Skip to main content

A post to follow up from my article in Headteacher Update

Being a reflective sort, as teachers tend to be, I had some further thoughts following yesterday's publication of my first article for Headteacher Update. Here is a link to the article if you would like to read it: https://tinyurl.com/yc74jux9 

I want to start by name-checking the headteacher I worked for early in my career, as he helped me see that it was possible to be the kind of leader I wanted to be. All of the ‘ten commandments’ in yesterday’s article could be applied to his leadership, even the one about learning the names of all the children, and that was quite an achievement for him as we had around 500 pupils in our school! So, thank you, Bruce Dale, for inspiring me to follow my instincts and be myself.

Since sending in my article, I have been thinking a lot about why the headteacher-pupil relationship is so meaningful, and I want to mention one aspect I neglected to write about initially. It is a fact that this relationship is likely to be the longest and most significant one that pupils will have throughout their primary education. Sure, they will build a closer bond (hopefully) with their class teacher each year, but that relationship will effectively only last for 12 months before the class teacher has to move on with another group of children. Their relationship with a headteacher, at least with an attentive one, will potentially last for seven years, until they move on to secondary school.

I also want, in this post, to address a feeling that I have, which is that the kind of headteacher I was, might be considered to be an old-fashioned way of doing the job and that in 2025 the head should be more focused on being an effective manager than acting like they were still a teacher. If we look at the ten ‘headteacher standards’ for example, which are made up of 38 bullet points, I can find only one that relates to the kind of relationship I describe in my article.  It’s also a very short bullet point: “Create a culture where pupils experience a positive and enriching school life.” That feels like an important one, and although others are many and significant too, I can’t help feeling that the way that the standards are framed, the DfE don’t think so. Further googling of ‘essential characteristics of headteachers’ mostly ignores having a good relationship with their pupils, too, which is a shame. Thankfully, an article on the ‘The Headteacher’ website from September 2024 does refer to the increased importance of interpersonal skills in the role of headteacher, but I suspect that it is focusing more on their relationships with other adults.

Perhaps I am a bit old-fashioned, but given the societal changes we have seen during and since the pandemic, and with the extra pressures on families impacting their dynamics, surely it is our role as heads to be a constant, dependable, reliable, supportive adult in a child’s life?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Things I have learned since leaving the classroom.

I know in my first post I set out a grand plan for what I am going to write about, but I want to slip this one in first. Here are some things I have learned since leaving the classroom. Parents are right when they complain about school traffic. It is as bad as they say it is. I have found that there are times of day that it is wise to stay off the roads if you live within, or want to get to somewhere within a mile of a school. Its not just primary schools, as I have been caught out visiting a supermarket close to a secondary school at home time. It seems that the children (sorry, young people) are too cool to have mum (or dad!) pick them up at the school gate but not too cool that they mind being collected from the Sainsbury's car park next door. The flip side of this is that, if you time it just right, the supermarkets are almost completely deserted if you can find one that is not too close to a secondary school and get there at about 2:55pm. Mums (or dads!) will be otherwise enga...
Post a Comment
Read more

What is 'teacher mode'?

The inspiration for today's post came recently during a walk around the town in which I live. I have spent the past two decades residing in what could loosely be described as a small but popular resort town, the type that only has a low-cost supermarkets in its centre. I was entering one of these recently when I came across a family who were clearly having an off-season break, probably in one of our many holiday-focused establishments. They didn’t actually say as much, but their 'city ways' certainly screamed this to all the locals present. The parents were obviously keen to pay for their purchases, but the children had not finished looking at sweets, so they did not follow them towards the till. As a result, the clearly annoyed mum turned and yelled to the children to get a move, using that old trick of using first and middle names as an indication of how serious they are about what they are asking. I don’t remember the name of the boy, but the girl was definitely called ‘...
Post a Comment
Read more

How did I get here?

After 30 years in education, first as a class teacher, then as a deputy head and finally as a head, I am now an ex-head teacher.  Why is that? I hear you ask. Well, the answer can be summed up in two words, burn out (or is it one word, 'burnout'). I will have to check that. Having lead a small village primary school for over a decade, through covid and through the proceeding collapse in society, I realised that needed a serious break for my own mental health. Initially I thought it might be a permanent break from the profession, but I soon realised that this was not going to be the case, although I think it will be a permanent break from the classroom. So, over the last few months I have been sat in my home office writing my book (as yet unpublished), currently called 'How to be a Head Teacher', which I hope will become a bible for the modern school leader, one which might just prolong a few careers! I have described it in the introduction as the book I wish I had acces...
Post a Comment
Read more