Case Study: Was it something I didn’t say?

Was it something I didn’t say?

As an experienced Head with two schools under my belt, one of which I took from special measures to Good in a relatively short period of time, I was ready for a change. I was approaching 50 and reassessing my working future and felt I either had to stay where I was until I was ready to be put outto pasture or have one more move. So, I took the plunge and applied for a new position. The school I applied for was inner city with all the challenges that come with that. The previous inspection report led me to believe that there was a good team in place and despite the rock bottom outcomes for children, it looked like it just needed some fresh eyes and some tweaking to improve. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview process and honestly felt for the first time in my career that I genuinely had the answers, no blagging, no flannel. Leaving my previous position wasn’t easy, I had built up a great team and a good reputation, but I was excited by the challenge ahead and keen to bring what I had learned to a new post.

Within days in my new role, I knew that the challenge ahead was considerably more than just a tweak. With little infrastructure in place, few policies, a crumbling building and a staff who really didn’t want a new Head, it was always going to be tough. The results from the summer were the worst in the authority and by October, we had a letter from the RSC telling us we were a ‘Coasting School’ and I needed to tell them why we were and what we were going to do about it. This came as a massive shock to the senior leaders and Governors -  the inspection just 18 months before had told them they were a good school with outstanding leadership. The evidence was that the school was far from this judgement. With little to no admin support, a senior leadership team in shock and a staff that didn’t want any change, I set about trying to win hearts and minds, after all, we all wanted the same thing, the very best for the children in our care.

It was in this context that I was then faced with trying to build a leadership team who had the confidence to tackle underperformance. I joined forces with other local schools inan alliance where we agreed to be each other’s critical friend. It was good to have feedback from another very experienced local Head who said that she could see the big changes and improvements that we/I had made. However, the report from afull Teaching and Learning Review with the senior school improvement advisor and an Inspector stated that we had a long way to go to ensure the school was no longer deemed to be ‘at risk’.

Tragically, at the beginning of the summer term, a parent was murdered and subsequently two other parents were arrested and then convicted of the murder. Dealing with the fallout of this tragic event was all consuming from managing the grief of the children, staff and community to protecting the school from the media to safeguarding the children in the families of the victim and the perpetrator. Looking back, I now see that I underestimated the impact this had on me. I made sure staff had access to the crisis team and got emotional support, but I didn’t access any myself. Even when I then had to go through a domestic homicide review, I didn’t access the support, I was too busy making sure everyone else did.

Throughout this time, I had several periods of significant illness, enough to end up in hospital twice that year. This should have been a warning. My family certainly took it as one, but I just felt that giving the job my all was what had to be done to get the school where I hoped and prayed it could be.

Over the next year, we took on some interesting projects. What followed was what felt like a good year, one of team building in my own school and learning from another school.

We started the next academic year with some new staff and some changes in approach and it was at this point that we reached what would be described by Tuckman in the phases of team development as the ‘Storming stage’. I wouldn’t expect anything else in the stages of managing change, other than it had taken a bit longer for us to get to this point than I would have expected.

However, I began to feel weighed down by the increasing pressure of the many day to day occurrences; parental complaints to Ofsted, staff complaints about each other, staff complaints about decisions made by the senior team, and a small group of very challenging pupils who were having a big impact on the day to day running of the school. The building was crumbling around us, the roof was leaking in many places (including my office) and the hall regularly flooded. Not forgetting that we had to demonstrate significant improvements in outcomes for children.

I knew at this point that I really needed help. The HR team that I had been working with were really supportive but there were so many issues that I started to feel utterly swamped. It was like a relentless wave of daily challenges, on top of the day job of running a fairly large organisation.

I did start talking to people. I was very open and honest with my new school improvement advisor (who had been appointed for a term). I was very honest with my SLT. And their response was that I was doing a good job. I responded to an email abut booking a free session with a coach for Head Teachers but missed the appointment because I was dealing with something.

And then we were inspected. A new framework was about to be implemented and we seemed to be being inspected with a hybrid of the old and new. One of the inspectors even said to me, “what a shame, we’ve come a year too early”. I had been the Head for two years and two terms. I was experienced enough to know that the school still had a lot to do but there were green shoots of improvement – which the inspectors agreed that they could see. But apparently it wasn’t enough and not quickly enough. This was the point that I reflected on many times after the judgement. Was there something I didn’t say that I should have? Would it have made any difference?

What followed were the hardest few months of my professional life. I had support from my MP and entered into correspondence with the Minister of State at the DfE. I prepared pages and pages of information for Governors, parents, staff and the local authority. This was cold comfort when the judgement remained the same. It was soul destroying to repeatedly have to acknowledge that the report said my leadership was inadequate. The stress of this is immense. I ended up physically ill again, shingles, heart palpitations and severe anxiety.

By the end of October, I knew the fight was pretty much over. An academy order had been issued and the RSC were discussing what was going to happen next.

One lunchtime, I went into my school business managers office, and she made a kind remark about what a good personI was to work for and I started crying and didn’t stop for many hours. Such was the level of my distress, I frightened myself and my family.

This is when my timeline gets a bit muddled. I now know I was weeks, if not days away from total burn out and break down. I was fortunate to have amazing support from my GPand I was signed off the next few months. I researched schools who had been in similar situations to see what action they had taken and then stumbled upon James Pope and the HeadsUp organisation. There were so many parts of his narrative that resonated with me. I wish I had contacted him then, but I didn’t.

I went back to work far too early, but I really wanted to be in school for the due diligence meetings with the incoming academy group.

And then there was Covid. I spent the next two terms managing the crisis that unfolded with staff bubbles, school open for the vulnerable children throughout the holidays and days and days of delivering food to our families in need of support.

As we started to get children back into school, involvement from outside started to increase. I found myself feeling like I was taking part in a very long interview. Every meeting I went to, every document I prepared, I felt I was being assessed as to how well I could perform. I have read other people’s accounts of how it feels to be gaslighted and I recognise those feelings. The daily questioning of yourself and in response to suggestions and instructions for school improvement, I just wanted to say, “Don’t you think I’ve tried that” or “Don’t’ you think I’m doing that”.

The next part of my journey can’t be shared other than to say, by the beginning of the next academic year, I was no longer the Head.

It was then that I contacted James through the form on the website. I had a rapid response offering me a confidential conversation. I poured my heart out to him, and between sobbing and trying to put words together that made sense, I had the opportunity to share my story and for him to share his… there is always someone else who’s had it worse!Through his empathy and coaching I began to see that there was nothing I could have done or said differently at the timethat would have changed what happened. It was a set of circumstances that came together that led to a result over which I had no control. He also helped me to realise that it wasn’t my personal failings or ‘inadequacy’ that led to the judgement. Sadly, it also appears that my story is not uncommon. All of this helped me to get on the road to recovery.

I often wonder what would have happened if I had been able to access support from people like James and the HeadsUpteam when things first started to unravel. On reflection, it might not have changed the series of events but I am in no doubt it would have helped me to respond to the situations differently and also help to prevent me from becoming so personally scarred.

There is a happy ending to all this. Despite the immense sadness of making the decision not to return to being a Head, I’m glad to say that again, through coaching, I haverecognised that there are many transferable skills that lead to a life after Headship, but perhaps more about that another time.


Do I tick the box?

Do I tick the box?

I am a gay headteacher. This has been and continues to be a professional barrier for me. In the past I have been told that I should not be a headteacher as parents would not want me lead their child’s school, that parents would take their children out of the school ‘in droves’ if they knew. That staff would not respect me and they would leave. Very recently I was told not to apply for headship at a Church of England school as they would not want 'A gay person talking about Jesus.' I realise that these are the views of individuals and not representative of the education sector or indeed the Church of England but it does raise a few questions.

If somebody is willing to say these things out loud and to my face what are they actually thinking on the inside – is it much worse? Also if a few people can say it out loud, how many others think it but don’t say it? The term ‘covert homophobe’ can be interpreted in a few ways but for the purpose of this think piece I am going to use it to describe people who are outwardly positive about members of the LGBTQI+ community but on the inside this is not the case. I cannot count the number of times I hear ‘I love gay people, lots of my friends are gay’ to be followed by a homophobic joke when they think I can’t hear.

Another burning question I have is what to do when I am filling in application forms. Do I tick the lesbian box, leave it blank or lie and tick heterosexual? The easy answer is of course to tick the lesbian box - but does that put me at an immediate disadvantage? Well it does if the person shortlisting is a covert homophobe. I have been advised to always tick it and then if they don’t shortlist you for that reason then it is not the right school for me. Why? There might be only one covert homophobe in a staff of 100 or it could be that I can change their mind? More importantly why should I not be given the job? If I am qualified who are they to stop me! The other side to this coin is if I do get shortlisted, is it because I ticked the box? Are they interviewing me, with no thoughts of ever giving me the job, just because it will look good on their diversity statistics?

I do still hear the phrases

‘Surely that doesn’t happen these days?’,

‘Things are different now.’

In some ways society has progressed, it is less prevalent but by no means gone. In my private life things are the same. I am always conscious of where I am and who is around me. I often feel unable to ‘relax’ in public spaces and show any affection towards my partner.

Covert homophobia happens all the time, I am sure this is the same for covert racism. I have been seated out of turn at restaurants, I have been threatened when I held my partners hand. Then there are the more serious examples including a man shouting ‘I just need the right man to show me how it is done – then I wouldn’t be a lesbian. I am not sure if he meant it to be a harrowing threat, but that is how it felt. The world is a smaller place for me, there are several countries, I cannot visit or teach in. There are still countries where being gay is punishable by death. Ticking the box is not an easy decision, previous homophobic incidents scar in the same way as any other discrimination. It cannot be easily erased. So I ask you to think about the following:    

When you get an application from somebody who has ticked the box, understand how much this person may have agonised over this.
Try to think about new members of staff who are gay and go out of your way to support them as much as you can, covert homophobia is still around and may well be present in your staffroom when you are not there.
Don’t be too keen to join the ‘it doesn’t happen in this day and age’ band wagon, as it does.
You should consider if not being homophobic is enough. Being anti-homophobic and acting as an ally and an advocate at all times is the only way to counteract the covert homophobia that is still there under the surface.