Leadership with a Moral Purpose E-Book

Will Ryan

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Seitenzahl: 304

Beschreibung

This book gives all primary heads - aspiring, newly appointed or those for whom the phrase 'There must be something more than this...!' rings a bell - the ideas, techniques, tools and direction to turn their schools Inside-Out and lead them from the heart and soul. What's more it will help give Heads the confidence to do those things they know are right because they are right for the children, right for the staff and right for the community.

Leseprobe

First published by

Crown House Publishing Ltd

Crown Buildings, Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales, SA33 5ND, UK

www.crownhouse.co.uk

and

Crown House Publishing Company LLC

6 Trowbridge Drive, Suite 5, Bethel, CT 06801-2858, USA

www.CHPUS.com

© Will Ryan 2008

The right of Will Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First printed 2008. Reprinted 2008

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to Crown House Publishing Limited.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-184590084-7eBook ISBN 978-184590426-5

LCCN 2007938972

Printed and bound in the UK by

Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion

For my Mum.

Who used to tell me that I should write a book.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

Less of a book—more of a campaign

Chapter 1

The Inside Out School Leader

Chapter 2

How to Develop an Inside Out Vision

Creating a Future for Children

Chapter 3

Creating a Vision for the School Curriculum

Chapter 4

Creating a Vision for Creative Pupils with Creative Teachers in Creative Classrooms

Chapter 5

Creating a Vision for the Best Classrooms

Chapter 6

Creating a Vision for Developing Positive Attitudes to the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning

Chapter 7

Creating a Vision for Inclusion

Creating a Future for Adults

Chapter 8

Creating a Vision for the Professional Learning Community

Chapter 9

Creating a Vision for Leadership

Chapter 10

Creating a Vision for Parents as Partners

Chapter 11

Putting the Pieces Together

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

I offer my thanks to my family and many friends and colleagues who have influenced this work in some way. They include:

Daniel and Christina.

Ian Gilbert and the wonderful and inspirational associates of Independent Thinking Limited.

All at Crown House Publishing.

Judy Dobson, Simon Parton, Simon Priest, Adela Bingham, Kevin Norton, Matthew Sorby, Joanne Walker, Bronwen Watson and a range of other fabulous colleagues past and present in Rotherham’s primary schools and within their School Effectiveness Service.

And especially, Jackie, with whom I share many passionate debates about primary education which can rapidly move from the profound to the ridiculous and back again.

This book seeks to do the same.

Foreword

Brave heads; lazy teachers—the way I see it, those two things are what it will take to transform education in this country.

Lazy teachers because we need professionals in the classroom who are prepared to stand back and help children learn rather than lead from the front the whole time. They are the ones who put the effort into planning and preparing for opportunities where children can lead their own learning. ‘The guide from the side not the sage on the stage’ as it was once put. (If you’re involved in setting up a new school and you find yourself ordering a job lot of interactive whiteboards then this particular revolution has obviously passed you by.)

Brave heads because we need school leaders who have the strength of mind and the sheer bloody determination to say, ‘This is the way it is. This is what I know—and can prove—is right for my school so this is the way it’s going to be round here. And any amount of government directives, local authority hectoring or rantings in the national—or indeed local—press will not stop me’.

After all, they need you more than you need them.*

But first, no book on leadership would be complete with out a reference to Napoleon so here goes.

It has been said that he divided his generals into four types:

1. Lazy

2. Active

3. Clever

4. Stupid

If you’re reading this book as an acting headteacher think about your staff and where you would put them on active/lazy—clever/stupid spectrum (And if you’re not a head maybe you could do it with family members or governors or pets …)

As far as Napoleon was concerned the worst type of generals were the stupid active ones. These are the sorts of people who have dumb ideas but, if that wasn’t bad enough, to make matters worse, they act on them. Far better to have someone who is dumb but lazy, as they cause no harm to anyone. The clever–active ones are not ideal either as such people are always coming up with ideas you can’t pooh-pooh (because they are actually quite good ideas) and then always following through on them, to the frustration and exhaustion of the rest of the troops. No, the ideal position for a trusty lieutenant, the sort of deputy you really need (and remember, a head makes things happen; a deputy makes sure things happen) is in the clever–lazy quadrant. Here the quality of the ideas is matched only by the desire for someone else to do the work. Or delegation as we call it these days.

Lazy teachers realise their job isn’t to teach but to get kids to learn. There’s a difference. ‘I taught my dog to whistle.’ ‘Why can’t it whistle then?’ ‘I said I taught it. I didn’t say it had learned,’ as the cartoon strip goes.

Shifting from teaching to learning is quite a sea change for many teachers in many schools. Developing bravery in headteachers is a different thing altogether, yet as we travel around the country working with schools and school leaders, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we need to do anything we can to encourage heads to be bold and confident.

Some of the very best headteachers I have seen—and as an anecdotal aside and one that is sure to get me into trouble, these tend to be female primary heads—are the ones saying to their staff, ‘This is the way we do things. It’s for the kids. If the inspector/advisor/parent/visitor/Daily Mail doesn’t like it send them my way and I will explain.’ In my eyes this is great leadership because, for one thing, it takes the pressure off the individual teacher to do what they think the observer is looking for as well as removing the fear of ‘getting into trouble’, a fear that seems to haunt so many staff.

So, how do you become brave? Are you born fighting the establishment or is it something you acquire out of desperation, resolution or something else that drives you?

One factor seems to be knowledge. Get the information you need to back up your hunches. Neuroscience is a great starting point. One primary head came to an INSET that I was leading at a secondary with Dr Andrew Curran, fellow Independent Thinking Ltd Associate, author of The Little Book of Big Stuff About the Brain and a practising paediatric neurologist at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. When we asked the head why he was there he said he wanted to collect ‘ammunition’. He wanted to be able to stand up to the inspectors and say not, ‘We do things like this because we think it’s right but we do these things because we know it’s right and here’s the neuroscience to back it up.’ The good thing about brain research is that, on the whole, it does back up good teaching. For example, one thing I say to reassure teachers in my INSET work is that if they are worried about having fun in the classroom when the inspectors come to call then they must remember that they are not having fun, they are (deep breath) using positive emotions to access the limbic system to optimise dopamine secretion to facilitate autonomic learning.

You could always copy that out on a bit of paper and if anyone ever criticises you for having laughter in your classrooms you can whip it out and show them where to put it.

Something else that seems to help is to have the confidence to pick and choose from the multitude of initiatives that rain down upon a head’s desk on a daily basis. Each year when someone from BBC Radio 4 grabs a headteacher topping the ‘most improved’ league table and asks them the secret of their success, the same theme always comes through: ‘I don’t do all that I’m told to do.’ And there seem to be many strategies for helping here from the ‘if it’s that important someone will chase me for not having done it’ to the ingenious notion of the shelf with the bin underneath it at one end, to catch the unread files that have been added to the shelf at the other end and then worked their way along as more new files have been added.

Another thing that helps gird the loins of any headteacher when faced with the onslaught from outside is the focus of this book by Will Ryan. It’s to do with knowing your overriding single moral purpose, your true north, the reason why you came into teaching in the first place. And once you know it, to hang onto it and to make it brick and flesh in the school you are helping to create.

When you work for a bank or multinational oil company or a high street retailer, no matter how far up the ladder you go, you will never be able to re-mould that organisation in your own image, to put your own identifiable stamp on it, to make it the living testimony to your own dreams and aspirations of making the world a better place. The best you can hope for is that one day you’ll have your own office and in the meantime you get to choose the colour of the gonk on top of your PC.

As a school leader though, you do have a universe all of your own to shape and bend to your will. Even if you choose not to do this, you are doing it anyway, for better or for worse. But with the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of young people in your two hands, you’d better make it for better.

Also in your two hands now is this book, a book that we hope will help you refocus on that single moral purpose that drove you into the profession all those years ago, encourage you to ‘screw your courage to the sticking place’ and bring the best out of your children, your staff and yourself.

Churchill once said that ‘headteachers have powers with which Prime Ministers have not been invested.’ That’s you that is, more powerful than a prime minister. But, as Spiderman’s dad once said, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’

So, be bold, be brave, be true to your vision and use it well.

Ian Gilbert

Suffolk

April 2008

* According to the BBC News website in September 2006, ‘Schools face increasing difficulties finding head teachers, with only 4% of teachers wanting to do the job within the next five years, a survey suggests. The General Teaching Council for England predicts that four out of 10 vacancies will be unfilled by 2011…’ The GTC survey of 3,665 teaching staff also found 34% of heads wanted to retire within five years.

Introduction

Less of a book—more of a campaign

This book shows primary school leaders how to create vision and lead their school to an outstanding future by turning their school inside out. The time is right. We must grasp the opportunity—there is no time to lose.

There are so many positive elements to primary education in the twenty-first century. Investment has been high. Results show we have the fastest improving educational system in the industrial world. Teachers are now better technically and technologically equipped than ever before. Schools are staffed by dedicated professionals who want to make a substantial difference for pupils in both the short and the long term. The vast majority of pupils come to school because they want to and because they want to succeed.

However, there are equally elements that are deeply disturbing. Unicef state that the children in our schools are amongst the unhappiest. The independent Primary Review, chaired by Robin Alexander, tells us that over-testing has had a significant detrimental effect. Social mobility remains too low. A child’s life chances are determined largely by parental aspirations and where they are born. The curriculum in many of our schools remains subject and content driven and based upon a model that goes back to the nineteenth century.

These introductory notes are being written in the week that celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the Education Reform Act of 1988. Wave after wave of government initiative has followed since this time creating a primary education system dominated by compliance and fear. Schools feel compelled to implement the latest government directive and they are fearful of a fall in results, an Ofsted inspection or Local Authority intervention.

In short the pressures all come from the outside into the school. The time has come to turn the process inside out. Those who have the knowledge and understanding of a school and its community should claim autonomy and turn primary education inside out. They should lead the school to a brighter and better future through their own minds, hearts and knowledge of the community they are serving. They should use the best of the outside—without being a government puppet. The balance of power needs to shift towards those who have the expertise, the passion, the energy and the belief to do the right thing.

The book regularly uses the term inside out school. So right at the start let us describe the concept. An inside out school is driven by a clear moral purpose. The school leaders are passionate and energetic people with a clear set of values. They have unwarranted optimism and believe their children can succeed. The have a clear understanding of their pupils and recognise that they have just one childhood. They also have an understanding of the community they are growing up within. From this school leaders can create a vision of what the school needs both in the long and short term. This vision is articulated and disseminated to all. Expectations are high and tolerance of underachievement is low. Adults and children know that they can improve, have a duty to improve and a duty to help improve others. The school systematically moves towards its vision through carefully devised strategic plans and appropriate systems which sometimes involves national strategy materials and frameworks. The inside out school monitors and evaluates its progress against its own personally devised measures and success criteria.

Our best schools have already done this, and many of them have leaders with maverick qualities. However this book is not about rebellion. It is about developing a vision and creating excellent schools that meet the full needs of their community in the present whilst sowing the seeds for an even brighter future.

So the book has the fundamental purpose of helping primary school leaders create a clear three-year vision of the future. I believe that this is an important and vital activity. Too often the vision for the future sits in the mind of the head teacher or other school leaders and is guessed at by others. This book argues that vision should be clear within school documentation and disseminated and articulated to all. The book provides the background and the materials to carry out the process.

There are key areas where a school must have a vision for the future and these are reflected in different chapters in the book. In short they are:

•  The curriculum and teaching and learning

•  Developing positive attitudes and the social and emotional aspects of learning

•  Inclusion

•  The professional learning community

•  Leadership

•  Parents as partners

Each chapter provides background information which leads to a reality check before constructing a broad three-year vision for the future. This is followed by a statement about the progress the school will make over a one-year period. The visioning process places a key emphasis on developing key systems to make the vision work and establishing targets and measures that will be key indicators of success.

The materials are tried and tested and they have helped schools to become judged as outstanding by Ofsted. They were outstanding because they provided precisely what the pupils and the community needed, and those employed there sought to genuinely inspire young lives rather than be an implementer of frameworks. In short they successfully turned their schools inside out.

The text is less of a book and more of a campaign. For thirty-three years I have lived and researched primary education, and a while ago, Ian Gilbert— who is one of Britain’s most influential and inspirational speakers on educational matters—challenged me to write the book that only I could write. It incorporates all that I believe in and also a wealth of stories from my time as a teacher, head teacher, inspector and Local Authority adviser. Each chapter starts from such a story because I think that there is so much to be learned from them. This is the book that only I could have written. I hope you enjoy it and that you use it to help you lead your school from the inside out.

Chapter 1

The Inside Out School Leader

Never doubt the capacity of a small group of people to change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

The Prologue

If You Scratch a Good Head …You Find a Moral Purpose

Most primary schools are extremely popular. They are served by some amazing people who do amazing things. There are head teachers who will always walk the extra mile for any child, even those who cause them the greatest heartache. There are teachers who care deeply about their class and constantly seek to inspire pupils. When Ofsted arrive positive questionnaires are returned by parents. Research shows that the primary school and the GP surgery are the most respected organisations within a locality. Confidence should be high but too often school leaders live in a world dominated by fear and compliance. Heads fear a drop in results, not meeting their targets (which are often over-inflated anyway), league tables, the call from Ofsted and a media which believes that when results improve the tests are getting easier.

As a head teacher I was once summoned to the telephone to talk to a reporter from the Daily Mail. I answered with trepidation, anticipating that this could only mean that they were chasing a bad news story.

‘Hello,’ said the reporter. ‘Could you confirm that you are the head teacher of Brinsworth Manor Junior School?’ My nervous voice squeaked out the words, ‘Yes, I am. How can I help?’ ‘Well, we are chasing up a story about the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, who we understand is a former pupil of the school.’

I still feared the worst and said, ‘What is it that you want to know?’ ‘Well,’ continued the reporter, ‘We have heard that when he was in his final year at the school he grew rather fond of a girl in his class. However, the girl passed her 11-plus and went on to the grammar school and John Prescott failed the exam and went to the local secondary modern school. We have heard that John wrote her a love letter prior to them separating declaring undying love, and that the girl read it with a tear in her eye, corrected it and sent it back. We need to know if there is still anyone in the school who could confirm or deny that story.’

The event was nonsensical and I still don’t know whether the story was true or false. However, I have no words to describe the sense of fear I felt during those moments. The Daily Mail does not have a reputation for being the best friend to state education in a Labour controlled authority.

This first chapter of this book speaks about the enormous outside pressures placed upon primary schools and their leaders over recent years, and how schools have felt compelled to introduce government initiatives regardless of their situation or the community they serve. Too often this led to a one-size-fits-all model. Excellence and Enjoyment supposedly signalled the arrival of a new golden opportunity of personalisation with its promise to take the burden off primary schools. A government minister, addressing an audience I was a member of, stated that the government should provide cash, support and silence.This terrified me. I feared the teaching profession may not be good enough to cope with the new freedom and autonomy. I shouldn’t have worried. Directors of the Primary National Strategy came and went and government meddling picked up pace.

Most teachers join the profession to make a difference for the future. They are energised by a compelling moral purpose to do the right things for children. It is time to recapture that moral purpose. There is a very real world out there. Unicef reported in February 2007 that British children are the unhappiest at school, more likely to be obese, smoke, drink and have sex at a younger age. This clearly suggests that change is needed. Schools need to consider the holistic needs of their children.

Primary schools have coped with wave after wave of government initiatives since 1988. As a consequence too many schools have become organisations that have been managed rather than led. Head teachers have been managing the implementation of government initiatives rather than thinking about the specific needs of their school and community. The professional life of many of our school leaders has felt out of control. This book is about recapturing control and developing a vision of a brighter future based upon the needs of the community the school is serving. Once the vision is described, it is the job of school leaders to ensure that the journey to a better future is achieved.

This chapter will help you to reverse the trend of everything coming from the outside into your school and start the process of turning it inside out. There are four key steps to take:

Step 1: Take control of your professional life

Step 2: Look at the needs of your children and establish the moral purpose

Step 3: Refuse to compromise your principles

Step 4: Model human excellence

The text urges you to be brave, to do the right things for your community and to make a lasting difference for the future.

Step 1: Take control of your professional life

It is 3 a.m. and it seems as though the whole world is asleep. But you are wide awake and your mind is racing. You are thinking about Mrs Humphries who is still accusing you of picking on her daughter Amber-Louise.

You are thinking about the Local Authority inspector who watched the direst lesson on stressed vowels within word-level work. You are now firmly convinced that stressed vowels are in fact a most uncomfortable medical condition.

You are thinking about whether the layered targets within the Raising Attainment Plan within the Improving Schools Programme are going to enable you to set numeric targets based on average point scores that will help you to reach the Fischer Family Trust D predictions for the boys in the new cohort.

If you lie awake at night swimming against the tide of these thoughts, then stop and think.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Why is it that you decided to join the teaching profession or become a school leader? You are intelligent, creative and talented. Once upon a time, maybe when you were much younger, you chose this job and no other job. All the things which are now keeping you awake were not among the reasons for joining this profession. This is a profession which you should be proud to belong to—a profession that should be changing lives for the better and shaping our future. Too many of our school leaders are experiencing the sensations of outside in school leadership. The influences are coming from the outside, whether it is the Local Authority, Ofsted or the government. They are coming from outside and determining what happens inside your organisation. These influences could be controlling every move you make in your professional role. And now you are being kept awake by these outside forces. Don’t let them drain away your energy and life blood. Stop and think:

Why?

Why?

Why?

What made you join this profession in the first place? The odds are that it was due to a moral purpose that came from deep inside you. This moral purpose formed your principles and values and was truly energising. It may have been so powerful that it made you feel as sharp as an axe. It is now time to go back inside yourself and find that moral purpose once more. Rediscover it and bring it from the inside and wear it on the outside. Stand up and be counted for what you genuinely believe.

Once upon a time a Rabbi was asked what he thought it would be like when he reached the Kingdom of God. He replied: ‘There is only one thing I know about what it will be like when I arrive at the Kingdom of God. I am not going to be asked “Why weren’t you Moses?” I am going to be asked, “Were you fully you?”’

Our greatest school leaders have four great personal traits or qualities. These are interconnected. The overriding quality is passion. This in turn provides energy, self-belief and a desire to create the right bonds. However, these qualities alone will not create outstanding schools. Organisational qualities are also needed. This comes through the development of strategy, a desire to add values and have the clear capacity to communicate, articulate and disseminate information. This is reflected in the diagram below.

Personal traits

1. Passion. Great school leaders have discovered a reason, a consuming, energising, almost obsessive purpose that drives them forward. It galvanises them to become bigger, bolder people and sustains them through difficult times. Inside out school leaders have the passion to make a lasting difference to a school and the people it serves. They are also passionate about the way in which this will be achieved. This passion is driven by the fact that they have a love for their school and community and therefore have a burning desire to do the right thing for them. There has never been a great leader who has been devoid of passion. Outstanding schools are created by passionate leaders. It is passion that will make the head teacher rise early and stay late in order to achieve their goal. And this is a goal that is owned personally by them—and certainly not a goal of the Local Authority or central government.

2. Energy. The passion to create an outstanding school provides energy. People of excellence grab every opportunity to shape things. They have an edge to them, an impression of dynamism that gives them an air of success. Research has shown quite simply that successful people do more than their less successful counterparts. Consider every single person who impresses you and you will see a man or woman or action. The best inside out leaders live as if obsessed by the wondrous opportunities each day may bring and the recognition that the one thing nobody has enough of is time. Great success comes to them from the physical, intellectual and spiritual energy that allows them to make the most of what they have. Strong self-centred people use their energy wisely moving in a clear straightforward manner.

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. Slay your doubts and demons with good old fashioned action.

William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

3. Belief. Whilst great leaders have a passion for change and considerable energy they also need belief. They recognise that nothing is forced upon them and they are not simply at the mercy of government or Local Authority dictate. They pick up the gauntlet of the challenges ahead, and meet the challenges full on, valuing every experience along the way. This concept is not very scientific, but if we believe in magic we will live a magical life and if we believe that our life is constrained by narrow limits then those limits will become real. What we believe to be true about primary education and what we believe to be possible within our school will make it true and make it happen. Whilst many people are passionate about primary education too many of them have limited belief in who they are and what they can do, and therefore they seldom take the actions that could turn their dream into reality. The inside out school leader has absolute belief that they will succeed and will demonstrate resilient perseverance until they do. As Henry Ford said: ‘Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you are probably right.’

In short, inside out leaders:

•  Define the goal

•  Continually visualise the successful outcome

•  Act proactively and create opportunities with the right people

•  Anticipate positive responses

•  Are bold and imaginative in their approach to reach people and make progress

•  Never entertain self-doubt

•  Are excited about the inevitable success

4. Bonding power. People of excellence are inspirational. However, they also need access to inspiration themselves. Creating change can be lonely even with strong passion, loads of energy and high selfbelief. People of excellence seek out like-minded people and organisations. They learn from them and build networks where ideas are shared, developed and refined. These networks provide both ongoing and fresh impetus as the school drives forward.

Organisational traits

1. Strategy. Having a passion and genuine belief will never be enough. Passion and belief can propel you towards excellence but a clear operational strategy will always be required if you are to succeed. Passion and belief may launch your spaceship but the danger is that it will start careering all over the heavens. Effective primary schools led by inside out school leaders are built on a clear educational vision backed by a strong strategic plan of how to achieve that vision. They create a path, a clear sense of logical progression and a plan to make the best use of the resources they have available. The purpose of this book is to create the vision.

2. Clarity of values. Values are highly significant to the inside out school leader. Values are specific belief systems about what is right or wrong for our lives. They are often judgements about what makes life worth living. These values become a code of conduct for all that the school does. Inside out school leaders consider what values they want children to have for their present and future lives and also which values they want teachers to have, demonstrate and model on a daily basis. These could include tolerance, kindness, loyalty and self-discipline. The inside out school states explicitly what these values are and develops programmes to ensure that they develop consistently across the schools. There are high expectations that staff in the organisation should model these values persistently and consistently, and they fully realise that values are manifested through action and not rhetoric.

3. Collaboration. Nearly all people of excellence have an extraordinary ability to create the right bonds within an organisation. They recognise that the need to connect with and develop a rapport with others is essential. They create the right collaboration for the right purpose rather than cope with historical models. School leadership can be a very lonely existence despite the fact that leaders are surrounded by people. To be successful requires developing lasting and living bonds with others; without that, any success will be shallow and short-lived. Too often schools that are deemed to be effective crumble once the head teacher moves away. This is often due to fact that too much emphasis was placed on the autonomy of the head teacher. The inside out school leader works hard to create bonds that empower others within the organisation to drive the vision forward.

4. Communication. The people who are most successful in life and shape future lives are masters of communication with others—they have the capacity to communicate vision or quest. Too many school leaders have a clear vision for primary education but lack the capacity to effectively articulate it to others. Mastery of communication is what makes a great parent, artist or politician. In short, the singer and the song come together in perfect harmony.

You most likely chose to join this profession for ideological reasons. Maybe it was because you recognised that children only receive one childhood and you wanted to help make it magical. Alternatively, you wanted to ensure that pupils would get a better education than you received in the past. Maybe you were inspired by a particular teacher who ignited a passion for teaching and learning. It could also be that you were driven by social injustice.

If social injustice was the driving force then don’t believe it has been eradicated. There is now clear evidence that whilst Britain has the fastest improving educational system in the industrial world, your life chances are still largely determined by where you are born.

In the twenty-first century this should not be the case. With the easy access of modern technology this should genuinely be the era when the lad in trainers from ‘Bash Street School’ can rise to the fore. In the modern world knowledge is power and a route out of the poverty trap. During the industrial revolution it was hard to amass wealth if you had no money to invest in the first place. In the Middle Ages the only way to join the landed aristocracy was through birthright. Today we are in the era of high speed technology and inclusive education. Every child has the opportunity to be successful. However, it too often fails to happen because of low self-esteem and low aspiration.

Inside out school leaders take a close look at the needs of their children and establish a clear moral purpose.

Step 2: Look at the needs of your children and establish the moral purpose

The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him. The unreasonable man adapts the surrounding conditions to himself. All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw

A few years ago I was walking through the centre of a northern town. It had recently hit the national press. William Hague, who was the then leader of the Conservative Party, had grown up in the town and during holiday times had worked for the family’s soft drinks business. This was clearly thirsty work and Hague claimed that he used to go into the town centre on a Friday night and drink up to fourteen pints of beer. One resident had written to the local newspaper to say that he was going to reproduce this act that day. He would find the best real ale in the Mail Coach, get the best game of darts in the Effingham Arms and find the cheapest beers in The Rhinoceros. However, the local wag went on to say that if William Hague did come back to the town to drink his fourteen pints of beer the locals would still call him ‘a bloody great Jessie’. On this particular day I was observing a young mother with a toddler in a buggy. They came to a stop outside a fish and chip shop and the mother bent over the buggy, removed the cigarette from her mouth and said to the youngster, ‘I’ve told you, you can’t have no bleeding chips. Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.’ I believe that this is a level of poverty that should not exist in the twenty-first century. I am also aware of the significant challenges this pupil will potentially bring to his school in the near future. It seems inevitable that he will arrive with low self-esteem and very little aspiration.

Let me be clear at this point that I regard high standards in literacy and numeracy as essential. This is not a text promoting low expectations. I believe that education is the only way out of the poverty trap for many of our youngsters.

However, too much of what is now taught in our schools in the name of literacy and numeracy is in the form of academic exercises which can be easily forgotten. I appear to have reached the age of 53 and still do not know what a pronoun is. This is despite regular beatings by the ‘Sisters of Mercy’ at the ‘Roman Catholic School of Hopeless Cases’. The teaching of Latinate grammar did not engage me or stimulate me with a desire to become a better pupil.