment like a man. They didn’t run away!

We went hunting for Terry.

Soon Terry was found. But Terry refused to come quietly and what followed is indelibly imprinted in my mind.

Two burly male teachers marched Terry down the corridor to the Head’s study. Terry was screaming and struggling. When he started kicking out at the two staff two other male staff grabbed his ankles and lifted him off the ground. He was carried headfirst, screaming and writhing along the corridor and he was manhandled into the study. I followed in the wake.

By this time the Head had become angry. His authority had been challenged. What originally was one stripe was now six. He intended to make an example of Terry.

The four male staff had to drag Terry to the desk and physically restrain him by all four limbs; each taking an ankle or wrist and tugging so that Terry was pinned across the desk like a frog awaiting dissection. All the while Terry continued to shriek and struggle to his utmost. He certainly had a florid vocabulary for a thirteen year old.

The Head retreated to the other side of the room and then ran, jumped in the air and brought the cane swishing through the air with all the force he could muster.

Terry screamed and went taut in some great spasm. Then he resumed his struggles in a futile desperate attempt to free himself from the four staff.

The Head repeated this five more times.

At the end of it they let Terry loose and he stood in the doorway with knotted fists and purple face swearing at the six of us.

Some say that caning does no harm. That it is a deterrent. The blood running down Terry’s legs from the split skin on his bum was not the harm. In my opinion the hatred and loathing in his mind were the injuries that would leave the everlasting scars. They wouldn’t heal.

As for deterrence – it was the same string of surly, defiant individuals who were paraded for beatings every week.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher eBook : Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

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My experiences in my own education were very poor. I wanted to create something so much better. I went into teaching to side with the kids and change it for the better. Against all the odds I succeeded.

When I left teaching, after thirty-six years, I was in charge of one of the best school’s in the world. It was a delight . I set about writing this book. It contains my philosophy, anecdotes and the story.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

The only way to address the world’s problems is through good education.

As a probationary teacher I set about taking on the hierarchy of the school and changing the beast that was the current school. It was poor and not meeting the needs of all of its students. I wanted a revolution. You don’t have to be in senior management to have a power base to promote positive change. I fought for change and managed to bring in a number of improvements. However, after twenty years of influential input from a lowly position, I realised that the best way of changing the system was to do it from the top and seized my opportunity to move into senior management.

I did things my way. I did not follow the rules. I was the sand in the Vaseline. The senior team found me a major problem. I refused to compromise. I did it the way I felt was right for the students and my own philosophy. And this method was highly successful. In the whole of my time in teaching I did not have a single report or inspection putting me below excellent. On the school’s first Ofsted inspection, in which it achieved ‘Satisfactory’, all my areas were Outstanding. Over the next three Ofsted inspections, two as Deputy Head and one as Head, all my areas of responsibility were deemed ‘Outstanding’. Being a maverick, and not following the rules, does not necessarily mean you cannot gain recognition. Risk taking is a big part of the game. Covering your back is a weakness and a flaw. Doing what is right, even in defiance of the orders from above, is an imperative. You have to follow your conscience.

Duke Ellington supposedly said that there were only two kinds of music: good and bad. The same is true of education. Bad education is destructive to minds, spirits and society. It should be banished even when it produces perceived results. My own maths teacher in secondary school always achieved a 100% pass rate with his classes. I passed maths from his class. Yet nobody was more successful at destroying a subject. To a man we came out of there hating Maths.

I have always questioned the education system. It seems crazy to put people together grouped by age. That never happens in normal social interaction. This is asking for trouble, particularly during teenage years when hormones are rampant and brains are melting and becoming rewired. It reinforces lots of negative behaviour patterns. It is almost as bad as grouping people according to ability, but not quite. I think we need to bring our best minds to bear to find a better way forward.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher eBook : Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

The primary purpose of education – A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

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Throughout my teaching career I saw my role as trying to make students think and question. I wanted their brains stimulated. I wanted them to enjoy learning and to find it mind expanding.

I am very idealistic.

And – do you know what? – It worked!

This book is about what I believed in and how I did it. It’s real. The anecdotes are real.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

In my teaching experience I have known students with lower intelligence, destined for poor grades and lowly jobs, but possessing a range of qualities that left me humbled. I have known highly intelligent individuals, destined for top jobs, who were mean spirited and likely to create misery. My job was to bring out the best in both and my hope is that both types left school better equipped to make a positive contribution to society.

Education is a nebulous thing. We are building the future and the future is not only concerned with careers and wealth; it is also about families, societies, relationships and supporting those less fortunate. How to build a better world should be our curriculum. How we repair damaged children should be our imperative. How we foster positive human values should be our main aim. Teaching and learning, exam results and league tables are almost superfluous in the face of such paramount challenges.

This is why I believe the most important subject, and the most difficult to teach, is PSHE (Personal social and health education). All too often it is poorly delivered, pushed to the shadows and taught by reluctant exponents who happen to have some free space in their timetable. This is a travesty. PSHE is about life, about preparing students for a better world, dealing with the big issues of responsibility, respect, tolerance and empathy. PSHE, like the pastoral system, is about guidance, interaction and development of those qualities that raise the sensibilities. It should be given centre stage, pride of place and only taught by the very best of teachers with the most advanced skills. Anything less is short-changing the future. A school lacking a vibrant PSHE programme is like a robot with no heart. It is pointless.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher eBook : Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

A Passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

Posted on by Opher

I wrote this book fourteen years ago when I retired from teaching. It’s been burbling away achieving some glowing reviews but unfortunately didn’t change education across the world! We continue to fail to see the wonder of education as a transforming force. Young minds can be expanded and the world can be improved. Education should be enlightening, wondrous, exciting and fun. All too often it is robotic, stifling and plain boring.

I wanted to do it right!

(I noticed on Amazon that the price for the book had gone up ridiculously. I price my books so that they give me £1 profit. Amazon had put their costs up and that impacted. I’ve addressed that. In the next few days the price should more than half).

So here is an extract from the introduction:

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher

. Education is all things to all men/women. To politicians it is a way of maintaining social order, reinforcing class or enabling mobility and addressing the economic needs of the country. To many it is purely about careers while to others it is about expanding minds, opening horizons and creating wonder. I’m very much in the wonder and awe camp. I am also of the repairing damaged kids persuasion. All my students were equally important and equally valuable. I hope I succeeded in making some of their lives better. That’s what I set out to do. Their chosen career and economic value was secondary to their self-esteem and happiness.

Before starting this I checked on ‘Rate my Teacher’, a scurrilous website that has given a voice to some rather dubious individuals, but one which reflects how some others see you. It offers a modicum of objectivity. It was a little unsettling to see oneself described as an obese penguin from the CIA but on the other side there was also the recognition of the care and respect. It showed a career that was not entirely wasted.

I worked in Education for thirty six years and prior to that I was largely a victim of it for twenty plus years. My experience of schooling gave me the impetus to get involved and change it. My disgust at the education minister and the Tory attempt to belittle all the achievements of recent decades and drag education back to the appalling 1950s is my main reason for writing this. Children should be valued as human beings and not seen as mere economic units for the employment market. Education that is not developing all aspects of human empathy, and creativity as well as expanding minds is wrong. Most leading fascists have been highly educated – after a fashion. It was their empathy, compassion and warmth of spirit that was allowed to atrophy. Any education system that fosters elitism and the smug arrogance that stems from it should be resisted by all caring people. A system that ignores the promotion of human feeling and sound moral and ethical values in order to focus on exam league tables and economic performance is flawed. The society created would be cold and bitter.

I have fought against that limited view of education all my life.

I have fought for the warmth and light.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher by Christopher R Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH (2014-10-25) : Amazon.co.uk: Books

A Passion For Education – The Story of a Headteacher

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This is the second part of my story. A tale of disaster and destruction.

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher R: 9781502984685: Books

Chapter 2 –More about the catastrophe and other disasters   It is true to say that the start of my Headship could hardly have been worse! I think it was George Washington who said something on the lines of ‘Most men can cope with adversity; to see the real character of a man give him power.’ On my first day as a temporary Head I had arrived early in the morning before the caretaker had even begun to unlock the place and stood in the driveway surveying the school as objectively as I could. What I saw, when viewed dispassionately, was not too good. The iconic pavilion was almost derelict. Its windows were smashed in and boarded up, paintwork was a disaster with bare rotting wood exposed, tiles were missing and it looked ready for demolition. Inside the place it was no better. I knew the old boiler was broken, the roof leaked and it was a mud streaked wreck. The smell of the urinals pervaded the place and the showers did not function at all. It was still used as changing rooms but with no heating and in such a mess that it could not go on for long. The pavilion was the first thing you saw as you came up the drive and used to be the pride of the school. It was a ruin. It set the tone for the rest of the school. In the holidays someone had gone round with something like a hammer and smashed three huge windows in the technology block, two in the English block and two in the sixth form block. A corner flag from one of the football pitches was actually sticking out of one of the broken windows where someone had rammed it through. Even the relatively new blocks were in disrepair. It looked a mess. I looked round at the beautiful grounds with their established horse chestnut trees in full bloom. The sun was shining, flowers blooming and fields looked a picture. At least the grounds man was a star. It was quite a challenge. There was a lot to do. I was overcome with a feeling that it was all my responsibility. If I fell short then the lives of all the students and staff would be affected. I was responsible for their futures. It made me feel sick. At that point I didn’t know the half of it.   From day one, as I tried to cope with the storm that had overtaken me and keep my head above water, below the surface an even more serious set of challenges were circling like great white sharks silently rushing in at me to tear me apart. The finances were busy going awry.   I inherited the school with a £90,000 surplus. This meant that for the first half of the term I did not have to concern myself too much with the finances. I had enough on my plate. I was struggling to establish myself as an acting Head with all that entailed; doing the work for the NPQH, keeping up with my former deputy’s work, introducing the new initiatives against heated opposition, doing justice to my teaching and trying to plan for the forthcoming Headship interviews. As everything was going pear-shaped this was proving more than difficult. I only just managed to keep up with my teaching commitment. It was getting all too much. I felt I was floundering. I had taken on too much and had reached saturation. I’d found my limits. The finances were not a priority. I wasn’t proposing to spend anything apart from a window pane replacement programme. It could tick over in the background. Or that was what I thought. Unfortunately it couldn’t and this became apparent following my successful second interview and my appointment as Head. The school had suffered from falling roles. It had its lowest number of students for some considerable time. Fewer students had returned to the sixth form and year 7 was nowhere near full. More students were moving out than coming in, every single year group was depleted. While this made for pleasant small teaching groups that pleased the staff it meant that there was far less money coming in to the school than had been predicted. This had been compounded by a staffing crisis. Three staff were suddenly on long term sick leave, including a nasty accident in the swimming pool while on holiday abroad. They required expensive cover staffing. Effectively we were paying twice for the same amount of teaching. On top of this a boiler blew and had to be replaced. The government had been negotiating with the unions and the new contract involved revised teacher contact time, workload and emergency cover only teaching. The idea was sound – teachers should be in the classroom teaching; mundane tasks such as photocopying, displays, filing, supervision of exams and typing should be carried out by clerical and support staff. This had resulted in us having to employ more support staff and outside teacher cover for absence. Teachers would no longer cover lessons for absent staff except in emergencies. As a consequence the wage bill had shot up over night.   After half term there was a brief lull. The five period day had settled in even though teachers detested the extra workload. The SERCO ICT management system had begun working and staff were beginning to get to grips with it. Things were looking up. I sat down with my bursar Pat and went through the finances. I had a picture of where we should be from previous discussions with Gerry. It didn’t seem to be there. We had a black hole. It appeared we had gone from a surplus to a deficit of nearly half a million. It sent chills through me. There had to be something wrong here. I rang up Gerry. We’d always got along really well and I knew he’d be supportive. He said to ring if I had anything he could help with. He was very reassuring: ‘Don’t worry,’ he chuckled. ‘It always looks bad this time of year. It’ll settle down. There are always bits of money here and there that start coming in. It’ll look better in a while. Don’t worry about it.’ I sat down with Pat and went through it with a microscope. She fed in all the monies that were likely to manifest and we still had a black hole of £450,000. There had to be something I was doing wrong. I rang Gerry back and asked him to come in and go through it with me. There had to be something I was overlooking. It couldn’t get this bad so quickly. He came into school, immediately sparking rumours that the governors had asked him back. We went through the finances. No matter how he looked at it there was no other result. We were looking at a massive black hole. I went to the staff. They were cynical. They saw it as a management ploy to get more out of them. The unions were adamant that they were not going to provide cover. We had to stand by all the hard won agreements on working practice. They thought my fears of staff redundancies were scaremongering.   I sat down and explained the situation to the governors hopeful that they would see that this was none of my doing. A set of circumstances had conspired to create the perfect storm. I could not anticipate staff illness and boilers breaking down. The falling roles were unexpected. It had come together to create a catastrophic deficit. My sleepless nights were now full of sweaty nightmares as my mind churned over and over how I was going to get out of this hole. This was the reality of Headship.   I arranged a meeting with the education officers at County Hall. They had an emergency fund that could perhaps bail us out. The boiler and long-term staff absences met the criteria. A bail out could at least get the deficit down to manageable proportions and buy us the time to address the problem. The school had history with County. We were grant maintained and been at loggerheads with them right back to the days when the school had initially resisted becoming a comprehensive thirty years before. There had been a major confrontation. County did not like the fact that being a grant maintained school gave us a lot of autonomy. We were highly successful and yet did not buy in to county programmes. It rankled with them. We’d always born a grudge because we knew we didn’t get a fair crack of the whip. Our buildings were dilapidated and it was felt that county starved us of money. Other schools fared a lot better. None the less I went along to County Hall with what I felt was a good case. As a new Head I was sure they would want to be supportive. I was ushered into a plush room with oak panels and red leather seats. I spread my paperwork and handouts on the polished wooden table and began to explain out tale of woe to the director of education, his deputy, a senior supervisor and the head of finance. It was quite an intimidating array. I outlined the falling roles, workforce agreement, long term sickness and broken boiler. I asked for emergency funding from the fund set up for just such contingencies. I asked for a loan to see us through and offered them the plan I had come up with to address the short-fall. I had spent time and effort over the three year plan I had drawn up. I had looked at staffing levels, including not replacing a second deputy, and had schemes to get more bums on seats. I was confident that in a few years I would pull it round. It was all detailed and costed out. It looked sound. They listened and studied the plans. They fired questions at me and gave me a hard time. I was still sure that as a new Head, only in post for a matter of weeks, they would want to support me and the school. After all they had the interests of the students at heart as much as we did. Perhaps they just wanted to give me a hard time to ensure I took it seriously. I endured the ear-bashing in the expectation of getting a sizeable chunk of our debt written off and a loan that would enable to address the deficit in a controlled manner over the next three years. I was asked to go out and wait. They conferred. I was called back in. No they would not give me any contribution towards the boiler or staff absence from the emergency fund. Further to that they were not prepared to loan money. I had to come up with a plan that would address the shortfall by the following summer – forget the three years I had come up with. They demanded that I instantly invoke redundancy proceedings and look to shed at least five teaching staff if not more. They were going to send their finance manager in to go through our finances. If I did not come up with an approved plan to instigate redundancies they would have no option but to take over the governing body and enforce their own plan. I basically had until the next summer and if I had not solved it they were going to take over the school. I sat there stunned. I could not believe what I was hearing or the attitude with which they were delivering it. If I introduced a redundancy programme I knew I would lose the support of staff. They were furious enough at having to swallow the five period day. To dump more work, fear and worry on them would have caused morale to collapse. I’d lose the school. I was in my first term of Headship and I was looking at the possibility of losing the school. That kept going round my head. I stared back at them with fury building up inside. I told them in no uncertain terms where they could shove their ultimatum. I told them with plenty of choice words that I didn’t need their help and stormed out. Welcome to Headship.   I went back to school with fresh determination. Fury had fired me up. I stopped the building programme that had been started by Gerry. This money came from a special Government building fund and could only be used for building work but by devising a scheme for extensive building modification and remodelling throughout the school I could use the building money to refurbish and replace furniture. By doing this I reallocated all the money from repairs and maintenance to help plug the debt. It came to about a £100,000 saved. I then clawed back some money spent from capitation on building work the previous year. I cut capitation by 10% and started stripping out every budget I could get my hands on. Every penny counted. I went back to the unions to discuss cover. They refused to budge. I introduced more cover for the senior team. We tried to reduce supply needs as much as possible. I did not advertise for the new deputy. On top of my workload I was now doing more cover than anybody else. I was living on adrenalin. I put my plans to the governors, (though I think I may have forgotten to tell them about any possible take over!) They were very supportive. There was no way I was going to allow the school to go under. By the time I had finished with my measly penny pinching austerity drive I had rescued £250,000. We had got below the £200,000 we were permitted to carry over. Not only that but I had managed it without having to lay off a single member of staff.   County would have to wait if they wanted to take us over.   I turned my attention to more long term solutions. I could not use the same tactics twice. There were no building programmes to rob next year. We were cut to the bone and there were only two possibilities left: increase student numbers to gain more income or reduce staffing to cut costs, staffing being the bulk of the budget. You could not save much any other way. I knew that if we reduced staffing it would snowball into disaster. Classes would have to be merged, class sizes would rocket and morale would go through the floor. Once teaching and learning were affected results would plummet, student numbers would drop and we would be in a downward spiral. A Head is always, no matter how good a school is, one step away from a spiral down into the abyss. All it takes is a financial crisis, a bad set of results or a poor Ofsted. One of these can lead to the others. I could not bear the thought that I might be the Head to preside over the school as it plummeted. It was down to me to come up with a plan to attract students in. We had to fill all our year groups and attract students into the sixth form. Our survival depended on it. I put my energies into doing that. To attract students in you had to be outstanding, which we were, and you had to sell that to the public. That required a publicity campaign and good PR. We had to quickly knock the school into better physical shape, get it painted up so it looked good, improve our results and sell it to the public. I wanted every parent to see that we were a caring community school. I was not prepared to compromise on that for anyone. We were an open, caring friendly school in which their children would be happy and flourish. Not only that but they would be successful into the bargain. I was not going to pander to the education establishment by focussing purely on results. I was banking on the fact that parents wanted their children to go to a school that focussed on the whole child, where their sons were not going to be bullied and would be cheerful and thrive. I was not prepared to sacrifice my principles on the altar of dogma. I had introduced my philosophy as a teacher and a deputy. I was now going to live or die by proving it to be correct. I was determined to run the school on my lines or not at all. I knew I was right. There were more important things than results. However, if I got those things right the results would improve as well. I set about getting the pastoral, support, attendance, rewards and informal curriculum to function properly. Education should be fun. I wanted staff to take risks in the classroom and feel secure knowing they would have my support. I wanted passion and energy in the lessons. I wanted active learning. I wanted a happy school. I wanted my door open all the time so anybody, student, cleaner or teacher could pop in for a chat. I smiled and greeted students every day. I smiled and greeted staff. I smiled and greeted parents. I had to mirror what I wanted. I smiled even though inside my stomach was churning and my thoughts reeling. I was in a constant state of panic. I was working fourteen hours a day. But I knew what I wanted! I wanted praise and recognition to ring out from every classroom, from every corridor and every assembly. There could not be too much praise and recognition. That simply was not possible. People thrived on praise. It set the tone I wanted for the school. We were a community. The staff and students were exceptional. I wanted them to know that. Whatever problems we might be facing behind the scenes I wanted the school to be brimming with laughter, full of wear-what-you-like days, concerts, charity events and extra-curricular activities. Get the ethos right and everything follows. I would not settle for an ordinary school with ordinary targets – we were to be extraordinary – or bust! At that point the first thing to bust felt like it was going to be me!

A Passion For Education – The Story of a Headteacher

Posted on by Opher

‘Passion for Education – the story of a headteacher’ was I thought the most
inspiring book on education since I read A.S. Neill’s Summerhill when I was 15.’

‘This is an outstanding treatise on what education should be in the Twenty-First Century.’

‘As an retired teacher and Head of Department I found this book a joy to read. It is many things – personal biography, passionate polemic, practical handbook, education history, inspirational text, you name it – woven together in a natural, organic way which really gives you the feel of school life. The author knows whereof he speaks and in friendly fashion takes you, the reader, by the hand on a headlong and often exciting journey through the maze of modern education. His vision is clear and compelling, he knows what works and what doesn’t, he wants you to share his profound sense of the human potential which we can unlock if only we get our schools right. He articulates a philosophy which puts the whole child at its centre and explores the relationships underlying the magic of educational development. The book is written in a direct, heartfelt, jargon-free style and is packed with amusing anecdotes which illuminate his principles, unlike many dry books on the subject. Passionate and humorous and unafraid of controversy, it certainly gets you thinking. I found it a real page-turner and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in good education, whether outside or inside the teaching profession. For anyone connected with school management, in any capacity, it is essential reading. A unique and valuable voice.’

A passion for Education – The story of a Headteacher: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin BSc (Hons) NPQH, Christopher R: 9781502984685: Books