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.
Physical and Mental Health: Work-life balance after the pandemic
Finding a work-life balance after the pandemic
Ok, so the pandemic isn’t over but during the various lockdowns and stages of it, there was time for me to reflect and reset some ways in which I work as a school leader. What do I value most in my life and how can I get the balance of work and home right?
I have always been a keen gardener, but the mini heatwave of April and May 2020 meant I spent even more time in the garden because I wasn’t in school until 6pm each day (and yes, I was in school during lockdown like most teachers because schools were not shut, we had key worker and vulnerable children in!). I have always found the outdoors a great distraction from other issues that might be going on around me and massively helps my wellbeing. With gardening, you focus on the job in hand be it sowing seeds or mowing the lawn. But that first lockdown meant there was hardly anything you could do as we were instructed to stay home and I was extremely grateful to have a garden. I honestly do not know what I would have done without one.The garden is my sanctuary to get away from it all. So now that there is some return to normality what now? Well I still try and get home whilst it is light in the months that allow it in order to spend even just half an hour in the garden pottering about. I do not take any physical work home with me as I learnt long ago that when I did this I just couldn’t be bothered or was too tired so what was the point? Family and health come first. Always. School should not be your entire world and I won’t let my school life define the other aspects of my life. One thing that helps is having no other friends or family members who works in education! I don’t talk shop outside of school as no one else really gets my job, just like I don’t really get theirs. This actually helps me a lot to switch off and concentrate on other things and not always be thinking about school. If I want to engage in this conversation then I go to Twitter but this comes with a warning. I often have my wife telling me to get off of it as I can get into a scrolling frenzy and spend ages on their just reading educational threads, some of which are interesting and useful, but some are not conducive to good wellbeing. It is easy to be gas lighted or incensed with a chain of tweets. It is important to keep reminding myself that Twitter is not real life and loads of teachers are not on Twitter. It can be too polarised at timeswith quite a bit of SLT bashing. So a Twitter break is often the way forward. The block and mute functions are also essential!
Alongside all of this, I moved schools in September 2020 having secured a Head of School role in February 2020, right before the pandemic struck with an almighty bang! This was tough in itself to change schools at such an uncertain time. Itdid have some benefits. I was able to take more time to get to know school policies and staff whilst al lot of the hustle and bustle of school life and strategic thinking was put on hold as we stuck to our bubbles. But it was hard. You can’t do a lot of things you would want to do in the early stages of a new leadership job. Things like face-to-face assemblies to make your mark and having parents in school or events to build those relationships. These all led to times of imposter syndrome or frustration but I am fairly patient which helped. I also moved to a school closer (much closer!) to home. This of course means it is now even easier to get home in time for a spot of gardening! Moving forwards, I want to make more of some weekday evenings, perhaps going out for a meal or the cinema to help break up the week. I truly believe the school I help lead and all other schools need leaders who are refreshed and on an even-keel with their wellbeing. Otherwise the whole school will suffer due to poor decision making or inconsistent moods that help know one.
Leading through a pandemic has been exhausting. Emotionally more than anything else. It is the weight of being responsible for the whole school community who look to you for answers and direction in what was and still is (at the time of writing) an uncertain time. For many of us in education, this has taken its toll. So now I just hope the wider powers that be can shift towards making staff wellbeing, and especially that of school leaders, even more of a priority. This is still severely lacking with leaders often having to fend for themselves with no one looking out for them on a regular basis alongside what I view as a toxic level of accountability coupled with cuts to other sectors that now make schools a one-stop-shop for community support. Until things change, I shall keep on gardening and keep on leading but family and health come first. Always.
Alex Baptie
Head of School
East Sussex
Physical and Mental Wellbeing: I even tried hypnosis to cope with stress
When asked about my job, I sometimes describe being a headteacher as similar to being in an emotionally abusive relationship. I read a definition once, which described it as ‘a consistent pattern of abusive words and bullying behaviour that wear down a person’s self-esteem and undermine their mental health.’ And without diminishing the terrible experiences of people who have been in emotionally abusive relationships, I can’t help but find a correlation between the cycle of emotional abuse and the cycle of experiences I have working in education.
Some days I feel like I can handle it, and on others I feel completely crushed. No one in teaching needs me to tell them that being a headteacher isn’t easy. The past two years have added another dimension of difficulty to an already tricky job. The chances I used to have to refill my resilience-cup have dwindled and so, all it takes at the moment to make me spill over in despair is one more complaint from *that* parent, one snide comment from someone about how little teachers work, or one more child or family remaining un-helped by Social Services, CAMHS or one of the other over-burdened support systems out there.
There are delightful bits, of course there are, my passion for pedagogy and bearing witness to a child’s development are the bright spots in my working day. I enjoy assemblies, hearing children sing, chatting to the children in class and on the playground, reading stories and just having the chance to love the little people for who they are. Sadly, this is being buried in the putrid swamp of outside pressure and lack of funding. New curriculum, over-testing, new inspection frameworks, less funding, less support, less resourcing. At times it feels overwhelming.
I never would have described myself as a political animal, but the current situation has certainly forced me to be more aware and to speak up against the injustices being done to school staff, school budgets and the families and communities we serve. But, it is hard to stand against the continued media barrage against teachers, the head of Ofsted criticising us for helping children and families eat when no one else would, and the endless and ridiculous amount of information that is shovelled at us by the DfE.
My job as headteacher is to be a protective umbrella over my school, taking care of the bigger picture so my teachers can teach, my teaching assistants can assist, my children can learn and my families can flourish. In my 12 years as a head, I have faced tough times, deficit budgets, bonkers parents and challenging children. I have had death threats levelled at me and I have had a mentally ill parent actively try to strangle me (I was saved by a wonderful teaching assistant who held a door shut with her bodyweight so I could escape and call the police). I have had parents formally complain to the Local Authority about me for ridiculous reasons. I have had so many Ofsted inspections (including one from an inspector who brought a pink silk corset with honest-to-god nipple tassels on it into my school in her briefcase!) from which I have learned nothing about my duty to school, although I did learn a great deal about my capacity to cope with stress and keep a straight face!
I coped with all these things. I cried sometimes, I comfort ate my way through barrel-loads of junk food sometimes, I ran miles and miles, I composed and deleted my resignation letter, I even tried hypnosis to cope with the stresses. The thing is, these tough times would pass and I would have a chance to recognise the joy in my job, find my equilibrium and come back stronger and more positive.
Lately, however, it feels like there is no let up between the punches- I’m not able to fight back, I have no recovery time between blows… I feel like I’m being bludgeoned into a paste. I have put on weight, I hardly sleep, when I do sleep I grind my teeth so badly that I shattered a molar, I don’t exercise, I cry in my car on the way home but I can’t seem to explain exactly what it is that has tipped me over the edge. I feel like I shouldn’t feel like this. I have a job, a home, a family. I have so much to be grateful for, and so much that brings me joy. My staff are wonderful. They are amazingly supportive, genuinely good people. They try so hard and do their work magnificently. My governors are great and do so much to help me. They ask me how I am and how they can help me. They are the spokes in my umbrella, keeping me up and open over my school but my fabric is being torn to shreds.
I would love to do something else- at times I wish I could do anything else- but I am so worn down and burned out that I believe it when I think there is nothing else I know how to do. I’m trapped in this relationship, waiting for the good times that seem to be fewer and further apart.
Physical and Mental Wellbeing: I haven’t got time for lunch
I haven't eaten today. I've got no time for lunch.
We are nearing the end of a challenging and taxing half term and we all know the score by now. The dark mornings and afternoons and the feeling that time, instead of being on our side, is actually our enemy. There's just never enough of it. For senior leaders, this pinch point is all too clear, the mental exhaustion comes from balancing everything from the strategic to the seemingly trivial, managing budgets of millions of pounds one minute and then managing the Year 8 lunch queue the next. The toll on our brains and bodies becomes evident at this stage in the year, but it’s this time where our colleagues really look to us to see something completely different.
The only answer for senior leaders seems to be to work harder, for longer. We sacrifice precious moments and time with friends and family, sacrifice break and lunchtimes in a desperate attempt to catch up and to squeeze everything in. Unused gym memberships, broken social engagements with friends and fatigue beyond words becomes the norm. You forget your body’s need to fuel and refuel during the day, because even eating or drinking a glass of water gets added to the bottom of your growing to-do list.
This would be the case if this was an ordinary year, but it isn’t- for so many reasons this year is extraordinary. But even so, there are bigger issues that need to be addressed here in order to ensure that senior workload is manageable and that we are able to serve the teachers and colleagues in our schools to the best of our ability.
Being in leadership is a public affair, you’re on show, performing, walking the walk during every waking working moment. In our cars being the last on the staff carpark, in working through lunchtimes and breaktimes we are sending a message, loud and clear to future generations of senior leaders that in order to retain your position and be proficient in your role, work has to be prioritised ahead of your own health and wellbeing.
We need to shift that narrative, to stop promoting martyrdom as a glamorous pursuit. To stop telling colleagues what time we shut the laptop the night before.
This is easier said than done, particularly if it’s all that our colleagues have ever seen or all that's been promoted by their leaders. As an NQT, I remember feeling the weight of expectation when I and 12 other colleagues were asked to prepare a presentation, summarising our learning for the year. We spent weeks preparing, trying to source the time around planning our lessons and learning how to be teachers. In the end, we decided it would be best to just stay in school until it was done. We camped out in a computer room until around 9:30pm, ordered pizza and planned for our lives. After we had done our presentation to the whole staff the day after, we were praised for our dedication and the additional hours we had spent putting the work together- we were congratulated on the sacrifices we had made.
I don't remember exactly what was in that presentation but I do remember that that experience created an unhealthy work ethic that I still battle against, 12 years later.
I'm more and more aware now of the language I use around my impressionable colleagues, and I'm trying more consciously to ensure they don't perceive me as somebody who can fit a week's worth of work into a day.
The key here is in developing those around us more successfully and modelling the sort of leadership behaviours we would want to see in them. A greater focus on distributing leadership capacity into middle leader posts is crucial in building sustainable change and in ensuring the healthy working habits of future leaders. Developing opportunities to have honest and candid conversations about the challenges of managing your time at senior level is so important.
In 12 years time, I hope that the next Assistant Head says they learnt from somebody who made time for their lunch, drank plenty of water and picked up their child rather than their laptop in the evenings. That's when we will know we've been successful.