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- Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
- Kategorie: Bildung
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
This Much I Know about Love Over Fear is a compelling account of leading a values-driven school where people matter above all else. Weaving autobiography with an account of his experience of headship, John Tomsett explains how, in an increasingly pressurised education system, he creates the conditions in which staff and students can thrive. Too many of our state schools have become scared, soulless places. John Tomsett draws on his extensive experience and knowledge and calls for all those involved in education to find the courage to develop a leadership-wisdom which emphasises love over fear. Creating a truly great school takes patience. Ultimately, truly great schools don't suddenly exist. You grow great teachers first, who, in turn, grow a truly great school. There is a huge fork in the road for head teachers: one route leads to executive headship across a number of schools and the other takes head teachers back into the classroom to be the head teacher. John strongly believes that if the head teacher is not teaching, or engaged in helping others to improve their teaching, in their school, then they are missing the point. The only thing head teachers need obsess themselves with is improving the quality of teaching, both their colleagues' and their own. This Much I Know about Love Over Fear is an authentic personal narrative of teaching, leadership and discovering what really matters. It gets to the heart of what is valuable in education and offers advice for those working in schools.
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Praise for This Much I Know about Love Over Fear
At a time when so many books on school leadership are written by people who have fled the classroom, who no longer stalk the corridors or dread wet lunchtimes, here’s a book that oozes authenticity. John Tomsett reminds us of why great teaching matters so much and why great school leadership has to be built on classroom credibility. It’s a book that is wise, funny, often deeply moving. It has taught me a lot – not least about myself, my own teaching and my leadership. Recommended.
Geoff Barton, head teacher, King Edward VI School
John Tomsett is a very rare kind of head teacher, and it’s no surprise he’s written a book that’s equally rare, in that it is a book written by someone currently within the education system, about the education system, that is both apposite and well written. He writes with conviction and experience, both of which are necessary to say anything useful in a crowded field of books that are anodyne, vacuous or thinly disguised polemics.
John Tomsett the teacher comes through in every page; someone who still teachers, when many heads do not, and best of all still loves it. Loves it enough to still do it, to think about it, to write about it. It’s often said that everyone has a book within them; sadly it’s often not a good book, but this is a very good book indeed. Nothing can replace the experience of being in command, but a close second for anyone interested in accessing John’s decades of wisdom, is to read about it here. Broad ranging yet still specific enough to burst with utility, if every head teacher were to read this, that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. And if anyone else in education were to read it too, that wouldn’t be bad either. His school is a case study in putting your money where your mouth is, and I wish we had more people like him wherever children need an education.
Tom Bennett, founder of researchED, teacher, and columnist for the TES
I’ve rated John Tomsett as a head teacher and a commentator on education for some years now, so I had high expectations when I sat down to read this book. I have to say it exceeded them. It’s full of the characteristic warmth, wit and wisdom readers of John’s ‘This much I know …’ blog will already be familiar with.
Through autobiographical vignettes John shows clearly where his strong sense of moral purpose, as a school leader and as a human being, is grounded. He then moves to the educational focus of each chapter, and concludes with practical ‘This much I know about…’ bullet-point advice.
I found the book readable, refreshing and uplifting. John’s conviction that improving the quality of teaching (and not simply focusing on the performance of teachers) should be the key focus of leadership is based on his experience and his personal knowledge informed by his extensive reading. It has much to offer teachers, and leaders at all levels, and it allows a fascinating insight into how this remarkable leader was formed, and subsequently developed. John lives the values he espouses.
So I’m sorry the professional golfing career didn’t work out, John.
But I’m not, really ….
Jill Berry, education consultant, former head teacher
What a stroke of luck that John Tomsett never quite realised his dream to be a golf professional or a full-time sports journalist, but became a teacher instead. His success in the classroom and in running a school is not measured just by the fortunate pupils and colleagues who have worked with and learned from John. His influence is much wider. His ‘This much I know …’ blogs and ubiquitous presence on social media, his brilliant moving and inspirational talks are spell binding. In short order he has become a national educational phenomenon, with his roots firmly in the rich soil of the classroom, staffroom and school.
His debut book shows why. Beautifully written; John, as you’d expect of an outstanding teacher, is a great story-teller, thinks aloud and in the process causes others to think too.
A unique educational autobiography, it will rank alongside those of the likes of John Holt, Ted Sizer and Paulo Freire, as one you’ll know exactly where it is on your bookshelf. You’ll keep going back – a must read for all teachers, for the staff library and for future leaders, as well as for any post sixteen students who should consider teaching as still the best career to have.
Sir Tim Brighouse, former London schools commissioner and chief education officer for Birmingham and Oxfordshire
I loved this book. It is eclectic, human, very moving at times and filled with wisdom, knowledge and care. It combines biography, the distillation of experience and a wide canvas of research – a book for the head and the heart. John Tomsett has become a very important voice in education in Britain and this book shows why. He has great experience, knowledge and wisdom, all of which he shares, but it is the passion that will keep me coming back to it. This much I know about reading John Tomsett’s book – I am unlikely to read a better education book this year.
David Cameron, The Real David Cameron Ltd
How could you not love this man? John Tomsett’s book is a personal account of his own learning, modestly declaring ‘This much I know about love over fear’, drawing on his own experience, his family, his childhood, his teaching, his leadership, his poetry – and his golf. Through it all his values shine with the heat of a blast-furnace: ‘respect, honesty and kindness’. Fear plays a minor role in this story; love overwhelms it.
Tomsett shows that love can be tough love. He may be nurturing and supportive as a head, but he is also demanding. However good a teacher you are, you need to be even better. He gives specific examples to illustrate how students can be taught to plan and write better essays, how seeing the head teacher engage a tough group of disengaged boys changed the culture in his school, how metaphors can be used to explain key concepts like ‘film genre theory’, how performance management can be performance development.
Some of the research Tomsett cites is a bit cherry-picked for my taste, and some of it treated a bit uncritically: not all research really proves what it claims, you can usually find some research to back up any belief, and some research findings can be interpreted to support conclusions that are not really what was found. But I am a pedantic research nerd and his overall message is sound. More important, it is presented in a way that will connect with teachers and bring to life the research and its applications to their practice.
When you work in education it is easy to get depressed and frustrated about things. Teaching is such a hard job; even doing it badly is demanding, but trying to do it well is an unending Herculean trial. Seeing – and sharing – the challenges that some young people face, and daily having to live with your impotence to remove them, can be profoundly draining. Interference from government, from inspectors, and from others with power and the desire to improve things, even if it is well-meant, rarely feels helpful. This book is an antidote to all that negativity. It is uplifting, affirming, passionate and deeply moving. It is about love, but not much about fear.
Robert Coe, professor of education, Durham University
John’s honesty and refreshing approach separates this book from the plethora of dry, technical and anodyne texts on school improvement and frankly, makes This Much I Know about Love Over Fear special. John sets out the case that education can’t be reduced to a technocratic painting-by-numbers process where we devise ever more sophisticated measures to ensure compliance to the method. John reminds us that teaching and leading teaching is all about relationships and the way we use what we know, let’s call it wisdom, to inform and improve our work. The value of evidence and the implications of nailing your colours to the mast of an evidence-informed profession are carefully considered and resolved as John presents a compelling case for schools to harness research on their terms and as the servant of their needs. Evidence on tap not on top, to coin a phrase. John’s wonderful stories about his childhood, the fateful round of golf at Liphook, his sonnet for the school caretaker tell us something about the man and his values and motivations that drive his work. John’s passion for education and the way it has changed the circumstances of his own life is used to demonstrate the importance of the profession we share and our collective responsibility to challenge poor teaching and build a culture of continual improvement.
Kevan Collins, educationalist
From sixth-form dropout to inspiring head teacher, John Tomsett takes us on a personal journey, written with warmth and love – for his parents, his family, teachers and children. Readers of his blog will already know John as a very good writer who is widely read and educationally wise and this book benefits from its focus on teaching and the leadership of teaching as the top priorities for school leaders. Full of common sense, This Much I Know about Love Over Fear will help to improve your teaching, your school leadership and, just possibly, your golf handicap too.
Sir John Dunford, chair, Whole Education
This book surprised me. I know John-the-leader but This Much I Know about Love Over Fear is definitely written by John-the-teacher. Whether you are an NQT or have been a head teacher for years you must read this book. It will inspire you, challenge you and make you smile. John is the template for the 21st century head teacher that I aspire to be – This Much I Know about Love Over Fear should be on every teacher’s wish list.
Vic Goddard, Passmores Academy
An inspiring read, which explores with great insight how strong leadership and quality teaching is the key to school achievement. John Tomsett is both practitioner and polemicist – and this fine book is a welcome and significant contribution to our increasingly urgent debate about raising standards and developing character amongst British school children.
Tristram Hunt, Labour MP
This much I know about John Tomsett: he writes beautifully. He thinks deeply. He brings to thinking and writing about teaching a powerful mix of autobiography, commitment and the deepest professional expertise. There is wisdom on every page of this book, and a genuinely insightful understanding of what it takes, really, to improve teaching, teachers and schools. This much I learn from John Tomsett: that the quality of schooling depends on the quality of relationships which schools can sustain. Read this book.
Professor Chris Husbands, director, UCL Institute of Education
What happens when we tell stories as leaders? Our values get exposed as part of the narrative, and people lean in and listen. In his deeply engaging This Much I Know about Love Over Fear John Tomsett allows us to see his humanity, to connect with his passion for young people, and to share the learning from his creative, relational style of leadership.
Frequent vignettes point to the value John places on engaging students in the classroom, ‘… time when I could influence what they did and how they thought’, and it’s clear that he sees his role as leader of teachers in the same way: This Much I Know about Love Over Fear is what adults and children alike need to flourish. John takes wisdom he’s developed from a lifetime of mishaps and breakthroughs (including 12 years of headship), aligns it beautifully with his wide reading of education and leadership literature, and offers practical insights and helpful suggestions in his humble ‘This much I know’ lists.
If you want to reconnect with your moral purpose in teaching; if you want gritty and honest ideas for transformative school leadership; if you thirst for provocation that will keep you always striving to be better than you were yesterday, this book will delight and help in equal measure.
Ruth Kennedy, founder director, ThePublicOffice, school governor, former teacher
At a time when much of our school system is being driven by the various elements of high-stakes accountability – graded observations, performance management, league tables and a punitive inspection system – John not only highlights the folly of this approach but, crucially, he articulates with great clarity an alternative. Drawing on his personal and professional experience he argues that we need to remove fear from the system, develop cultures that focus on the learning of leaders, teachers and pupils and create schools which are exciting, challenging and supportive places to work and learn.
Sir Alasdair Macdonald, former head teacher of Morpeth School
This Much I Know about Love Over Fear was not what I had expected – an unusual twist on leadership, in a way that feels fresh and provides a new slant on the concept. It’s a book you should be advised to sit and read cover to cover, and then to take the time to re-read. There is a plethora of good advice, far too much to absorb in one sitting. I’ll be going back, dipping in to chapters to find the advice I need at the right time. It made me realise that times haven’t changed, kids haven’t changed. It is so overwhelming, positive and uplifting, the tale of a wonderful life intertwined with rich experiences of leadership. Beautiful.
Dr Rona Mackenzie, principal, Lincoln UTC
Part autobiography, part practical guide, you will not find a more heartfelt and honest account of what really matters for teaching and learning. For anyone who cares about the future of our children this is a compelling and hugely enjoyable read from one of our most respected school leaders.
Dr Lee Elliot Major, chief executive, The Sutton Trust, co-author of the Teaching and Learning Toolkit
John Tomsett rightly sees himself as a head teacher. But he is also a thinker – about relationships, humanity, evidence and all that contributes to great teaching and a positive school culture. This is the new frontier for schools. We are lucky to have John and this wonderful book to guide us.
Fiona Millar, school governor and Guardian columnist
It isn’t often that a book on education could be described as ‘moving’ but This Much I Know about Love Over Fear by John Tomsett is just that. As one of the nation’s most successful school leaders, John both passes on some of the wisdom he has learned from his years in teaching and combines it with a narrative about his life and his family.
His commitment to the moral purpose of education shines through. His gratitude for the role education played in his own life is reflected in his uncompromising belief that nothing should get in the way of providing the same life changing opportunity for today’s generation of young people.
The book a testament to the importance of good teachers and contains a wealth of good advice about how to do the job. It is a pleasure to read and a source of invaluable advice.
Estelle Morris, former secretary of state for education
You know the sort of book that, as you read it, it meets you halfway. You recognise many of your own ideas, values, hopes and mistakes. Well this book was it, for me. John Tomsett nails it. Everything he writes is focused on the core business: great teaching, great provision for every student. ‘Make sure your school leadership team is focused upon the core business of school, improving teaching and learning.’
I’m a skimmer. I get through a lot of text. Fast. I can’t remember the last professional book I read where I didn’t skip or skim a page. I didn’t skip a sentence of This Much I Know about Love Over Fear. It’s a compelling read and beautifully written. It embraces John’s philosophy of education, autobiography, wider management theories and a sensible commentary on what it looks like in his school. Absolutely tremendous.
It’s a tough call to include significant moments of personal history. But John does this from a deep well and respect for his parents and the community where he grew up. Without ever becoming sentimental he describes the influence of both parents: his mother’s stoicism and his father’s love of the natural world and his incredible work ethic. He weaves aspects of his own story into each chapter. And some of it is hilarious. The firework fiasco. You will have to buy the book to find out what happened.
John’s thoughts on the primacy of the quality of relationships with students apply equally to his colleagues. And he draws on ancient wisdom and recent research to back this up – Fullan, Elder, EEF, Nuttall, Seneca and Virgil. Of course he knows this already, but very good to have his observations grounded in a wider pool of research.
It’s a big ask: to write a serious book about the principles and practicalities of leadership. John’s book is accessible, thoughtful, moving and funny in equal measure. I predict This Much I Know about Love Over Fear will be essential reading for every leader of learning, from head teacher to NQT, in every school.
Mary Myatt, adviser and inspector http://marymyatt.com
I am uniquely placed to review John Tomsett’s book – I work in his school! Happily, the book captures the best of John’s leadership: it conveys his passion for education, his commitment and care for those he leads, and it captures his leadership wisdom.
At a time of much fear, when most head teachers are being driven to distraction, with too many prospective heads avoiding the role altogether, John provides the ballast of hope and guidance. The book is full of deftly crafted personal stories that touch the heart, woven together with useful professional insights borne of much experience. It makes for a book that is quite unique and well worth reading. Oh, and if you are wondering – he is a great boss to work for!
Alex Quigley, director of learning and research, Huntington School
The title of this book does it a disservice – it should be just one word: Love, for this is a love story. It is imbued with love for family, for friends, for teachers, for pupils, for colleagues, for literature, poetry and prose, for music, for sport, for thought, and most of all for the art of teaching and learning. A deeply humane book that gives some excellent insights into the how of education and leadership. I am sure the words of wisdom contained in this book will be a thoughtful and supportive companion for many a successful career.
Martin Robinson, author Trivium 21c
If evidence-based practice is about ‘integrating the best available research evidence with professional expertise’ then John’s book suggests he is a master of both.
Dr Jonathan Sharples, Education Endowment Foundation
For me, John Tomsett represents the soul of education, always keeping what matters most at the centre of everything he says and does: great teaching and moral purpose. This Much I Know about Love Over Fear captures that spirit perfectly: personal history, golf, poetry and educational wisdom grounded in experience combine beautifully to create a book that is both practical and profound.
Tom Sherrington, head teacher, Highbury Grove School
This is a funny, warm, and touching book but it is also grounded in practical thoughts and ideas for how to run a school. It mixes anecdotes and autobiography with educational research and John’s own experiences as a head to set out a series of clear statements on education. The best thing about the book is how John’s voice and personality shines out from every chapter. By the end it’s as if you’ve worked in his school for years, and you feel comforted, challenged and enthused by that.
Jonathan Simons, head of education, Policy Exchange
John Tomsett is an inspirational teacher, head teacher and leader. In sharing his wisdom in this wonderful book he inspires, educates and, occasionally, even brings a lump to the throat. John has a wonderful way of telling stories in a very human way, explaining his deep thinking with humility and bringing the book to life with real examples and practical advice.
David Weston, chief executive, Teacher Development Trust
THIS MUCH I KNOWaboutLOVE OVER FEAR …
CREATING A CULTURE FOR TRULY GREAT TEACHING
JOHN TOMSETT
In grateful memory of my dad
Ernest Harry Tomsett
(1927–1985)
It hardly mattered to him that the book was forgotten and that it served no use; and the question of its worth at any time seemed trivial. He did not have the illusion that he would find himself there, in that fading print; and yet, he knew, a small part of him that he could not deny was there, and would be there.
John Williams, Stoner
Gratitudes
I owe two special thank yous. Firstly to Caroline Lenton at Crown House Publishing who, when she identified its structure, persuaded me to finish this book when it would have been far easier to have abandoned it completely. And secondly, to Louise, Joe and Olly for putting up with me for so long.
The list of other people I need to thank – and it’s a long list – is covered, I think, by my final line of the book.
Contents
A family portrait
He had left school at 14 to become a messenger boy, the prelude to becoming a lifelong postman. He could read but rarely wrote. He excelled at gardening and golf. She had fallen ill when just 13 and never completed her formal education. She resorted to being a cleaner and read voraciously to nurture her intellect. She ‘did’ for Mrs Wilkins in the village, keeping her baby with her in the pram whilst she cleaned. The portrait was her idea.
He had finished his post round by mid-morning and the noon appointment at the photographer’s gave him time to get back to the sorting office by early afternoon. He had taken his wedding suit to work, changing out of his uniform in the restroom. He combed his Brylcreemed hair back just before the flashbulb popped. He was approaching his thirty-first birthday.
That Monday she had caught the number 119 bus with their daughter to travel the two miles into town. She wore her best yellow polka-dot number and dressed her daughter in pink. All their clothes had been bought on the never-never from the catalogue; four shillings a week for thirty-six weeks. She was 22 years old.
The image is one of celebration and aspiration. It celebrates the family unit. Their hands reveal a great deal: one of his linked with his daughter’s and the other on his wife’s shoulder in protective embrace; her hand is ostentatiously spread upon the arm of the chair displaying her wedding ring. They aspired to be more than their lot; the professional portrait with their firstborn must have felt like a middle-class extravagance. They could have been film stars. Burton and Taylor.
So, not a qualification between them, but both knew there was something more to life than low-paid jobs and living in a council house. Their indomitable spirit – a sense that values drive us, that honest graft is respectable, that life is there to be seized – resonates in this image. They are staring straight out of the picture and into the future. It was September 1958 and they look like nothing could stop them.
And these were my parents.
Why this book?
Choice
In every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class. To me, from my background, I find that truly shocking.
Sir John Major
The Monty Python team’s ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ makes any account of a 1970s council house childhood open to ridicule.1 The sketch sees four wealthy Yorkshiremen trying to outdo each other’s working-class credentials: ‘Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to ’ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o’clock at night and lick road clean wit’ tongue.’
The parody, like all good parodies, is rooted in a certain truth. It also makes me hesitant to recount what I remember of growing up. But the truth of my childhood has shaped my life; my council-house foundations still influence my decision-making today, forty years on. To understand why I hold my core beliefs you need to know a bit more about my upbringing in deepest East Sussex in the 1970s.
I have four siblings. Seven of us lived in a three-bedroomed council house. I shared a bedroom with my two brothers, David and Ian, and my sisters, Bev and Heather, shared another. The house had an outside toilet and we had a wee bucket in the corner of our bedroom if we needed it during the night. Occasionally one of us would stumble around in the dark and knock it over; its contents would leak through the floorboards and a couple of the white polystyrene tiles on the living room ceiling below would have taken on a sepia tone by breakfast time.
In 1970, the household family income was little more than £10 a week. Dad grew vegetables and we had three fruit trees at the far end of the garden; sometimes he would come home with a pheasant he had killed in his van on his post round. Despite dad’s attempts at the good life, mother often had to buy our food on tick at the village store until dad was paid on the Friday. It took just one extra loaf a week for her to be overspent.
Our clothes came from jumble sales. I often didn’t have any shorts and had to wear my school trousers rolled up to the knee for PE, something which feels marginally humiliating even now. Mother knitted us jumpers endlessly – something she still does, on occasion, for our sons. We all wore second-hand school uniforms.
The house was surrounded by a huge field which sloped down to a stream. We would spend every waking moment in the summer outside, catching trout, making hay-bale igloos, creating our own entertainment.
We holidayed at home, having days out in the summer to places like Norman’s Bay near Eastbourne. We could have invented the concept of a staycation. If we were lucky we were lent a car by dad’s friend who owned a garage in the village. We once spent a week in Crofton, a mining town just outside Wakefield, with family friends. Another time we went to Scotland and stayed with my auntie. Seven of us in an Opel Rekord; I crouched the ten hours and 400 miles to the Scottish borders in the back near-side footwell. I first went abroad when I was at university.
As kids we didn’t really know how relatively poor we were but my mother did. I can see her standing at the kitchen sink with her hands in the basin staring out of the window and repeating aloud her favourite mantra, ‘God give me strength to bear that which I cannot change.’ In some ways mother’s mantra has proven to be a motivating force for me.
I hope it’s easier, having read this brief account of my childhood, to understand my sense of moral purpose as a school leader, my foundations. A good education allows you to choose your path in life, and I don’t want one single student of mine to ever wonder what they’ve missed because they haven’t had a choice.
This much I know for sure
Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.
Howard Nemerov
I teach a theory of knowledge course and we spend hours discussing how we know what we know. The more we talk, the less I think I know. Like most people who have lived beyond their youth, my certainties about life have dissolved away as the years have passed. And yet experience counts. Having taught for over a quarter of a century and led schools for well over a decade, I have a good idea of what it takes to be a decent enough English state school head teacher.
Whilst I’ve always had a propensity to write, I haven’t always been sure that I’ve anything so valuable to say that people will bother reading what I’ve written. That changed to some extent in June 2012 when I began my blog where I ruminate on what I have learnt about education – and occasionally life – over the fifty years I’ve lived on this planet.
Without me realising it, my blog began when I was asked to talk to a small group of deputy heads about what it’s like to be a head teacher. I rejected the idea of delivering yet another PowerPoint presentation; few have any power and most have little point. Instead I bullet-pointed a dozen things I knew about being a head teacher.
When I walked into the room, the previous presenter was finishing his PowerPoint with a three-minute video of why his school is so great. The deputies were palpably relieved when I shoved all the tables together and distributed my one side of A4 and just talked.
Back in April 2012, having been a head teacher for nine years, at the age of 47, this much I knew …
• I hardly remember a single lesson from my own school days. In third year French, I fell off my seat backwards and Mr P made me lie on the floor for the rest of the lesson. Anyone who says teaching is getting worse has a short memory – much of the profession in the 1970s was shocking!
• You need to know your core purpose – what it is that gets you out of bed each day to come to work. At Huntington School, ours is ‘to inspire confident learners who will thrive in a changing world’, and that guides every difficult decision we make. It certainly helps me if I need to challenge inadequate teaching. And what you must do is restructure your school to accommodate your core purpose, not contort your core purpose around the existing structures.
• Education is about relationships. Michael Fullan is great on this: you have to develop the culture of the school, and every interaction you have as a leader with students and staff helps set the tone of the place. That is why the values system of your school matters so much.
• Our values are respect, honesty and kindness. When I came to Huntington, one sixth-former said to me, ‘You don’t enjoy main school, you just get through it – and if you cause trouble they nail you.’ Through four-and-a-half years of relentlessly demonstrating behaviours which reflect our values, the school is now a pleasant place and the results have never been better.
• I understand what Wilshaw and Gove are on about when they say context is irrelevant. But whilst the fact that some of my students will have heard several thousand fewer words by the age of 3 than my son did at that age is not an excuse for my students’ limited literacy, it does help to explain why they find it more difficult to read and write.
• The coalition’s educational emphasis is encapsulated in the fact that they equate the BTEC First Diploma in construction, where students learn the basics of brick-laying, painting and decorating, plumbing, electrical wiring and plastering, with Grade 6 in the flute.
• Without being idealistically naive, stick to what you believe in rather than be a feather for each educational wind that blows – there are some things in education which are eternal verities.
• I have to create the conditions for students and staff to thrive; if I can do that, then we will all grow – students, staff, parents and governors.
• Target your resources on what matters most and just make do with everything else. Teaching is the thing that makes most difference to children’s academic performance so invest in high quality continuing professional development (CPD) – train people to be good teachers. Find a way to do catering and cleaning as cheaply as possible and then invest in your staff.
• When I admitted I couldn’t be a perfect head teacher, I became better at my job. It was in my fourth year as a head and I have prioritised ruthlessly ever since. Some things can slip through my fingers now and then but I still sort out the important stuff.
• Keep things simple. If I ever write a book about headship, I’ll call it ‘The Power of Simplicity’.
