Think Piece

‘ I was impressed by how honest and vulnerable people were – that can only come from a place of deep trust.’ Reflections on #Hopes4Ed No. 8

I joined Twitter in December 2019 and the sole purpose of me joining was to see what sort of opportunities and experienceswere available for primary school children – like all schools, we want our children to have the most rounded, interesting education possible and a large part of my leadership role is to make that happen. Safe to say, that isn’t how my Twitter planworked out.

Before I start, please permit me a bit of self-indulgent talk about me so you have some background of where I am coming from.

I did my GTP year at my school, then I did my NQT year at the same school and have since taught in this same school for almost 20 years now. In that time, the school has changed name once, joined a MAT and I’ve personally changed buildings twice. I’ve seen four heads and am about to see in a fifth after Easter. The school has grown from 420 N-o-R to almost 1000. Everything at school changes constantly and it never feels old or stale yet the place offers a strange sense of security and stability. Staff tend to come and stay. Some of us old-timers (partially) joke that we are now too‘institutionalised’ to leave. For all the great things and forward thinking that happens in my school, I am aware that there are some negative effects of staying put in the same school for so long and perhaps the biggest one is my exposure to other settings has been curtailed. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave has sprung to mind on the odd occasion over the years.

I admire people who have ambition and a long-term plan for career development but I am not one of them. I am ambitious for our children but my own sense of life contentment and satisfaction has meant that I don’t tend to have much of a long term plan. That is both a blessing and a curse.

I have never been one to chase formal power or prestige or ‘the next step’. That said, I do enjoy having influence and seem to attract both naturally. I have always felt like I wasmaking a meaningful and purposeful difference so when people talk about their ‘next chapter’, I nod politely but don’t really have any deep understanding of what they mean. The question ‘where do you see your self in 3/ 5/ 10-years time?’ has always left me cold.

The idea of headship never really occurred to me, although for many years different people have said words to the effect of ‘you’d make a great head’. I recognised it on an intellectual and rational level but not an emotional level. There has always seemed to be an imperceptible, impenetrable side to headship, an ‘otherness’ that I couldn’t articulate and that I didn’t recognise in myself – I am not saying it is rational, but it is how I felt and still feel to an extent. I think a large part of that is that, as much as I respected and admired all the heads I have worked under, I didn’t recognise myself in them. The two heads that I have worked for (for a significant period of time) were both consummate diplomats and both seemed to have an ‘inner steel core’ that eluded me. Ergo, I wasn’t head material. Not that that bothered me – I didn’t have aspirationsto be a head any way. Recently, I have become more aware that this is largely all perception and I know that people who don’t know me well tend to find me ‘intimidating and scary’ at first. I have no idea why – it is an aspect of my self-obliviousness that I have never understood. But if others think it about me and I think it about others, perhaps it is all a load of smoke and mirrors.

Another thing that made me (possibly, errantly) think I was not headship material is that I have never been able to get overly excited about data. Due to a personal hobby and using it in school, I am fully conversant in how to interpret data and use it for a variety of purposes but I don’t think weighing theprobverbial pig regularly actually helps to fatten it. If I believed that the people with the highest exam results achieved the most success in life, I would be happy to roll in data. However, whilst being able to read, write and do maths is of the highest importance, I have never been able to convince myself that once a certain functional standard is achieved, it doesn’t serve much purpose other than for people who want it for specific purposes eg a particular career. Maths is actually my favourite subject to teach but, at primary level, I do think a good liberal arts education forms the structure on which to hang academic learning particularly when making connections between different topics and disciplines. I have chosen to work in an inner-city school and I believe once those ‘wider opportunities’ are in place, the rest will come in due course.

It is my belief that Ofsted and SATs, in particular, disadvantage children already suffering from disadvantage even more. The reason for this is that in order to keep Ofsted happy, one’s SATs results must be good. In order to do that, schools are put under enormous pressure to narrow the curriculum for those who would most benefit from the widest curriculum. If Ofsted has to happen, it would be enlighteningto have Ofsted inspections without the inspectors having access to the data at first – this would stop the perceptions of the inspectors being anchored to the data. I realise this can’t happen as school data is currently ubiquitous.

I think one of the things that bothers me most is the notion that disadvantage gaps can be closed solely through good teaching. If that were the case, why do those parents who value education spend so much time talking and reading to their children, taking them to places and paying for music/ sport/ arts/ foreign language tuition? And why do children and young people who are from low socio and economic backgrounds who do get good grades tend not to progress through the ranks of their chosen paths? There is getting your foot in the door and there is staying put and getting ahead.Whilst getting great grades is undoubtedly a good start, it is by no means the whole story when tackling disadvantage.

Then there are SATs: with all the research on brain development and gender differences, why does the educationsystem persist in forcing square pegs into round holes by making all children at the age of ten or eleven pass an exam that most adults would struggle with. If it comes across that I am anti-academia, let me make it clear that I am most certainly not. I do, however believe that learning takes place went the student is ready, not when the teacher decides it. I agree with children having high academic standards but I have never been able to understand the rush to get all children past the post at an arbitrary age. The high-stakes nature of SATs isn’t aligned with doing the right thing for children. Schools are disincentivised to do the right thing by their children. The nature of the current education system forces the schools with the most socio-economic issues to resolve to turn to short-term and/ or limiting solutions. Everyone knows the story about if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will never know its true ability. But the system makes schools do it anyway. Stanley Milgram’s infamous electric shock experiments spring to mind.

I have been lucky that my MAT and current head harbour some of these thoughts although they are constrained by the degree to which they can freely express it. My head has also allowed me to devote a large part of my leadership role to ‘evening up the playing field’ as best we can. It doesn’t necessarily translate straight into end of KS2 SATs results but it is our belief that it is the right thing for our children and will gush dividends for them in the long term.

Anyway, since March 2020, things have changed for me in a way I didn’t expect. I suddenly find myself thinking that if I don’t apply for headship, I am not doing only myself a disservice. I have seen the impact of our work during the pandemic and suddenly I have this new and strange feeling that I want more and to do more and to be more. I don’t necessarily want to be a head but I do want to make a difference at a wider, more strategic level and as far as I can see, the vehicle for that is headship. I am also a huge wimp and frankly quite scared to step out of my comfort zone. What am I afraid of? I don’t actually know – I think it is my own mind and my incredible imagination!

Since last March, I have found myself lurking in the world of Edutwitter and contributing the odd comment here and there. I’ve also found that I am attending more and more online workshops on areas of interest: social justice, Pupil Premium and the odd leadership course. Most of them are large gatherings or livestreams where one can watch on quietly. Sowhen the HeadsUp4HT #8 edition flashed up on my screen, I thought that I would sign up. I recognised Christalla Jamil’s name and the focus sounded interesting. It’d be my chance to find out what proper heads thought about the future of education and Ofsted without having to be diplomatic and ‘toeing the party line’.

My school uses MS Teams and for some reason, Zoom meetings are blocked on my work laptop so I log onto Zoommeetings on my phone. Like I said earlier, most of the gatherings I go to are either large affairs or there is the option to type your name into the Zoom box so the host can decide whether to let you into the meeting or not. Because of this, I don’t think it is noticeable if my phone falls over or I haven’t put a bra on and consequently, I haven’t even got around to changing my Zoom name from the default, which is the model of my phone.

So you can imagine my surprise when I slipped into the meeting earlier this week and noticed it was a very intimate gathering. Not only that but I (and my Honor Lite phone) were personally acknowledged by the host, Kate. There was nothing more that Kate or her co-host, James, could have done to be more welcoming and included everyone. Through my school, I am associated with @NottinghamCitz and they have a saying, “If you aren’t at the table, you are probably on the menu.” This was one of the few meetings that I have seen that people were genuinely listening to understand.

Another thing: many of the heads thought along the same lines as me. I found my self nodding along for pretty much the entire 90-minute session and was also impressed by how the talk was solution-focussed and psychologically safe. I was impressed by how honest and vulnerable people were – that can only come from a place of deep trust. I found myself thinking that perhaps there is a place in headship for people like me after all. When Kate, in particular, spoke – I felt like she crystallised all my deeply held beliefs. And she is a head, so…….

My partner says that making a stand on one’s own is like giving a finger – it can be snapped off easily. When like-minded people band together, a fist is formed and that is an altogether more powerful agent for change. For legal reasons, I must state that this is not a call for violence but a call for collective action!

Will I be going to another event? You bet! Perhaps, just maybe, there is a place in headship for people like me after all.

by Katie Smith