Skip to main content

More support for schools needed

Another day, another incident in the media where a school, or more precisely a head, is crucified for 'outrageous' behaviour. Another chance for the political media to express their trumpian, or is it muskian, anger about the downfall of free speech in the uk. It's all bollocks though, isn't it?

There is no room for nuance anymore. No balance in the way these things are reported, they are presented as news when they are really the manifesto of the right.

Some facts that don't appear in all the stories. 

1. Schools dont ban parents from the site just because of negative WhatsApp messages. If they did then our playgrounds would be half empty 
2. The parent in question was an ex governor of the school that their complaints are focused on. 
3. The parent in question appears to be a local councillor.
4. The parent in question is a freelance producer who has worked for a right-leaning broadcaster.
5. In my experience of nearly 20 years as a school leader, the most challenging parents come from the 'parent governor' and 'parent of SEN child' categories.

Of course, the school won't challenge any of the nonsense in the media. The guidance will be that they should keep their heads down as the media focus will soon shift on to the next school based issue.

That's not good enough. Schools need more support as things are only going to get worse.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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 ‘...

Leadership Lessons - school relationships

The following post is taken from the manuscript for my still unpublished book. The book is designed as a manual for the new head teacher and the section I am including below is one where I describe the particularities and challenges involved in building positive relationships with different staff groups. I hope that you find it an interesting read and that some of it strikes a chord with your own experiences.

I was proud to be the head of a 'woke' school.

I really don't understand people who use 'woke' as an insult. As far as I can tell, it means being thoughtful, empathetic and inclusive, which doesn't sound like an insult to me. When I was a headteacher, my school was very much a 'woke' organisation, and I am proud to say that this was as much due to the attitudes of the children as to the example set by the staff. We had pupils who identified as being transgender, families with same-sex parents, families from many different cultures, and our children quite rightly accepted everyone as being part of our school community. Perhaps the thing that made me the most proud, though, was the fact that when I became the headteacher there we still heard children using the word 'gay' as an insult, but by the time I left my school, that had disappeared entirely. Knowing quite a bit about our families, I suspect that 'wokeness' was largely driven by our children making their own decisions about how they wante...