Time to think about what we need from our next government – part 1

Last week we had an inspection at Passmores Academy so it is ‘verboten’ to talk about the result publicly! However, I think I’m ok to say that a good team of professionals carried out the inspection with integrity, a willingness to listen and to recognise the idiosyncrasies of our community and how we serve it. Having current school leaders on it definitely helped and the lead demonstrated clarity in communication which is always key. As I have found through the dozen or so inspections I’ve been party to it would be great if the final report matched the verbal feedback but it never does.

Having had the outcome a day before a half term break has led to plenty of time to reflect on what next for our community and for me personally. This is especially the case in a year with a general election and one that could be my last in my role.

So, what do I/we need from whoever is elected?

I’ll start with the simple fact that our young people need to get the exam outcomes they require to progress; if I’m honest this probably goes without saying. However, it is vital that these outcomes are achieved alongside a holistic approach to developing cultural capital, empathy and connection building achieved through a focus on oracy as well as knowledge and skills.

I’d love a government that doesn’t make the choice of working in and for a more ‘challenging’ community to also be a choice to live in fear of the accountability system every few years. The fact that our retention of staff has been well above the national picture for years has probably been the single most important thing we’ve achieved over the years. After all there is no one more important than those that deal with our young people face to face everyday in the classroom and around the school. These people alongside the oil in the machine (and we all know what happens to machines of with no oil) of staff in finance/HR etc are the most vital to any well run school. Making it harder to recruit and retain has probably been the single biggest fault of the approach of this government. The recruitment crisis feels bad currently but there is a perfect storm coming over the next few years unless something drastic is done about it and even then 10 years of missed targets will take a while to recover from.

We need a government that recognises the fact that we need far greater access to support from children’s services following the pandemic. Knowing we will wait two years upwards to access mental health support for a child is disgraceful. I fully support the need for a national plan for childhood outlined here –

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/19/childrens-services-leaders-in-england-call-for-national-plan-for-childhood

It is time to review the assessment systems at KS2, 4 and 5. This mustn’t mean throwing the baby out with the bath water but a grown up conversation about the necessity/usefulness of SATs, for instance, is long overdue. They provide me with very little useful information about a young person joining the Passmores family apart from what I’m going to be hit over the head with by Ofsted. The fact that the prior attainment data was changed at a stroke a couple of years ago indicates they are of little use apart from as a measuring tool.

KS4/5 desperately needs a review looking at content depth and breadth of what’s offered and most importantly what is ‘counted’. Sadly, we have become so brow beaten by Ofsted that compliance with what THEY want to see and reward has become the most significant driver for what is offered across the system whether we like it or not; as can be seen from some of the highest performing P8 schools.

We need a proper focus on early years. Led by expert practitioners and not by people only really interested in what it means at 16/18 years old. There is so much the whole system would benefit from if we started at the beginning rather than focussing on the end point all the time.

We desperately need a government that is truly bothered about SEND and AP. Over recent years it has felt like these are dirty words. Sectors that they know we need but really aren’t their priority. It only takes a few minutes to look at what happened with the SEND green paper to see how unimportant the tens of thousands of young people in these sectors are to them.

Obviously, if the whole mainstream system was properly inclusive this would ease the pressure on SEND/AP enormously. Whilst schools are happy to direct their community members to other schools in the locality that can ‘meet their needs’ and this is accepted by the inspectorate it is going to remain a challenge. The empathy and understanding truly inclusive environments develop in their young people is what the world needs more than ever and we need a government that agrees and drives it across the system. This little 4 tweet thread will remain one of the highlights of my career – https://x.com/vicgoddard/status/1152182441425166338?s=46&t=J8ltRI1g4_BOXxA-aeW6sA. I think of the lessons every young person learned in those 5 minutes and smile every time.

Finally, for now, I will go back to where I started – Ofsted. Whether we like it or not it is the single biggest driver for change in the system. Whilst we keep holding every school to the same 11-16/18 framework, rather than recognising that the current curriculum driven model really doesn’t work for the primary/special/AP sectors, we won’t have an accountability system that does much more than drive compliance rather than school improvement.

I know I will have missed loads of really important stuff so I’m sure there will need to be a part 2!

Pandemic, relentless responsibility and anxiety – Part 3

You may or may not have read my previous two blogs on this topic so in summary I have struggled with anxiety for a while now. The treatment of the people in the job I love by our populist government was the single biggest contributor. Their complete lack of regard for our profession and the young people we serve is quite clear to anyone that takes 3 seconds to look beyond the statistical manipulation and headline grabbing with no substance approach taken.

I was unable to manage my frustrations at the spin and lack of integrity shown before, during and since the pandemic. My diary became a fixation with any meeting that I didn’t feel completely in control of causing butterflies before trying to sleep the night before. It wasn’t helped by a very small section of the community we serve being quite unpleasant and threatening; fuelled by the propaganda of the media and regurgitation of it on social media.

The final straw was the death of my friend and site manager Alan due to Covid as I, along with most heads, felt inadequately prepared, supported and informed due to the multitude of last minute guidance changes and garbled messaging.

I eventually spoke up about the feeling of nausea that was with with me most days and my closest people said they knew and that I should speak to my doctor.

So I’ve had a few years on Sertraline which has helped me manage my anxiety – blocked some of the holes in my serotonin bucket as my doctor explained! I gained about 4 stone in weight but I wasn’t ready to deal with that as well.

Sorry this is a bit of a ramble!

About 4 months ago my big brother was diagnosed with cancer on the back of losing my other brother a few years previously. This has proved a tipping point for me. I saw the impact on my mum of burying one son and looked in the mirror at myself at 21 stone and honestly thought I couldn’t put her through that again.

It’s funny how life works out because a day or two after hearing this news I saw a tweet (or Xeet as now is) from Kat Merchant – @katmerchant14 – promoting her training programme. Of course there’s a cost for such a personal approach but I needed both the accountability of paying for it and the weekly check ins through FaceTime with my personal trainer called Demi Lishman. She was incredibly kind from the start and I trusted her enough to take progress pictures (in just shorts) which no one else can ever be allowed to see! I felt the training sessions were personal to my dodgy knees and slight masochistic streak. The support on nutrition and sleep was needed to.

I am really sorry to still be rambling!

The bottom line was that I am still as frustrated about the decisions from govt. I am sad that important champions for the Harlow community are silent. However, I feel like I’ve taken some control back; so much so that after talking to my doctor I have now stopped the medication, despite having some trepidation.

Don’t get me wrong I still get anxious and sleep is not perfect but over 3 stone off means I don’t feel embarrassed about what I see in the mirror (as much at least) and know I have the knowledge to not get back to that place, physically at least. The anxiety I feel I am able to rationalise better and I know it will pass and I’m not afraid to tell people when I feel like that.

So what have I learned over the last few years that will help me, and hopefully you, in the future.

Firstly, when a government is willing to sacrifice the mental health of the public servants that work for them it is not because they don’t care about ME it is simply that they are willing to sacrifice all of us, and the communities we serve, to meet their ideological goals.

Secondly, I can and must take control of the things I can with my physical health rather than find excuses. It is obvious that feeling better physically has made me healthier mentally. Writing this now will keep me accountable to myself during the difficult 6 weeks that I normally gain weight in I hope!

Finally, I know some amazing people and they will always listen to me if I need them to but I need to allow myself to be vulnerable in front of them – Brene Brown take a bow – so they will feel able to do the same. No superman pants required!

Not sure if this will make sense to anyone else apart from the person that looks in the mirror and feels the same as I did or those going to bed and waking up with the butterflies in their stomach and a sense of dread for their day ahead. If it has and I can help by listening, no need to ask. However, the best answer is to talk to those around you and to accept their help.

Stay well

Part 2 – Pandemic, relentless responsibility and anxiety

It does seem that we won’t be going back to the days of being abused for not being cautious enough and/or for being an agent of the government for supporting human rights violations and allowing masks/vaccinations. Thank goodness!

Covid is definitely still having an impact on those of us that have friends/colleagues battling the ‘long’ version. It is heartbreaking to see people that want to work and live a ‘normal’ life unable to despite doing everything they can. We know we have a government that is absolutely obsessed with moving on (I’d probably want to move on too if reflecting back looked that bad). I hope that, in their rush, they don’t belittle and forget those still struggling.

15 months ago I wrote part 1 of this blog – https://passmorespedagogy.wordpress.com/2021/11/12/pandemic-relentless-responsibility-and-anxiety/ – in it I talked about realising I was in the 15% longest serving secondary headteachers in Essex. I think it is more likely to be the top 5-8% now.

I didn’t think the blog would resonate with many people but the amount of colleagues, from across the country, that got in touch certainly showed that I was not alone and hopefully helped in some way.

So over a year later, rather frustratingly, my anxiety remains with me despite what seemed to cause it not being prevalent. It has become a strange feeling of urgency. Sorry, it’s hard to explain. It’s not butterflies. It’s the sort of feeling you get when you are late or rushing to get something finished by a deadline. It is the feeling you have that makes you sit on the edge of your seat rather than leaning back into it.

I know what I mean!

It’s intangible but I know when it’s there and I know when it’s gone!

Obviously, being a headteacher at a time when we have bosses that are happy to throw us under a bus, by playing games with numbers to pit our communities against us, is not easy. I worry endlessly how I make sure the community I serve gets the staff they need standing in front of them. 20 years plus of working in their best interests (not that they always agree) means it is personal. We all need the government to stop playing games; I know the constant worry of trying to balance the books whilst still providing great education is very damaging to many of us.

I am trying to control the controllables but I look in the mirror and know I need to do more. I lost 4 stone before lockdown and I reckon I’ve put 5 back on! This is me at my unhealthiest mentally and physically.

However, things happen to people you love and care about and it gives you a kick to do something about it. For example I have people I truly respect like Graham Moore (@Humanutopia21) dealing with far more real stuff than me. So I think that’s where I’ve got to now; time to make steps forward.

I am not writing this blog because I want anyone to feel sorry for me or to express their concern. That is always uncomfortable for me. I am lucky that my job allows me the privilege of having a purpose and I work with inspiring people that I genuinely like. I have amazing friends and family. I think that is a big part of my frustration – I am bloody lucky compared to so many people. So why can’t I get on top of this! (No answers required).

I hope this is the moment that I get the feeling of progress from a personal perspective and that anyone reading it in a similar position takes something positive from it. Even if it is ‘I am not alone’.

Stay well and keep talking (especially the menfolk as we are generally rubbish at it).

Striking for the future of education

The upcoming strikes are a complex issue for all teachers including headteachers. To be honest, it is a disgrace that two other unions didn’t reach the recently imposed (2016) minimum response level and this leaves the members of the NEU standing up for many more people than belong to it.

Every individual will have their own very specific reason to strike or not. For the first time in my career I voted in support of industrial action as I have run out of any faith that our government has any interest in improving the situation they have put us, and the communities we serve, in.

Of course, I know that for some the issue will be about pay and pay only. We have lost staff as they have found better paid jobs out of education or have had to find one closer to home due to the cost of filling their cars with petrol.

My own reasons for supporting the action are about the future of education in my community. We simply cannot shrug our shoulders when we advertise a job and no applications come in and accept it is just the way it is. It is not just teachers of maths or science that are hard to recruit it is education staff at all levels.

Recruitment to a job is a simple sum of working conditions and salary. If a job is hard and the pay isn’t seen to be commensurate with that recruitment is difficult/impossible. It is as simple as that.

How hard the job is X how much do I get paid for doing it? It is the same for every profession. All the talk of vocations and doing it because we want to serve does not pay the bills unfortunately. If the job is hard and the pay is not perceived to be enough of a reward for the effort we are never getting out of this situation.

So, as the government tries to turn our communities against us by spinning statistics, what does the data say?

There is one go to person for this – @JackWorthNFER. Jack follows the issues of teacher recruitment and pay and produces the information our mainstream media should be using when talking about the strikes. I’ve picked out some tables from his tweets but do follow him for even more insight.

The truth about pay

What the shortage of specialist teachers mean to the children in schools

The challenges are greater for disadvantaged communities

Not looking good for the future

The failure of this government to meet the recruitment targets has been going on for years and they’ve tried to blame the decisions made by headteachers and workload.

So the need to do everything we can to make this government rectify the damage being done on their watch could not be clearer. If we want enough qualified, specialist teachers we need to recruit more and after over a decade of failure something has to change. I hope the narrative being spun by parts of the media, in cahoots with the government, is ignored and instead they understand this action is to make sure schools are able to continue to educate their children to the highest possible standard.

I think it is about time this government looked in the mirror and not out of the window for who to blame.

Pandemic, relentless responsibility and anxiety

I want to start by making it clear that I am not writing this to garner any sympathy as many people have had much more to deal with than I have. 

I have just come back from the Association of Secondary Heads of Essex conference. As always it was excellently organised with a thoughtfully put together range of speakers. I enjoyed it.

The reason I mention it is that we haven’t had a face to face meet up for two years and the number of heads I didn’t recognise came as a surprise. Contrary to any physical appearance I still mistakenly think of myself as fairly new to being a head but these two days made me realise that out of 80 Essex heads I’m probably in the longest serving 15% now.

It made me wonder if the last two years of leading in education has been the catalyst for more colleagues to make the decision to retire or to do something else. From a personal perspective I know that it’s gone through my mind on more than one occasion. 

I have always had to deal with anxiety, normally linked to a specific event like a meeting I see in my diary with a notoriously difficult parent or a talk at a conference. However, last summer it got to the point where I felt nauseous with anxiety when going to bed, at the thought of the next day, and woke up, after the sleep I had managed to get, feeling exactly the same.

I will talk about why I felt like this later but at the time I couldn’t get on top of that feeling and just covered it up everyday with the ‘stick on grin’ that comes with the job. Of course, those that know me best always see through that but that’s a very small number of people. By the end of the Summer term it had gotten to the stage where I knew I had to do something about it and spoke to my GP.

Dr O’Reilly was great. He empathised and simply said it’s not a surprise in fact it’s a bigger surprise that I, along with other Headteachers, had managed to keep going at all.

I took some tests and the Doc told me he thought I’d do well to take some support through medication. I asked him why I couldn’t ‘shake it off’ as I had in the past and he gave me an explanation that helped me to accept that the medicine was probably the right decision.

Apologies to those that have a much greater understanding of this stuff than me but in a nutshell he told me the following:

The amount of stress I was feeling was making holes in the bucket that held my serotonin so my body was producing more that simply poured straight out as well. I was in a cycle. The medication would help plug a few of those holes and would help control some of the physical and emotional consequences.

I know that I am not alone in having a suspicion of taking medication – I think it goes back to watching That’s Life as a kid as they seemed to have a recurring story about Valium and addiction! However, I knew I needed help because I wasn’t being fair on my family and friends. I must have been a nightmare to be around outside of work (even more than normal).

I’ve thought a great deal about why I ended up feeling like I did and it would be very easy to point the finger at the awful way our profession was treated by those in power. I know some will say “but no one was prepared for this Vic so cut them a break”. I am afraid that only holds up for a while and doesn’t excuse the awful messaging and complete lack of communication to the people that had to carry out so many of the decisions they made. The people that were facing their communities do not have 1000s of highly qualified and experienced civil servants, scientists etc to help them make decisions. The debacle of the attack on the school leaders that chose to close their schools to protect people around Xmas for the government to make the same decision straight after is a prime example.

My anxiety wasn’t because I felt out of control or unable to make decisions it was the erosive effect of the relentless responsibility linked directly to the health of the people I serve – students, staff and those who they go home to. Hearing of young people losing parents and grandparents and losing colleagues, when you can’t be certain whether they caught it through a school contact, was incredibly difficult. Every loss was followed by a forensic internal dialogue of self doubt about whether I did all I could do to protect people.

I have said throughout the pandemic that having a purpose was and is a privilege but it needs to recognised by the likes of Ofsted that being ‘tone deaf’ to what we were dealing with was simply not good enough.  Over the last few weeks we’ve seen the return of Ofsted inspections with the need to ‘catch up’ seemingly being used as another stick to beat school leaders with. The Chair of the Education Select Committee trying to get a law passed that schools must never close by imposing a ‘triple lock’ on that decision with only the smallest regard for how that type of rhetoric will impact on people already on their knees –  no guarantee of the resources to protect staff (the government’s track record is hardly great in this regard) seems to be a vital missing ingredient of any future planning for pandemics. 

I will try and stop waffling now! The bottom line is that I am incredibly lucky to share the responsibility of leading Passmores with my great Co-Principal Natalie and we’ve both said we don’t know how headteachers that are more isolated, because of their school’s location or simply being new in post, got through it. 

I am not sure whether putting this in a blog is helpful for anyone else feeling anxious but I hope so. As many people know I’ve never seen showing my emotions as a weakness but this felt different. When everyone else was dealing with so much ‘stuff’ it felt like we were the only ‘authority figures’ in many peoples lives and simply HAD to cope. I know men are notoriously bad at talking about their mental health but I didn’t think that included me. I was wrong. I am still anxious at times but being able to talk about it with people helps me see that I have the experience and ability to manage what is thrown at us. Talking really helps.

Please stay well everyone.

Feeling like failures

Firstly, I am not writing this to receive lots of sympathy and lovely comments like ‘it’s not headteachers’ fault’ etc. I just want one person with the power to actually make decisions to think about it for one second. Now I know the second part is very unlikely but I’ve always been a trier!

I knew, we all knew, that education staff were putting their time with their family at risk by staying in school up until the 18th and we all tried to mitigate those risks as best we can, We all saw that local councils knew too and tried to do something about it only to be threatened with legal action.

We’ve seen this morning that the data had already been telling the government (struggling to say our government) the same message too but doubling down on poor decisions has been their way throughout this atrocious time. This was no different. They wanted to show how much more powerful they were than a Labour run local council and they did.

The question I am now struggling with, following positive test results amongst staff that will stop them seeing their families, is why wasn’t I brave enough to do what I knew was right? I am normally up for the fight but I didn’t have it in me. I sit here writing this feeling that I let the community down by not being strong enough.

I know that hindsight does this. I know that I’ve been involved in decisions that were rationally right at the time but proved to be wrong and needed to be changed later. We made those changes, apologised for getting it wrong in the first place and vowed to do better.

Humility, integrity and honesty have been at the core of school leadership since September and whilst none of us have got it 100% right we have managed to keep (almost) all colleagues and families with us. They’ve understood, offered opinions and worked together to find better solutions.

But this stings.

I’m gutted. I’m gutted that members of staff have put the care for other people’s families first and now can’t see their own. I feel responsible, whether that is accurate or not, it’s how I feel and I know it’s how so many of my comrades feel. It may be a politician behind a podium delivering the news but it is us looking people in the eye that look to US not THEM for leadership.

The government has repeatedly said it is not time to score political points to the opposition but seem happy to play politics with our well being. So Mr Williamson it is time to say you got it wrong. It is time to show humility, integrity and honesty back to those that have lived to those values for months and months.

It won’t make me feel any better. It won’t make me feel like I’ve let the staff down. It will make me think that you understand which would help

Sorry mum

“I know I’ve only seen you for a couple of days since March.

I know I’m looking after the adults and young people there and that means I can’t see you or my nieces/nephews.

No, they aren’t more important than you, but I have a job to do and it’s right that children are in school.

I know it makes you sad and feel lonely, especially since dad died.

I’m sorry mum”

I am sure lots of people working in education have had this end of a telephone call over the last few weeks. I am also sure that people working in medical and care facilities have had it too. It is really hard to hear anyone you love saying that you are putting your job/other people’s families above your own. 

So, what can/should be done?  Well, apart from the obvious need for a vaccine it does not take much to improve the situation.  Last weekend and in parliament this week the Prime Minister has repeatedly spoken about the need for schools to be open to children for numerous reasons including their mental health. I completely agree. I know that others do not and that is ok. However, the issues we have seen with the mental health of our community gives me the clearest indication possible that sending young people for another month long or more period of being educated at home would be disastrous.  The problem is in order to stay fully open we are asking staff to do things that others are being told not to do.  Before anyone goes scurrying to type anything about holidays or pay or teachers being lazy do not waste your time as I know first hand how amazing our staff have been in doing everything that has been asked of them.

I know the balance of health versus economy is a difficult one but in all of the statements made by the PM I have yet to see him genuinely talk to the staff in schools and say that he understands what is being asked of them and the sacrifices that will come with it.  That he knows that the conversation above is happening, but we are an integral part of the national response to dealing with the pandemic.  Instead we have seen last minute announcements, accusations of wanting to avoid our responsibilities and changes to the law to put headteachers in the firing line.

All I want is to see my mum at Christmas just like the 1000s of others worrying about isolated older family members. No matter how often she says “I don’t care as I’m old anyway so just come and see me” it won’t help as the thought of being the person that infects her is too much for me to consider doing that.

The same issue also effects the families of the students. Despite the quite ridiculous statement that children are just as safe in school as they are at home, from a Covid perspective, there are families that would want to be able to isolate as a whole so they can spend Christmas day with vulnerable relatives.

There are almost one million adults working in schools in England and most will be in until a few days before Christmas day therefore clearly leaving no time to isolate long enough to see elderly/vulnerable relatives.  As much as my mum wants to see me (well her grandchild if she was honest!) I also want to see her. I often say family comes in many forms, but she does not.  I have only got one mum.

I love this job still and having a purpose is a privilege at the moment but we need government ministers to stop hitting us with sticks constantly and finally show that they wish to work with us and recognise the amazing job that school staff have done since September in a meaningful way. There are simple solutions to lots of the issues that face us in education; we don’t need Ofsted but we do need costs met for keeping children and staff safe and we need to make sure young people are fed during the holidays. Of course, the exam situation in the summer is far from being sorted out but at least there is a time limit on them having to respond to that one!

Finally, I’d love all of us to be able to see our loved ones at Christmas and maybe a few days of well set learning from home in the build up to the big event will allow that to happen for everyone.

The haters are queuing up – to all the JHBs

So most results are now out (don’t get me started on the BTEC situation) and unsurprisingly results are quite a bit higher this year. I say unsurprisingly because I am lucky to have an insight in to the processes and why it was always going to happen.

There are a few loud online ‘experts’ saying that this shows how teachers cannot be trusted etc etc. Including some very senior MPs sadly. I’m afraid I’m yet to read an ‘expert’ negative opinion piece that has any clue about what was asked for and why it is right that this has happened.

Let me explain, before the pile on begins, what I mean and how we tried to ensure fairness…

Our school has always kept a certain amount of hard data centrally… be it from reports, formal assessments or mock grades. We have that data going back over several years; like many other schools have. This meant that we could work out the average progress students made from their last ‘mock’ to their final outcome over many years. This was a good piece of information to have as we would all expect our young people to improve their grades from a mock in January, for instance, to their exam in June or what on Earth are we teaching them?

With that information in mind we then carried out an exercise where all of the formal assessments each young person had done were put together for each subject and a final grade was then extrapolated. This was carried out by one person, to help consistency, for every child for every subject. To make sure the final grade wasn’t overly influenced by our knowledge of each individual (unconscious bias if you will) this was done blind. The only information that could be seen was the list of assessment grades. No names, no gender, no race or ethnicity. This gave us a control grade based purely on that data. The expectation was the grade given by the teacher would be the same but if it wasn’t it was investigated further to find what had changed from the last assessment grade recorded to make them think differently? This process took weeks and each grade was scrutinised and moderated on at least four occasions.

Still following? The obvious difficulty is that we know that not all young people perform in a final exam as we know they could. Some do no revision, some have a meltdown, some just have a bad day, some forget to turn the last page and some don’t turn up at all. That is why the results are always a cause for nervousness amongst school leaders and teachers and impossible to predict with 100% accuracy.

What could or should we do to replicate that ‘failure’ factor in our centre assessed grades (CAGs)? Should we have lowered the grades for the students whose brother didn’t bother turning up for his exams when he was at school? Should we have lowered the grades based on their surname? Should we have guessed which ones weren’t going to engage with the three months of revision classes, that they were about to receive, and downgraded them?

So this year’s results are based on the data we hold and the experience we have but they are a reflection of a positive view of engagement and revision. I am sure JHB would not be happy if we had downgraded a loved one of hers because they probably wouldn’t have done any revision anyway or that they an HB. We chose not to use a crystal ball to presume the worst of our young people. Why on earth would we?

We can all name young people that turned it around at the last minute and those that went off the rails equally quickly but what we can’t do is KNOW which ones it would have been this year. So for the media outlets running these stories of hatred towards our profession and our young people’s achievements it is time to educate yourselves and work out how we could have done it differently without just presuming the worst of our young people with no certainty we would be fair?

Turning down the noise

I really hope you are navigating the current world smoothly but I’d imagine many of you are finding it challenging just like me. When people ask how I am I, like many, will reply without thinking with ‘fine thanks, and you?’. However, at the moment, I find myself really thinking about my response. I think it’s important we all take the time to stop and reflect on the things adding to our anxiety and about our well being generally.

I’ve found the last few weeks particularly ‘noisy’. There is so much opinion, advice and general discussion around us, especially on social media, that I’ve felt overwhelmed at times. I know this is quite ironic because for some people I am part of their overwhelming background noise. You will probably be seeing the same names from our profession in your timelines and sometimes in the media too. I’d like to take this chance to clarify that I know nothing more than anyone else (for most of you that won’t be new news). I’m no more likely to be right (or wrong) than the next person. When someone has more than the average number of followers/friends online their voice gets amplified very quickly for that reason alone and not because they are right. Obviously I’m in that position due to being on the telly over 10 years ago and others are there for different reasons but due to having that amplification we can be mistaken that this person MUST be right and that adds pressure on us all to do what others do.

There is no shortage of amplified voices surrounding us as school leaders and that is the bit I have struggled to manage on occasion. It is quite natural for us to compare ourselves and the decisions we are making with others but I also think that this is a cause of stress for a great many of us.  Managing the noise that’s surrounding us in order to make clear and well informed decisions is vital. It’s vital for our own well being but also to enable us to consider the things that matter the most to our communities.

I think I have suffered from education leadership f.o.m.o. on many occasions during this strangest of times. I have found myself late at night searching through social media to see what other people are saying or doing ‘just in case’ I have missed something.

Don’t get me wrong; being outward facing and considering the range of options is a great thing to do at any time but having confidence that we are the experts in serving our own communities is vital too. It is almost definitely true that no one knows what to do for our school communities better than we do and what we’ve learned is that each one is truly unique. It could be the impact your building design has or how far your students have to travel but the smallest difference between us can change what can and needs to be done significantly. There really is no one size fits all answer for any of our challenges. We are seeing how much our government is struggling with that approach and I can imagine it is a struggle for a large trust of schools if the executive leaders want to make all the decisions from the centre. 

I’m not suggesting that we all make decisions in isolation as I gain real strength from working through ideas with other people on Twitter for example. However, I have also become quite adept at tuning out the noise too! I know I have been at the same school for a long time and this has it’s advantages but I know that there is no one better equipped to make the decisions needed than the team of leaders at our family of trust schools. Therefore, taking what I need from the challenge of other’s thinking but then stepping away and considering the stuff quietly, with those colleagues close to me, is proving to be much more efficient and far healthier for me; rather than constantly worrying that someone has come up with something I haven’t thought of.

So, if I’m part of the noise that’s getting in your way I am sorry and please remember I’m making it up as I go along just like everyone else so just mute me and have confidence that you’ll get it right because no one is better equipped to do so than you.

Being responsible

The kite flying has begun ahead of the much vaunted announcement from our Prime Minister on Sunday. ‘Leaks‘ are a useful tool if you want to remain popular rather than correct. So let’s get a couple of things clear amongst the noise.

We want schools to reopen and to have our young people back in so we can do what we are paid for and love doing as soon as it is right to do so.

Just checking those that seem to be lining up to take a pop can hear that?

Oh. You weren’t listening! We just want even longer holidays? Oh right…I didn’t know that!

MELTS

Best not worry about them as they are more interested in being noticed than listening or making sense.

Now that’s out of the way I can get off my chest why I am writing this blog…

For probably the first time in my life I am anxious about the responsibility I will have, along with 1000s of others, over the next few weeks. It is probably no surprise that I have never been shy when asked to offer an opinion or make a decision. I wouldn’t have pursued becoming a headteacher otherwise.

In the past I have written about managing (or not managing) my own anxiety over things like Ofsted but this is taking that to a whole new level. This tweet sums up the cause of much of it:

When the media talks about workplace guidance for keeping safe and in the next article talks about how much more quickly we need to open schools they seem to forget that schools are also workplaces. The staff that will be needed to be able to open schools are also parents, partners, sons/daughters etc and will have many other people to support and interact with.

The much deserved praise being given to our health professionals is quite right and long overdue. I have always been in awe of doctors that make life and death decisions as part of their everyday role and been delighted that, although important, mine are not at that level. Doctors receive years of training and use their extensive knowledge of decades of theory to help them. Despite of that they occasionally will still get a decision wrong.

Over the next few weeks we, as school leaders, will be asked to make decisions that are, for once, about life and death.

So if, urged on by the govt and, the potentially convenient, sudden change of mind about the need to socially distance, we make the decision to open up. Let’s play out some highly possible scenarios:

So within two weeks I have my first batch of staff off with CV. Only 3 or 4 but they’ve been clear all these weeks of lockdown and now they have it. Two weeks after that we have our first member of staff die.

Or

A member of staff has to support their 86 year old mum. After weeks of lockdown there has been no problems. Now mum is coughing and feeling unwell. She’s tested and has got CV. Our member of staff is tested too. It seems they haven’t got it now but they had it at some point before.

The next day mum dies.

Sadly, this is very very likely to happen. If we are lucky enough to avoid it, it will happen somewhere in the community. So what do the headteacher/trustees/governors think about their decision now? What do the families grieving think about it too?

I am not embarrassed to say that I am not able to make a decision about it at the moment and I’m becoming more and more anxious. I need the government to stop trotting out the ‘we’ll be guided by science’ line and actually share that science directly with us.

A government minister sitting in an office is not the only one that needs to be convinced they are making the right decision about reopening schools. We will not let anyone else make a decision over whether or not it is safe for our school community to come back together as no one else will need to live with the consequences first hand.

They are not going to be the one looking a member of staff in the eye and answering the question of ‘how safe am I really?’ and ‘how safe are my family?‘ In the same way they are not going to be the one standing dressed in black next to that person’s friends and family.

Although I haven’t discussed the children we serve in this blog everything I’ve said goes for them and their families too.

To get school leaders onside (not the first time I’ve written this point) they need to trust us with the science and the evidence. Not a select group of heads working for certain academy groups. Not our teacher associations. It has to be us, all of us. I wouldn’t want any other school leader to make a decision based on my opinion. I am, quite rightly, irrelevant to their communities and vice versa.

Trust is at the core of the next few weeks. I think my community trusts me to do what looks to be the best thing for them and that trust is so precious to me; it is not something I’d ever take for granted. I need to trust this government to be transparent with the information they have to help take the single biggest decision I will be involved in, in my professional life.

I hope we stand strong in our decisions and can support each other. There may we’ll be differences based on context and it would be a shame if that then became the cue to point at them on social media and say ‘they got it wrong’. It is vital that the sector doesn’t beat itself up (there are plenty of others doing that) because I think we are going to really need each other over the next few months.