Brave Heads E-Book

Dave Harris

• Herausgeber: Independent Thinking Press
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

All too often now schools are under immense pressure to demonstrate outstanding practice that can be documented on paper, which can often lead to schools that are genuinely improving their teaching standards long term and investing in pupils to fall short of the government's criteria for 'success'. As the Principal of a brand new high profile academy, Dave Harris knows first-hand the frustrations of providing genuine education for children while maintaining high standards according to the guidelines set out by authorities. Dave has stuck by his principles, stating that 'it is a marathon - not a sprint' and while acknowledging the necessity for great results, has maintained a focus of providing young people with the education they deserve. The key to this, he believes, is bravery!

Leseprobe

FOREWORD

I have a friend who is a head teacher at a prestigious school on the coast in Chile. It is his third headship and he has been there nearly two years now. In his office is a daunting gallery of oil paintings of 150 years’ worth of headmasters (they are all men) looking down on him each day as he sits at his desk. The combined pressure of all that tradition, expertise and accomplishment frightens the life out of him most days.

Another experienced head teacher I know at a school in England was telling me about the sudden feelings of panic he experiences from time to time. ‘I would understand it,’ he explained to me, ‘if it was on a Sunday evening but this is in the middle of the summer holidays while I’m sitting in my garden!’ His anxiety disorder aside, it is the comment about Sunday evenings that is most telling.

Another head teacher I knew (I still know her. It’s just that she is no longer a head teacher. It was just a phase she was going through) used to walk around her school pretending she knew what she was doing. ‘How would I be acting if I really knew what to do?’ is how she used to explain this to herself. She was especially reliant on the ‘fake it till you make it’ approach when it came to dealing with the school budget and the massive deficit she had inherited. ‘What would I do if I knew what I was doing?’ It was a strategy that helped her get the school back in the black within 18 months.

It’s a challenge being a head teacher. A big one. And unless you’re one of those arrogant types who refuses to believe that anything you do could ever go wrong and if it does it’s someone else’s fault anyway, it’s a really scary challenge.

I remember my very first day as an NQT. I bumped into the silver-haired avuncular deputy in the gents. ‘Nervous?’ he asked. ‘Yup,’ I said, thinking about all the dreams I had had in the weeks leading up to that day, those sweat-inducing dreams of being in a classroom and not having a clue what was going on as chaos raged around me. ‘Yup’, he continued, ‘me too. It never leaves you …’

Fear, then, seems to be a staple of life in a school, unlike many other common jobs (but akin to being a burglar according to the controversial Judge Bowers in Teeside recently who seemed impressed with the guts of the serial-burglaring drug addict up before him). Fear. Or F.E.A.R. – F*ck Everything And Run! – as it was once described to me. It takes bravery to overcome fear. If you never experience fear then how can you be brave? When you are a teacher, you have to face your fears and get yourself through every day. When you’re a head, you have to get yourself through every day and everyone else as well.

There is a great deal of talk these days about ‘super-heads’ and the need to succeed at all costs, success often measured solely in exam results and Ofsted headlines. It is a success that can come despite, not as a result of, the staff it would appear, based on what Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw seems to say, a man who seems to like the ‘carrot and stick’ approach to motivation using both objects with which to beat teachers. What would the epitome of courage in leadership Sir Ernest Shackleton say about that? At one point during his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, he confided to the captain of the Endurance, Frank Arthur Worsley, ‘Thank God I haven’t killed one of my men!’ to which the loyal captain replied, ‘We all know you have worked superhumanly to look after us.’ Shackleton’s gruff response is revealing when considering what real leadership is about: ‘Superhuman effort … isn’t worth a damn unless it achieves results.’

I asked a friend of mine, David Hanson who heads up the Independent Association of Prep Schools and a man who has had more than his fair share of educational leadership experience, what his approach was when it came to taking all staff with you as a school leader. Surely you just get rid of the dead weight holding a school back? Isn’t that the brave thing for a head to do?

‘Relentless support’, was his response, a phrase with a professionally pleasing oxymoronic irony to it. You just keep on supporting them until something happens.

Dave Harris displays a similar approach when it comes to bringing the best out of his staff. All his staff. The expectation was that he would come with a scythe and cut down all that was holding back the school from which Nottingham University Samworth Academy or NUSA grew out of. Many saw it as a failing school. Failing the students. Failing the community. Failing itself. Why would you hang on to what and who had been part of that failure?

Not sacking large numbers of people was Dave’s second brave act at NUSA. Taking the job was the first. Right from day one, Dave wanted to do it in a way that he felt was the right way, the only way. The pressure on him was purely about results but the job before him, Dave knew, was bigger than that. Focusing on the important things – ‘the marathon’ activities as he calls it – as well as chasing external goals such as ever-moving floor targets – ‘the sprint’ activities – took courage. Doing what you feel, deep down, is the right thing to do day after day as the powers that be circle round you like vultures surrounding a peaky-looking zebra takes every ounce of bravery you have and, in this book, Dave is honest about the toll that takes and the roller-coaster ride this approach to leadership really is.

Not that you would know if you ever met him. As Shackleton said, as a leader you keep your fears to yourself: ‘You often have to hide from them not only the truth, but your feelings about the truth. You may know that the facts are dead against you, but you mustn’t say so.’

This book then is Dave Harris’ opportunity to be honest. To share with the reader the stresses and strains of leading a school when you are brave enough to do it the only way you feel is the right way, despite what ‘they’ say and the pressure to do it ‘their’ way. In it, he is not telling you what to do as a school leader yourself. Not only is every school different, but every year in every school is different (or at least it should be, if you’re being brave about it). Rather he shares his own experiences and the thinking behind them – backed up by some pretty impressive academic research as you might expect from an academy that was the first to have a university as its co-sponsor – to inspire you not only to find your own brave path but to also to have fun doing it.

As Worsley said of Shackleton: ‘One would think he had never a care on his mind and he is the life and soul of half the skylarking and fooling in the ship.’ After all, as every brave head knows, education is far too important to be taken seriously.

Ian Gilbert Market Harborough October 2012

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Brave Leadership can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. My life is rich; I am surrounded by a wonderful family, great friends and amazing colleagues.

To my wife Esther, and my daughters Bethan and Megan go my deepest thanks; thanks for keeping me grounded, for helping me remember why I do all this and for always believing in me. I love you.

To Mum and Dad, for the richness of support and love you have always given me.

To Ian Gilbert and the ITLers for being there whether we were winning or losing and for always believing we would win in the end!

To Professor Di Birch and Alan Dewar for your generosity of spirit, intellect of mind and unstinting friendship.

To Angela Garry, you are an amazing PA, completely mad of course, but always there to support the journey; even when your own health has been in question NUSA always comes first!

Arjen, you have forever changed the way school meals are thought of – you don’t realise how amazing you are.

To Magic Mathew McFall, you have lifted me when I am down more times than you know. How one man can be the centre of so much wonder and positivity is a mystery to me.

To the staff, pupils and governors of NUSA who joined the journey with energy and enthusiasm.

To Willoughby on the Wolds Bowls Club who help me remember that bravery is sometimes switching the phone off!

Finally to the countless head teachers current and past without whose bravery the world would be a poorer place.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Foreword

Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION

1 Bravery is looking the inspectors in the eye

2 Bravery is keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs

BRAVE POLITICS

3 Bravery is pointing out how predicable politics can be

4 Bravery is remembering how stupid the system can be

5 Bravery is accepting slightly less than perfection

6 Bravery is having the strength to see KPIs for what they are

7 Bravery is not always dancing to the political tune

8 Bravery is having the strength to do things your way because deep down you know your way is the right way

BRAVE CURRICULUM

9 Bravery is giving teachers the space to encourage genius

10 Bravery is having the courage to have fun – and expecting your staff to do the same

11 Bravery is encouraging your staff to let go of the belief that their subject is the most important thing in a child’s life

BRAVE CHOICES

12 Bravery is keeping your eye on the marathon whilst you are performing the sprint

13 Bravery is not always being serious at times of great importance

14 Bravery is not changing things, at least some of the time

15 Bravery is not making transition to the new school all about the new school

16 Bravery is having jobs, rooms and people that no one else does

17 Bravery is believing that creating opportunities for success outside the classroom will lead to increased success within it

18 Bravery is dancing when others expect you to lecture

19 Bravery is knowing you have to feed their bodies as well as their minds and not cut costs in the process

20 Bravery is never using those commercially produced ‘success’ posters, trusting your students to come up with something ten times better and turning that into artwork around the school when they do

BRAVE LEADERSHIP

21 Bravery is knowing that school leadership is not all about you

22 Bravery is knowing what sort of leader you are

23 Bravery can be breaking the rules, but sometimes it is sticking to them

24 Bravery is focusing on your community’s success and not your own

25 Bravery is recognizing your faults

26 Bravery is creating the space for your plants to grow

27 Bravery is knowing yourself – and being honest enough to act accordingly

28 Bravery is serving the community around you

BRAVE RESEARCH

29 Bravery is not being scared to look research in the eye

30 Bravery is a number of factors

31 Bravery is knowing whether you’re leading from the front or the centre of the school

32 Bravery is not feeling you have to play the big, brave hero

33 Bravery is having a moral purpose

34 Bravery is not being scared to show your passion

35 Bravery is not accepting the status quo

36 Bravery is portraying yourself as the lead learner

37 Bravery is not being one-dimensional

38 Bravery is recognizing the balance between the who and the what

39 Bravery is admitting when you don’t know the meaning of a long word

40 Bravery is giving permission to people to give a new story

41 Bravery is reminding every adult that every child should be at the centre of the change

42 Bravery is giving the pupils real power to change their schooling

43 Bravery is releasing the trapped energy of your school

44 Bravery is accepting responsibility for having happy staff

45 Bravery is facing up to the fact that poor staff behaviour may be a reflection of poor leadership

46 Bravery is focusing on good teaching and helping teachers aspire to it

47 Bravery is making sure you meet parents more than halfway

48 Bravery is having the courage to involve the community in your success as a school leader

49 Bravery is not trying to find someone to blame

50 Bravery is giving your leadership away

51 Bravery is working with the people you have rather than the ones you wish you had

52 Bravery is sometimes being a simple principal

53 Bravery is knowing that a team is a collection of individuals

54 Bravery is knowing you don’t have to do it alone

55 Bravery is knowing when a banner is just a banner

56 Bravery is knowing the huge impact your actions will have on learning

57 Bravery is looking at yourself in the mirror (one of those magnifying ones that shows up everything!)

58 Bravery is collecting information rather than data

59 Bravery is making mistakes and then letting others know you made them

60 Bravery is carrying on despite the huge doubts you have in your ability

61 Bravery is rejecting the cheats, short cuts and snake oil that appear when you go in search of the quick win

62 Bravery is looking for arguments

63 Bravery is knowing that having authority is not the same as using authority

64 Bravery is you

Steps to Being Brave

Bibliography

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

1 BRAVERY IS LOOKING THE INSPECTORS IN THE EYE

‘Well?’ said Laura, my Head of English.

‘I’m not allowed to tell you yet,’ I croaked, trying to hold back the emotion. ‘Not yet but …’ My voice trailed away. It was too much to bear. I leant against the doorframe to stop myself from falling, desperately, unsuccessfully, trying to hold back my tears.

Hardly the behaviour of a brave head.

Imagine what would have happened if the inspectors hadn’t just given us ‘Good’ on all four counts! Good for behaviour. Good for teaching. Good for achievement. Good for leadership. Good for overall effectiveness. For such a small word, ‘good’ can have a very sizeable effect, especially when it was the word that you know you deserved but you feared you would never see.

All the headlines about the new Ofsted inspection regime seemed to suggest that the odds were stacked against them appreciating all that we had achieved. Despite how far we had come in such a short time, despite surpassing our ‘floor targets’ to make us one of the most improved schools in England, despite so many other successes great and small that were happening each and every day of our journey through the hard work of all our staff, children and the community at large. Despite all of that, I felt the inspectors would come in with their reports already at least partly written, that all our effort would come to nothing and I would be reduced to scanning the Times Educational Supplement job pages. The night before the inspectors arrived I emailed a respected friend and described my emotions to him: ‘I feel as if I’m going into a football match where the best I can achieve is a draw,’ I complained in my pre-inspection blues.

But I was wrong. Delightedly so. They did see what we were achieving and, even more importantly, they saw how we were going about achieving it:

Senior Leaders have been highly effective in driving up standards, and as a result the quality of teaching has improved and students now make good progress. Since the opening of the academy leaders have been determined to be reflective and researched-based, appreciating the need to make rapid improvement whilst not losing sight of building for long-term success.

My belief in what I felt was the right way forward for this school, and my professional obstinacy in sticking to that path, despite the seemingly endless pressure to do things ‘their way’, was paying off. Again. Emotions such as elation, depression, hope, despair, the feeling as if you are trying to move a mountain using a toothpick – that is what being a head is all about. Facing those emotions with a sense of self-belief drawn from experience, observation and research, backed up by a gut instinct and applied carefully, methodically and wholeheartedly despite everything that is said and done by those who see things differently – that is what being a brave head is all about. This book is my way of helping you to see that, with bravery, you can achieve practically anything. It is the book I wish I had in my hands in my darkest hours. I hope for you, when you are up against it and especially when you are feeling under pressure to lead a school along a route you know isn’t right, that it will act to reassure you and that it will give you the courage to be brave.

With bravery, you can achieve practically anything.

STEPS TO BEING BRAVE

Make a list of the ten things you most fear might happen at your school.

2 BRAVERY IS KEEPING YOUR HEAD WHEN ALL ABOUT YOU ARE LOSING THEIRS

I recently found this quote from a fellow head teacher describing his feelings about his role:

Sometimes the weight of living in this atmosphere of responsibility, work and weariness seems almost more than I can bear. I feel like a bird in a cage, beating against the bars, longing to be free, but baffled everywhere.

Sound familiar? Have you ever felt like a caged bird? Have you ever beaten against the bars and been ‘baffled’? I know such sentiments resonated strongly with me when I first read it. Or what about pushing water uphill? Ever tried that? Or squaring a circle? Or plaiting fog? Tasks like these are nothing when compared to the overriding task we’ll look at within the pages of this book – that of being a head teacher in a school in the twenty-first century.

Leading a school is one of the greatest privileges on earth: to stand at the front of a group of highly creative professionals and equally creative – and equally challenging – young people, and be their leader, their representative, the person who can help bring out their best or simply stand in the way of them achieving their potential. This is a role that fills me with awe and respect for every other head teacher who cares about doing his or her job well. It is what makes me not only feel humble each day but also committed to doing my best, day after day.

But, sadly, being a head teacher can be one of the most desperately soul-destroying jobs an educational professional can do. And I say that as a head teacher with eleven years of experience in the role across a variety of different schools, not to mention the fact that I am by various measures a ‘successful’ head teacher, one who has at least succeeded in steering schools along the desired path. I used to find that my outlook on the role would fluctuate on a weekly basis. There would be good weeks and there would be challenging weeks and then there would be the occasional stinker of a week where you would really ask yourself if you were up to it and, even if you were, was it all worth it anyway? Surely there must be easier jobs out there: brain surgeon maybe, or Chief Inspector of Schools? These days, however, such fluctuations in my job satisfaction occur many times across the same day. I can start the day on a high, be on my knees by lunchtime and be back on top of the world by teatime. Or the other way round. A good leader isn’t marked out by not experiencing such trials and tribulations. That’s part of the day job in many ways. The good leader, indeed the great leader, is marked out by the way in which his or her internal roller-coaster of self-doubt, negativity and sheer desperation is rendered invisible to the outside world. What staff, pupils and parents wish to see is the proverbial swan gliding effortlessly across the millpond (OK, in my case, more oil tanker than swan but you get the idea). For me, this is where bravery comes in. In fact, if you want a good working definition, it would be quite simply the individual’s ability to maintain high external optimism at times of lowest internal optimism. Nothing to it really.

If you were to chart the rise and fall across a day of the internal optimism levels of a head teacher it would look something, worryingly, like this:

And that’s on a good day.

So, whilst all that is going on in the head teacher’s internal world, what should the external world look like? This is what people want and, indeed, deserve to see:

Honesty is what you show when the line remains above the midpoint. Bravery is what you show when it dips below. These, then, are the times when the greatest display of bravery is demanded of me: