Playing your part

 

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  Following three years as headteacher in Blackburn, in January 1999 I took up the headship of Houghton Kepier Sports College, an 11-16 comprehensive school with 1,350 learners on roll, situated in the ex-mining community of Houghton-le-Spring midway between Durham and Sunderland. Week two, Ofsted visited. Their verdict was clear - serious weaknesses: leadership and management weak; behaviour very poor; teaching and learning unsatisfactory. At this point, succession planning was not my most immediate priority.

  My vision was clear: to create a happy and successful comprehensive school serving the local community. The challenge was to create a school with a learning culture, where learners did want to achieve and value education, and staff were happy to come to work and progress in their careers.

  Creating the vision for me is all about developing and releasing the talents of others, both staff and learners. It's about being forward thinking, optimistic and enthusiastic about new initiatives, whilst at the same time balancing this with a sense of realism and pragmatism about what is achievable. Teachers are expected to provide appropriate challenge and support for learners. I believe headteachers have the same responsibility to challenge and to support staff as well as learners; in doing so we can be really influential in developing future leaders. Whilst creating future leaders has never been my most urgent concern as headteacher, I firmly believe that it is a very clear by-product of seeking to develop a school as a true learning community and something that I have increasingly sought to influence.

  Great leaders develop other leaders - it's a sign of excellence. Staff are the key to success. My mission at Houghton was to build a strong team, where people are challenged to achieve, but praised and thanked for doing a good job. As headteacher I believe in having a strong senior leadership team to support me. Whilst I can provide the vision, the energy and enthusiasm, alone I cannot be the motivator for all the learners and the 85 teachers and a similar number of support staff. Providing a clear leadership structure, giving the deputies and assistant heads detailed job descriptions, coherent roles and time to fulfil their responsibilities is essential. Making clear the expectation of middle leaders, both curricular and pastoral, and again giving them the time to fulfil their leadership responsibilities broadens the leadership base.

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  We have developed a culture of staff development: all staff are encouraged to further their own professional development and careers. We regularly welcome Initial Teacher Training (ITT) students into all departments, and have at least one trained mentor in every department. Twenty of my middle leaders have completed Leading from the Middle, three are following the new Leadership Pathways programme and ten have completed the National Professional Qualification in Headship (NPQH). We have five Advanced Skills Teachers, three trained as Consultant Leaders and our first fast-track ITT student. Our bursar is completing his Diploma in School Business Leadership and other staff - including non-teaching staff - are working on a variety of other qualifications including master's degrees. Many staff who started with us as Newly Qualified Teachers hold positions of leadership responsibility such as department or subject leaders, and a similar number of other staff have gained internal promotion to leadership posts. Our School Improvement Group provides another leadership opportunity for aspirant leaders. It is easy to see why three of my leadership team are actively aspiring to headship.

  As headteacher I try to lead by example, provide the vision, enthusiasm and drive, even on those dismal November days, when getting out of bed at 6am seems a challenge rather than an opportunity. Equally, I put great emphasis on work-life balance both for myself and others, and am always positive and optimistic about my job, at least in public. Regular trips to the gym, cycling 70 miles at the weekend and holidays abroad recharge my batteries and keep me both relatively sane and enthusiastic about my job. How many leaders, particularly headteachers, do you meet whose default mode is 'the burden of responsibility, the long hours of paperwork, the stress of it all'? Now look at this from the perspective of onlooking up-and-coming young leaders: is this something to aspire to?

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  Why do I love being a headteacher? Well, as a headteacher, I can influence staff and learners, change their lives. I love seeing people progress. I get great satisfaction from raising staff aspirations, seeing staff take on new responsibility, develop new skills and move on, far removed from the old 'Buggin's turn' culture, where by hanging around long enough, you would eventually get promoted irrespective of any merit, talent or effort. It is great to see young staff come into the profession and develop early in their careers, but it is equally important to recognise the potential of more mature staff whose careers seem to have plateaued, often for want of encouragement or opportunity, and to tap into this expertise. I am always amused when staff come apologetically or even in fear and trepidation to explain that they are thinking of applying for another job, promotion to another school, and to see their reaction when I respond with encouragement and enthusiasm. Occasionally I may have an ulterior motive, but usually it is genuine. I love improving the quality of life for learners whilst they are at school, by providing the best resources, the best teachers and support staff and the best curriculum I can to try to get them to achieve their best, but also by improving their life chances when they leave us.

  I would, however, go further and say that as headteacher, I have a responsibility to develop a culture of leadership development amongst learners in school, to recognise the potential leaders of the future, and give them opportunities. We now have leaders at Houghton in many curriculum areas who plan and deliver activities or aspects of the curriculum to younger learners in our own school, or in partner primaries, based on the Junior Sports Leaders. Hopefully, some of them will go on to be our future leaders in education.

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  As headteacher, it is easy to dwell on the negatives, to spend a considerable part of the week with miscreants (and yes, we do have our fair share at Houghton), but I strongly believe that a positive school culture means a sense of fun and enjoyment both for staff and learners. Learners enjoy events such as Red Nose Day, wearing something red, penalty shoot-outs, cake sales and buying tickets to see Year 11 boys having their legs waxed by Year 11 girls. I have developed a culture where staff send learners to leaders to show us their good work. The leadership team regularly see learners of all year groups from every area of the curriculum. We also get regular invites from learners and teachers to lessons to see the good work they are doing. For staff we have a termly nomination for dropping the biggest clanger. One of our NQTs won the award for suggesting to his bottom Year 9 history set that there was no way they could organise a learner strike in this day and age. They rose to that challenge with ease and by the end of lunchtime we had 200 learners on strike, refusing to come back into school! Having been promoted to acting head of history, the same teacher a year later was nominated by the school as an outstanding new teacher and was the regional winner in the national teaching awards. He is now head of history, has just completed Leading from the Middle, and is working on his Masters in Educational Leadership - one of the future leaders in education.

  Finally, I think the other thing that gives me a sense of pride and pleasure is that as headteacher the legacy you leave can go beyond your school. The fact that Houghton Kepier is a much better school for parents in the local community means that their children will have significantly better life chances.

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  As a Sports College we are part of a federation of sports colleges directly impacting on all primary and secondary school PE and Sport throughout Sunderland. With Homerton College, Cambridge, we worked in partnership with other schools we researched methods to counter boys' underachievement. With the National College, we have contributed to studies such as the 'Within School Variation' project whose findings can help other school leaders to reduce variations in performance. Through working in partnership with universities and Initial Teacher Training institutions we are training future leaders and teachers. I encourage middle leaders to take part in leadership development programmes and at least 10 of my middle leaders are aspiring to become senior leaders. Senior leaders are encouraged to take part in leadership programmes and one of my assistant heads is visiting Boston with the NCSL Aspirant Heads International Programme for Headteachers (IPH) visit in May to look at succession planning. Three of my assistant heads are taking part in a regional NCSL project which involves doing an exchange week with aspirant heads in other schools to experience leadership in another context. One deputy is following the Special Schools and Academies Trust Aspirant Headteacher programme. Personally I recently took part in an IPH visit to China discussing the curriculum with school leaders in Shanghai and Hefei. I am a School Improvement Partner and work with four schools in that role, hopefully benefiting staff and learners there. I am also accredited as a National Leader of Education, the school is a National Support School, and we're about to start working to support a school with notice to improve.

  Education is often hard and too much of a blame culture has developed. Parents blame teachers or their children; teachers blame the parents or the head, heads blame their teachers or the DfES, the press blames anybody and everybody, as long as it's a good story. Yes, there are shortcomings, but there is insufficient recognition of the significant achievements by learners, teachers and, dare I say it, the leaders in the majority of our schools. There is much in the media recently about the need for school leaders and potential shortages in the not too distant future. But it doesn't have to be like this. We headteachers can do much to influence future generations of leaders. If we truly believe in what we do, we can develop and inspire the leaders of the future.