Chapter 6: The Headship Years
Chapter 6: The Headship Years
Introduction
Our years as middle leaders in comprehensive schools felt creative and successful. The values and ideas that took root during our time at school and university were confirmed by our early careers and informed our work as subject leaders. We gathered experience and confidence that schools, teaching and learning could be better for all students. We believed that equality of opportunity and provision, expressed through comprehensive schools, could reduce the constraints on disadvantaged students like Billy Casper. Our hopes were raised by our success as heads of department in introducing or contributing to changes in organization, teaching methods, the curriculum and assessment.
But a sea change was taking place in the politics of education. The Conservative victory in the 1979 General Election reflected and confirmed the perception that schools were failing to improve behaviour and raise standards. As aspiring leaders, we were obliged to sustain our instinctively progressive desire to transform the lives of young people in a new climate where austere and functional views of schools were taking hold. Our practical success in improving subject teaching had increased our optimism and energy but we also recognised that achieving our goals as school leaders was becoming an increasing challenging.
Early success in the classroom, followed by the excitement of leading curriculum change in good comprehensive schools, encouraged Rob and Bernard in their long-held ambition to become heads. Both applied for deputy headships in their early thirties, believing this was a necessary step towards the top job. In 1978, Bernard became first deputy at St. Audrey’s in Hertfordshire and in 1983 Rob was appointed as deputy head at Gloucester School in Hohne, West Germany, a large comprehensive serving British forces children. These were testing appointments. The novice deputies had to learn school management on the job as well as adjust to new roles and cultures. St. Audrey’s suffered from a declining roll, while Gloucester School had to cope with the impact of regular changes of regiments and personnel on the composition of the student population.
Bernard felt St. Audrey’s was like a ghost ship, with a first year of 90 pupils and a tiny sixth form, while Rob recognised once again there was little room for creative endeavour in a service children’s school. But both had already learned a great deal about managing staff and rapidly mastered the techniques of curriculum analysis and timetabling. As a deputy head, Rob was involved in decisions without carrying the burdens of office and enjoyed influencing developments. He also discovered that his particular skill was in working with teachers and dealing with the holistic nature of school life. By contrast, Bernard was frustrated by the impasse between his boss and the staffroom, so could not wait to move on to headship. Both became knowledgeable about people and organisations and were increasingly confident about their ability to take on the full leadership responsibility.
Cherry’s pathway was different. After eight years as a middle manager, including a career break, she was keen to seek a post in senior management. In 1992, she was appointed deputy head at Flegg High School in Norfolk, a small rural comprehensive serving the 12 – 16 age range. She never intended to spend seven years there as a deputy but she loved the school, its challenging community and her relationships with the senior team and teachers. Her husband’s serious illness and death caused her to delay her career – headship would have been one burden too many at the time.
Bernard became head at Stanground School in Cambridgeshire in 1980; Rob was appointed principal at Wycliffe Community College in Leicester in 1986. They were both excited by their newfound power and were inspired by a strong sense of mission. Cherry was promoted internally to become head of Flegg in 1999 and assumed her post with a very clear vision of what needed to be done. All three relished the opportunity to take charge and juggle the complex responsibilities of their posts.
The setting for our early years as heads
We became school leaders during a long period of Conservative government (1979 – 1990[i]). As Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and her then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Geoffrey Howe, introduced budgets that were designed to control inflation and reduce public spending. This deflationary policy produced recession and unemployment. There were significant cuts in education. Youth unemployment grew rapidly as local job opportunities dried up. Students like Billy Casper struggled for work and dignity as their communities began to lose their sense of purpose.
A post-industrial, service-based economy slowly emerged. Traditional class structures were eroded, especially in heavy manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, service industries flourished. Society did not become classless, however, because people’s lives continued to reflect relative income and advantage. Work was increasingly individualised and workers were more willing to travel outside their traditional communities. Public services were also reorganised to stimulate private interests and competition between providers. Council estates were subject to the right to buy, producing a big increase in owner occupation for some and vulnerability for others. There was a similar emphasis in education, with parental choice, open enrolment and new types of school inducing greater competition to attract customers.
The economy recovered after 1985 but there was another recession between 1990 and 1993. Austere economic measures were designed to increase productivity but the consequences of inflation and unemployment were serious for those on low incomes. The government’s continuing radicalism felt threatening, but despite painful cuts, there was little substantial change in the school system between 1979 and 1986. As the dust of reorganisation settled, local authority comprehensives were established as the normal provision across the country, with the exception of a small number of local authorities that retained selection and grammar schools (e.g. Kent, Trafford). Almost 90 per cent of students were estimated to attend comprehensives by 1982, although creaming continued to create big intake differences between schools[ii]. Grammar and secondary modern traditions were gradually absorbed and steadily by-passed by a new and better qualified generation of teachers. The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) was introduced in 1986. It reflected the convergence of CSE and GCE as schools struggled to serve the needs of the full ability range.
There was increased attention to special needs. The 1978 Warnock Report[iii] led to the 1981 Education Act[iv]. This introduced the requirement for local authorities to identify and assess pupils who might require specialist provision. The impact was limited by budget reductions but the principle of special support for children within mainstream schools, known as ‘statementing’, was established. Corporal punishment was ended in 1986. This followed a Europe-wide trend, with caning and beating increasingly recognised as an abuse of power that did not help or reform young people.
Vocational education, careers guidance and work experience grew considerably. Students stopped at school longer, mainly because work was harder to find during a period of high youth unemployment. The Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI), launched in 1982, was a pilot scheme for 14 – 18-year olds funded by the Manpower Services Commission (MSC). TVEI aimed to encourage schools to prepare students more effectively for the workplace. It also signalled a shift towards more direct central government intervention in the school curriculum, organisation and management.
Ministers believed local authorities were an obstacle to efficiency and effectiveness and were increasingly radical in their efforts to introduce market disciplines to the public sector. Through the 1980s, legislation progressively reduced the powers and responsibilities of local government; and created national agencies to regulate and control service providers as they replaced elected authorities. The 1988 Education Act[v] introduced Local Management of Schools (LMS)[vi] to weaken LEA control, increased competition through parental choice and open enrolment, and imposed a ten subject National Curriculum, with key stage tests to monitor standards. Schools were encouraged to opt out of LEA control altogether by choosing to become Grant Maintained (GMS)[vii], with scope to run their own admission arrangements and even to select pupils by aptitude. City Technology Colleges (CTCs) were also introduced to further diversify the emerging education market. Only 4 per cent of schools became grant maintained and only 15 CTCs were ever established but this did not discourage the government’s emphasis on markets and competition.
Similar policy themes continued after Mrs Thatcher’s departure in 1990 and these were emphasised in the 1992 education White Paper, Choice and Diversity[viii]. The 1992 Education (Schools) Act set up the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), with the first round of inspections scheduled to begin in 1993. Privatised inspection teams visited schools on a four-year cycle and reported their findings in relation to a national framework, with a particular focus on standards and effectiveness. Governing bodies were required to produce action plans to deal with key issues arising from Ofsted reports. Schools found to be failing were subject to special measures, which involves intensive monitoring and re-inspection. The Act also provided for the publication of school examination results in so-called ‘league tables’. These summarise pupils’ GCSE attainment and progress and are supposed to encourage competition to improve results and so attract more students. In these years, schools and colleges were effectively re-engineered as service providers, expected to compete in an education marketplace to increase opportunity and raise achievement.
The values of this competitive, centrally managed world were the polar opposite of those we absorbed through our formative experiences as students and educators. We saw new risks and threats as we adjusted to a leadership role increasingly concerned with financial management, compliance with Ofsted criteria and the analysis of performance data. We asked ourselves whether these new managerial obsessions could much enhance the life chances of disadvantaged children. This is the story of how we tried to hold on to passion and idealism, even as we adapted to bureaucratic regulation and control.
Bernard becomes head of Stanground School in Peterborough
On interview, and during visits after my appointment as head in May 1980, I gathered impressions of life at Stanground. At lunchtime children queued for chips, cigarettes and sweets at five vans in the lay-by outside the front hedge. Youngsters milled through the school gates from the main road and settled on the lawn for a raucousdéjeuner sur l'herbe. The school was sinking into the ground because the foundations were weak and crumbling. Major works were due to start in the autumn term and twelve mobile classrooms would be on site all year.
The school’s academic organisation was as vulnerable as the building. Pupils were divided into upper and lower bands. The upper band studied French and Science. The lower band was to be found in the art block or had disappeared into the Stygian gloom of the metalwork shops. Each band was sub-divided into sets. At the bottom of the heap came two forms that followed a remedial and very basic curriculum. Stanground squeezed 1,300 students into its narrow corridors but only 50 were in the sixth form. There were no pupil records and the Cambridgeshire files that came up from the primaries were burned. There were no staff records either. Beating was endemic and gender neutral in selecting its victims.
After Eltham Green, Haberdashers’ and Sir Frederic Osborn, I was full of progressive ideas, including child-centred, resource-based learning, mixed-ability teaching and equal opportunities, with students following a common curriculum regardless of gender or ability. I followed a mentor’s advice to be a head by age 33 and saw it as my moral duty to lead Stanground towards a comprehensive vision of democratic education.
As the staff profile emerged, I formed an image of Stanground as an over-sized secondary modern, isolated from other schools in a quiet backwater of the River Nene and locked into ancient customs by the previous regime and its long-serving acolytes. As one of the younger, and in education terms more travelled, members of staff, my appearance and experiences were different from those of the people I presumed to lead. I strode about the school with exaggerated speed and purpose, determined to move quickly to demolish the old order and implement obvious changes.
The upper, middle and lower schools were discontinued, a new management team of deputies and senior teachers was established, heads of house and heads of department meetings were held every week, and a timetable working party was set up to remodel the curriculum. Another group was commissioned to recommend appropriate student records. There was an outbreak of debate and discussion, described by the senior mistress as ‘Spain after Franco’ and this was sometimes uncomfortable. At the first staff meeting I plunged in, apparently fearless. ‘There would be no more sheep and goats.’ The banding system was over, every student would have the same opportunities. To my surprise, there was an outbreak of applause. Many of my colleagues, professionally frustrated and isolated for years, were hoping for change, and here it was, like the first day in parliament after a general election.
At my first assembly, I painted a portrait of how Stanground would be, a funfair of activities, full of life and interest, and they would help me make it happen. Learning should be enjoyed, not endured. I also hinted at changes to come in the lunch arrangements. There was muttering in the ranks, especially amongst the older boys. I decided to assume control of corporal punishment. Everyone else would stop. Serious indiscipline would be referred to me. Weaker teachers were reassured that sanctions would continue as usual. I was ashamed of my Machiavellian cynicism in posing as a fierce disciplinarian and was disquieted by the whole disgusting business. After that term I just stopped, without saying a word to anyone. By then, no one noticed.
Meanwhile, the lunchtime carnival of chips, fizzy pop and smoking on the front lawn provided cartoon-like evidence that no one was in charge. It was a battle to be won as soon as possible. I consulted parents, teachers and the school meals service as well as explaining the new lunchtime arrangements to junior and senior assemblies. From now on, pupils were banned from all grassed areas, including the field. Anyone who joined the queues for sweets, cigarettes and chips would be punished for disobedience. The school canteen would serve chips and other snacks in a special quick queue. No one need miss out on food. There was dismay and grumbling. Few believed I could win. But every day I watched the vans arrive and strode out to meet them, cane in hand. I patrolled the lawn and layby, and caught the eyes of loitering youngsters.
Trade died. Once the message was established, I spent less time at the front policing vans and extended my patrol to cover the field. If a miscreant placed a foot on a grassed area, I chased after them at speed, in full view of everyone in the vicinity. The vans fought back. One mounted the verge further down the Peterborough Road to attract customers who felt they were safe. But I was quicker than expected and arrived in time to send them back inside the grounds. Within three months, the last of the vans disappeared and I decided to dial down the tough guy headmaster act. With my authority established, the vital step was to create a positive climate for learning through proper pastoral arrangements. The heads of house and their canes and slippers moved on and we developed a year-based system to provide care and guidance as children progressed through the school.
I soon discovered the depth of poverty endured by some families. Broken homes, lone parents and ‘looked after’ children were commonplace and the personal histories revealed at case conferences with social services were often so complex they defied understanding. Billy Casper’s mother was a paragon by comparison. These dismal stories were numerous and reflected the balance of the school’s intake. There were youngsters whose parents held routine non-manual jobs, a small number of children from service and police backgrounds, and even a few teachers’ children. But the traditional professions and business were unrepresented and the tail went on and on. We worked to make Stanground comprehensive in its curriculum, organisation and ambition for young people. In terms of intake, however, the school resembled the secondary moderns of our youth.
Then came dramatic news. The Thatcher cuts prompted the County Council to freeze all vacancies except those for heads and caretakers. Spending on educational equipment and supplies was also frozen. I was in charge of a neglected, poorly resourced school, housed in potentially dangerous premises. I was in the midst of staging a revolution to breathe life and belief into staff and students. Now they were taking the money away and putting a ban on replacing staff. This had to be resisted. I ordered photographs to show the state of the school in 1981 and used them to illustrate a booklet complaining about the county’s long-term neglect. I protested against their decision to cut off capitation funds already allocated to the schools. Our chair of governors, himself a county councillor, placed a copy on the desk of every county councillor.
I also wrote to parents, with copies to local and national media, explaining the freeze – there would be no paper, even for examinations. Cameras and journalists hurried for the story first hand. On News at Ten I explained that without eggs, flour and milk, you can’t bake cakes. Teachers would describe the cakes rather than bake them. Without funding, science would be an entirely theoretical affair. Without books it would be difficult to read and study. Our cupboard was bare. There were vitriolic visits from Conservative councillors but in the end, publicity saved my bacon. We were amongst other outraged voices and capitation money was restored.
The Thatcher cuts had other effects. Youth unemployment increased sharply, the numbers living in relative poverty grew and business complained that schools were failing to prepare young people for the workplace. At a school-industry forum in Peterborough I found myself arguing with a director from SodaStream. He told us industries like SodaStream generated wealth to pay for health, welfare and education. I asked why putting bubbles in water seemed more valuable to him than filling young people’s heads with ideas.
Despite this discouraging background, Stanground become a better, happier place as our reforms worked through. Despite straitened times, large sums were spent on the buildings. Year groups were organised in mixed ability form units and everyone had access to the full curriculum, including languages, science and technology. A mix of in-lesson support and extra tuition in numeracy and literacy, adapted to individual needs, replaced the remedial forms. With the local primary heads, I formed a development group and visited schools every year to talk with top juniors due to transfer to Stanground. We paid for a peripatetic violin teacher to work in the primary schools so there was a skill base for our orchestra when children transferred. Modern professional leadership was injected at deputy head and middle management levels. Classroom teaching was revitalised, especially in response to the introduction of GCSE in 1987. This established a common examination system for everyone. For us, this was an important further step towards unifying education for all and ensuring fair access regardless of ability.
Fewer teachers shouted at children and disciplinary procedures were used to remove poor practice. Our days were better organised, public events were more impressive and we became first choice for the local primaries. We created a post-16 consortium with three other secondary schools so a broader range of subjects could be offered. As a result, the sixth form expanded from 50 in 1980 to 240 in 1997. Expectations were rising, examination performance improved and many more students found their way through advanced levels to university, especially after 1992 when the polytechnics were rebranded. This slow, steady improvement in quality and performance continued throughout my time, almost regardless of the school reforms introduced by successive governments.
Even so, significant numbers of children with low reading scores struggled to access the curriculum and left ill-prepared for the future. Poverty remained a marked feature of the intake. The causal link between poverty and examination results was obvious to most of us and confirmed national data showing an inverse relationship between GCSE higher grades and student entitlement to Free School Meals. Ofsted was adamant that teachers were responsible for results, not circumstances. ‘Don’t use poverty as an excuse,’ said one Secretary of State. Schools could not use relative poverty as a relevant context for pupil performance.
The effect of the Education Reform Act in 1988 was to reduce the power of heads and teachers over the curriculum and assessment, where they had some knowledge, and to increase their responsibility for school finance, where their expertise was limited. I needed to re-invent myself after ten years in the job but my attention to the academic/pastoral divide and the deeper engagement of teachers in decision-making seemed naïve if not frivolous in a context defined by Grant Maintained Status (GMS) and preparing for Ofsted inspection. The Stanground governors voted for GMS and my task was to implement the decision. We were to become a small business enterprise, preoccupied with results and pleasing inspectors. Compliance was expected while the pressure to meet challenging targets squeezed initiative. Education became a numbers game, with the budget sheet and exam results linked in a bizarre synergy of inputs and outputs that had limited appeal if you did not believe in the business model. Despite years of improvement, we were expected to redouble our efforts. But I was tired and everyone knew my tricks. It was time to leave.
Cherry becomes head of Flegg High School in Norfolk
A year after the death of my husband, with the children doing well at their individual schools, I decided to apply for headships. I was unsuccessful at the first interview, clearly well out of practice at these formal trials, and then my head announced his retirement. We all know better than to apply for internal senior posts; all schools need a fresh voice, perspective and experience, or so some thought. However, a friend in another school said: ‘Just adopt the rational position; if you’re applying for headships within a given radius, and you can’t move home with children settled in schools, then apply for Flegg as well.’ So I wrote my letter of application and was appointed to begin in September 1999, despite the general presumption in favour of external candidates.
I was clear about the changes I wanted to make and my existing colleague, the pastoral coordinator, was equally excited about shared opportunities for change. We both looked forward to changing to a more open management style and saw introducing student leadership as a priority. My inherited and only deputy head was experiencing personal problems at the time and seemed unable to give the job sufficient energy or drive but he secured a transfer to help a school in special measures. A further vacancy enabled me to appoint a senior teacher in charge of teaching and learning. He turned out to be the best appointment I ever made. His contribution during the seven years he spent at Flegg was outstanding. We were a solid and mutually supportive team of three, eager to move the school into its next phase. We signed up to the same agenda and were ably supported by a growing number of talented teachers.
The first major change was to establish a student leadership team, initially a head boy and girl and their deputies, supported by up to twelve prefects. The previous head was openly and honestly opposed to student leaders. He did not intend to involve students in decision-making, so why pretend otherwise? Under his leadership, Flegg was an orderly place but much depended on staff vigilance and adults who ruled by fear. The whole thing broke down very quickly if, for reasons of illness or meetings elsewhere, the responsible staff were not in school. My view was that the systems were too fragile and that young people should be encouraged to join with us to plan and develop the work of the school. Students were being ‘done to’ instead of understanding and sharing their load of ‘doing’. Student voice is effective only when young people invest in their school. I was not interested in their opinions if they were not prepared to work for the school in some way and help bring about change.
There was plenty of challenging behaviour at Flegg and there were too few staff to monitor incidents and follow them through appropriately. Our starting point for student leaders was to enlist their help with policing the school and asking them to act as extra eyes and ears around the place. We gave them appropriate recognition, with badges and ties, opportunities to represent the school, training in speaking skills and also training to manage students and report incidents. It worked and we gradually moved towards coaching young people in the soft skills exemplified by their peer supporters. My long-term dream was for Flegg to become a place where everyone felt they had a stake in the school and where no one was neglected or unnoticed. I saw those years as vital for exemplary whole school student relationships as well as for growing individual independence and confidence. I was committed to ensuring that no one should feel invisible during their time at Flegg.
Over a period of ten years, we moved from a handful of prefects with a limited role in the school to responsibilities for all students. This had an outstandingly positive impact on behaviour, school affiliation and bullying. When I left, our records showed almost no incidents of bullying, racism or other types of ill treatment between students. Every new strategy was accompanied by a specific plan and a joint staff-student annual review to measure impact. As an example, from 2007 we added to the range of initiatives designed to welcome and introduce students from our primary partners. The new children were received into an unnaturally calm Flegg on the first day of the autumn term, with only year 11 students present. After a welcome speech and administrative details from the teacher in charge of transition, the newcomers were led to their tutor groups by senior prefects who stayed through an extended tutorial, devoted to timetables and planners, before looking after their charges during break and lunchtime.
Each tutor group had students from each year in it – a system known as ‘vertical tutoring’. As a result, on the first day of the school year, there were no more than five or six year 7 children in a group. One prefect looked after three year 7 students for the first two weeks of term, greeting them in the morning and checking on them during the day. Designated year 11 students retained pastoral responsibility for the new entrants for two terms. At the end of the spring term, new leaders were appointed from year 10. The year 11 students were then allowed to concentrate exclusively on examinations. This example demonstrates how we helped reduce anxieties about moving school for the new intake as well as giving meaningful responsibility to older students and establishing a warm and caring culture for everyone.
I don’t think it matters what team formation you play - football provides a suitable analogy - provided every team member is focused on winning and plays their part to the full. The same is true of arrangements in school, a pastoral organization based on year cohorts may work as well as one where tutorial groups comprise a mix of ages. The curriculum can be delivered equally well through faculties or subject departments. The structure is not the essential ingredient. At Flegg I saw a system that was not working and I sought an alternative solution.
I inherited a horizontal pastoral arrangement with each head of year responsible for eight tutor groups under the direction of the pastoral coordinator. This arrangement did little to enhance pupil relationships and tutors clung to their preferred year groups without taking much interest in the school’s rites of educational passage for young people. Year 9 tutors were concerned with the annual careers fair and the subject options process; Year 11 tutors were alone in completing the Flegg Record of Achievement for leavers. I thought we should come together as a united school with a vertical tutoring model that involved all teachers in every aspect of pastoral care. Students would benefit by mixing and socializing together in the same group with young people from across the age range. I believed this organisation, together with our student leadership initiatives, would bring greater harmony to the school and reduce the amount of silly behaviour, at that time mostly generated by boys in years 9 and 10.
We consulted widely and carefully. After a detailed presentation and question and answer session on a training day, we invited the staff to vote for or against vertical tutoring. The result was close but there were enough votes in favour for me to go ahead and implement the vertical format for September 2000. This upset many staff, especially the Head of Year 8 who was also responsible for some outstanding work with our primaries on transition. I regretted this deeply. The last thing I wanted to do was upset an outstanding member of staff. In 1999 she was Head of Year 8, in 2000 she became Head of Britten House when we united all our internal sporting and other competitions with our pastoral systems. Years later she commented that while she was fervently opposed to the initiative at the time, she thought our style of vertical tutoring was the most successful of all our initiatives during those ten years.
We had no choice but to work harder to improve the examination results, especially by increasing the proportion of candidates securing five or more GCSE A* - C grades. As Ofsted strengthened their focus on student outcomes, senior leadership courses increasingly emphasized Fischer Family Trust data and made comparisons with schools similar in terms of intake and geographical influences. But we were jogging along nicely as a contented rural school and were pleased with the strong numbers on roll, excellent creative initiatives and selection as Childline’s[ix] regional training school for East Anglia. We were developing a reputation for student peer support, but the examination results needed to improve more quickly. Despite focused staff training and a deputy’s strong support for subject leaders, the departmental model was not delivering improved examination results.
One deputy head looking after all heads of department with my intermittent help was insufficient to provide the ambition, challenge and continuous support needed to raise staff expectations and drive results upwards. I invested considerable time in consultation with an enlarged senior team that now included the two deputies, three senior teachers and four heads of house. I was keen to add four heads of faculty to the team and asked my senior colleagues to support a detailed presentation to governors. The four middle leaders I wished to include were skillful subject leaders who knew how to coach staff and improve teaching skills, and also how to be tough when required. They possessed the ability to enhance the quality of teaching so that the student experience was enriched and better outcomes were achieved.
The governors accepted the case and it was agreed the measure would be implemented for September 2004. Two of the new head of faculty appointments would have to be internal but we saw an opportunity to use junior level vacancies to enable external appointments. We had a number of talented, experienced young teachers who might leave unless there were attractive opportunities to persuade them to stay, so it was important to offer two internal head of faculty posts that matched their skill sets. Our new structure grouped subjects as follows:Sciences: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography and PE. Technology: Mathematics, Information Technology and Design Technology. Languages: English Language and Literature, Modern Foreign Languages, History and Religious Education. Arts: Art, Textiles, Music, Drama and Dance.
The heads of faculty became responsible for student outcomes across all their subjects, for staff training and well-being within their area and for recruitment, appraisals, discipline and the organisation of the faculty’s learning environment. The restructuring was costly, in terms of the time needed to train staff and rewrite so many documents and manuals, but immensely worthwhile. Implementation took over eighteen months but we soon saw the hoped-for results. The best of the former heads of department stayed and worked with their faculty leaders to move the school forward while others left.
The move to faculties went hand-in-hand with our successful bid to become a Business and Enterprise College[x]. The faculty plans were central to the bid, with the anticipated increased funds being shared across all faculties. The faculties were expected to develop an enterprising approach to curriculum delivery as well as extra-curricular activities in their areas. Our four big initiatives - Vertical Tutoring, Student Leadership, Faculties and Business and Enterprise status - formed a coherent whole and served and supported each other in a dynamic way. When I left in 2009, the school achieved the best results ever, with 72 percent of students achieving 5 GCSE A* - C grades. 64 percent succeeded in including English and Mathematics amongst their higher grades. I was ready to move on to a new venture.
Rob becomes Principal of Wycliffe Community College in Leicester and later Principal of Longsands College in Cambridgeshire
Wycliffe in 1986 was very different from the school I knew as a PGCE student on teaching practice. Two previous heads had transformed it. The first saw the place expand, become comprehensive and operate as a well organised, if traditional, school. The second formed a community college by assimilating four community centres, a large youth club and a huge ‘return to learn’ scheme. He introduced year-based integrated learning bases and was rightly preoccupied with the complex needs of Braunstone children. The college evolved a caring culture where colleagues formed constructive and sensitive relationships with difficult young people. But he was not easy to work with and his unpredictable moods were wearing.
Braunstone was still the same - a deprived, all-white council estate with low aspirations and an amoral, self-contained attitude towards the world. But the children and their parents were disarmingly honest about their dishonesty and formed a straightforward and loveable community of which the college itself was part. Even so, Wycliffe’s reputation was poor. Examination results and attendance figures were the worst in the county. Rolls were falling, owing to public perceptions and a lower birth rate. Closure was a possibility but I was energised by the prospect of making Wycliffe into something truly great.
I began headship in January 1986 in the middle of a national teacher work-to-rule over pay and conditions. Before my arrival the senior deputy struck a union deal that ensured children were fed at lunchtimes and stayed for their lessons while neighbouring schools sent classes home. Continuing his management of this enabled me to avoid confrontation and build relationships through troubled times. When a union representative reneged on the agreement, however, I intervened to challenge his lack of integrity. The staff hurried to support my approach and he apologised. My position within the college was thereby strengthened and the dispute ended when the Education Secretary imposed his own national settlement.
I spent a lot of time and energy building a seamless ‘cradle to grave’ operation with the help of an able community vice principal, LEA officers and the local community. With talented community tutors we began to fly. In the school itself things were kept afloat by high levels of pastoral support for students, primary liaison and work to build an atmosphere where each young person felt valued and wanted. Discipline and control were often on a knife-edge. Vigilance was needed to ensure stability. We were alert for signs of trouble on the estate or a nasty situation developing internally. The pastoral deputy and year heads dealt with horrendous issues and circumstances on a daily basis. They grappled with bad behaviour and criminal activity as well as major cases of child abuse and neglect.
Before Ofsted and performance tables, we lacked tools to improve teaching, learning and progress. The college more or less expected low standards and staff sometimes asked: ‘What can you expect from these kids?’ There was a reluctance to demand more in case pressure made groups harder to control. We accepted that only 5 percent of our students were capable of passing five or more GCSEs.
We decided to articulate the features that made Wycliffe feel so special. Through working teams and conferences, we set out to capture the ‘X’ factor at this remarkable college. We arrived at a 12-point mission statement, an unusual document at the time. I asked colleagues to identify the things they wanted to improve and the things they wanted to ditch. We called it a development plan.
We established a farm on site, mainly through the efforts of a community tutor, a volunteer farm manager with numerous local contacts, and the teacher who taught the year 11 boys no one else could contain. The farm and its antics on the estate became something of a binding agent and was well-known in the city and beyond. It was a marvellous means for city students to develop empathy with animals and agriculture and to learn about themselves.
When three students died in different but equally distressing circumstances in 1987, I was emotionally drained by having to lead the college and community through trauma and grief. These events tested and confirmed the strength of the community and the ability of staff, families and students to care for one another through stress and loss.
The National Curriculum prompted us to dismantle the year bases with their integrated approach to topics and themes. The bases motivated students but teachers were increasingly anxious about topics beyond their subject specialism. Integrated work produced no real gains in attainment, so subject teaching was quietly re-introduced. More threatening was a review of surplus school places in the south west of Leicester. To pre-empt a possible reorganisation, the chair of governors and I proposed bringing three small schools together under one banner and one leadership. Costs could be cut and shared expertise would benefit everyone. After early promise, the proposition was lost by one vote at the LEA Schools Committee. We were left to limp along.
In time, Ofsted was another threat, with Wycliffe’s teaching quality and attendance pointing towards special measures despite the college’s many inspiring and remarkable features. A senior colleague joined me on Ofsted training to prepare for what was coming. We also forged links with Leicester University and ran an in-house Diploma in Education course for staff.
After six years, I believed that, despite pupils’ home circumstances resembling those experienced by Billy Casper, we had created a happy place for both teachers and students. Wycliffe was a refuge for children from troubled households but also offered a version of what a good school should be like, full of experimental and innovative ideas. We made less progress with the quality of learning and teaching than became possible later but, by 1992, 12% of our students achieved 5 or more GCSE passes. Examination results had doubled! I was now ready for a new and different challenge. I decided on a second headship that would be a complete contrast – large, not necessarily a community college, middle class and high performing.
This decision led to Longsands Community College in Cambridgeshire and an interview with governors and officers who operated at a level of professional sophistication I hadn’t experienced before. After my appointment, the retiring head was welcoming and helpful. I interviewed all 150 members of staff over a ten-day period and dug below the school’s middle class veneer. Rolls (currently 1300) were falling, examination performance was mediocre, the budget was £100k overspent, the buildings were dreadful and many teachers were complacent. There were hardly any women in senior posts. This reflected my predecessor who had been a pioneer of systems approaches to large comprehensives and was inclined to be somewhat aloof. He held a superior view of Longsands and his own status in the profession.
I was mourning Wycliffe where the experience was unique, formative and emotionally engaging. By contrast, Longsands seemed a job to be done rather than a love affair and my attitude was more detached. We began briskly nevertheless, adjusting dinner queues, reviewing and changing school uniform, altering the corporate logo, restructuring the support staff and revising senior team roles.
Working parties were asked to review aspects of college life and to construct a statement of intent and values to drive our strategic plans. Shock and horror greeted my appointment of a woman as head of science. This was followed by a decision to set up a franchised workplace nursery to reduce the permanent loss of able women teachers when they started families. Gasps of disbelief greeted the merger of heads of house and heads of department meetings into a unified management forum. The heads of house were becoming dinosaurs in a rapidly modernising organisation, with idiosyncratic practice on numerous pastoral issues. The senior deputy saw them individually to encourage support for my way of doing things. This worked well for a while but the problem was not resolved.
Governors were excellent. They understood their non-executive status and played the role well. They helped us out of the financial mire that greeted my arrival. They saw Longsands as a rusting super tanker heading in the wrong direction and were keen for a better future. This began with a revived local reputation, growing student numbers, a well-motivated set of teachers and a more relaxed but purposeful atmosphere in the college. Inexplicably, GCSE results were not improving, though our sixth form grades were consistently the best in the county.
We needed to do things differently and after consulting with trusted colleagues I embarked on dismantling the baronial house system. The barons departed in dismay and a new deputy was appointed to lead an initiative to provide learning focused care, with year co-ordinators briefed to focus on achievement. Within two years, our GCSE results climbed from 35 percent ‘five or mores’ to just under 70 percent. We were classed as one of the twenty most improved schools in the country. I was invited to the DFES to explain how we did it. By now Longsands was on a steep upward curve with many initiatives bearing fruit. Students achieved more and were better served. I formed student councils that met twice a term to discuss issues of concern. We drew up a charter for the ‘Longsands Lesson’ – a set of criteria for assessing the classroom experience. Near the top was the desire for ‘humour and fun’. Some teachers were dismayed by this.
The parents in this aspirant middle class area could be demanding. One father refused a detention for his child because he would be unable to hold his head up at dinner parties. Three parents engaged solicitors when their daughters were accused of bullying. The great majority were supportive, however, as our reputation grew and numbers rose to around 1,600.
The college buildings were at the end of their useful life, a constant drain on our funds and energy. I hatched a plan with the executive chair of a national construction company who happened to be a parent. The company would acquire our site for a housing project in return for building a new school on another, less valuable site, half a mile away. The scheme failed because no one could work out a legal basis for this unusual initiative.
Prompted by the redoubtable Michelle Rousseau-Rambaud, I joined heads from across Europe to form Horizon, an association created to develop our students’ understanding of similarities and differences between European countries and cultures. As a woman whose parents died in the holocaust, Michelle had every intellectual and practical reason to work for peace in Europe. Over the years, literally thousands of children benefited from the activities, courses and festivals we organised. In 1996 I was asked to succeed Michelle as President. The highlight of my four years was a sports festival for three hundred young people from thirteen schools in eight different countries. The festival was held in the Olympic village in Moscow.
Longsands governors and parents were keen to achieve Grant Maintained Status. The parent vote was overwhelming, despite staff scepticism. Opting out of the local authority disrupted networks, including community education and relations between schools. The community aspect of Longsands was not part of an integrated whole, as at Wycliffe, while the demand for evening classes was falling. The LEA sacked us as a community college so we rebranded as ‘Longsands College’, dropping the word ‘Community’ from our title and launched a small self-funding programme called ‘Courses and Classes’. Prompted by the director of education, who shared my concerns about the impact of GMS on heads and their mutual support arrangements, I worked with two colleagues on the Cambridgeshire Secondary Education Trust (CSET). This became a professional forum where heads worked collaboratively on educational issues.
Although absorbed by policy changes and local demands, I always kept in mind the 30 percent of Longsands students who missed the government’s chosen threshold of ‘five or more higher GCSE grades’. I was not against the data driven approach to school standards. It gave me levers to persuade teachers to raise their game but I was also dissatisfied with policies that ignored young people’s circumstances and discounted other aspects of their learning.
Discussion
Bernard and Rob were appointed as heads in the 1980s and found themselves coping with a strong reaction against the welfare mentality of the 1960s, led by a Thatcher government determined to make Britain more dynamic and competitive. Negative reports in the popular press, budget cuts, youth unemployment and a reduced role for local authorities provided an uncomfortable backdrop for their plans to improve education, especially for the disadvantaged. Freezes on staffing and pupil funding confirmed Anthony Crosland’s comment that ‘the party’s over’. By contrast, Cherry became a head in 1999 when Tony Blair was insisting that education was his leading priority and large sums were invested in schemes to enhance the quality of schooling, especially in poor areas. But although we all fought to improve the flow of resources and external support to our schools, our practical experiences in leading and motivating colleagues and overcoming internal resistance were essentially similar. Although governments became increasingly active in driving their agendas through new national bodies that took charge of curriculum and assessment, our main concern was to ensure that our schools were well-organised, well-motivated and properly equipped to deal with external threats.
We encountered many reminders of KES during our time, especially when struggling to ensure that low ability students, especially those with acute family difficulties, were properly cared for and taught. Bernard saw the Stanground he inherited as an over-sized secondary modern, with an intake slanted towards youngsters from disadvantaged homes. Broken families, lone parents and ‘looked after’ children were commonplace. Cherry regarded Flegg as an orderly place but believed too much depended on the vigilance of key personalities and adults who ruled by fear. Rob reports that at Wycliffe ‘discipline and control were often on a knife edge’ and demanded constant attention from teachers who ‘dealt with horrendous issues…(and) major cases of child abuse and neglect.’
There were plenty of children in lower sets whose lives were little different from those experienced by similar students in the 1960s secondary modern. But we were all determined to redesign the dinosaur aspects of our inheritance to ensure we led inclusive schools with positive opportunities for everyone. We built active pastoral structures to support young people in difficulty and emphasised our partnership with parents and the local community. Rob exploited the community college dimension at Wycliffe to extend the network of support available to the students. Bernard side-stepped Michael Duane’s dilemma at Rising Hill by taking charge of corporal punishment himself and phasing it out within months. Twenty years later, Cherry became a national leader in developing student leadership at Flegg, with huge benefits, including the near-complete elimination of bullying.
We were ahead of the Schools Council in introducing an entitlement curriculum that resembled the national structure made compulsory in 1988. Streaming was replaced by flexible setting arrangements and option columns were greatly reduced in number. The aim was to create a broad and balanced curriculum with access to a common experience of academic and practical subjects. This work became considerably easier with the introduction of a unified examination (GCSE) at 16+. Rob set up a farm at Wycliffe with opportunities for students to empathise with animals and learn useful skills, perhaps emulating Billy Casper’s enjoyment of the open countryside around Barnsley. We did find scope for innovation and improvement within the new performative structures established by the 1988 Act, even after they were tightened by the 1992 Act. Longsands became one of the most improved schools in England, while under Cherry’s leadership, Flegg achieved notable success, developing a tremendously supportive culture and much improved examination results. No principles were sacrificed. But the introduction of performance tables and Ofsted inspections did place increasing pressure on our progressive sympathies, especially when so much importance was attached to data and results at the expense of other aspects of education, especially the arts. We began to feel that our time as school leaders was drawing to a close.
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