I took a headship aged 25 and this is what I found out…

I was 25 and 6 months to be completely honest. I had been a teacher for 2 full academic years and was 1 month into my new advanced skills teacher roll before I made the gigantic leap into leadership. Was I ready? In short No.

As a teacher I loved learning and I absolutely loved learning about learning. My shelf was and still is full of Dylan Wiliams, Shirley Clarke and John Hattie but to name a few. I consistently strove to be better at teaching because quite simply why wouldn’t you? I knew I wanted to go into leaderships at some point in my career and I had bounced the idea of doing a NPQML around for the first month of the academic year as I thought that would give me the best opportunity to progress in the future. I discussed this idea with my then school improvement partner to which she replied ‘Why do you need that?’ I didn’t have the answer. I thought that’s what I needed in order to be best prepared to lead!? – the next day I took a headship…

Upon reflection the transition from class teacher, to AST, to Head was a bit of a blur. I had no experience of leading a team. All I knew was how to teach (reasonably well given my then short stint in education) I had been recognised by my academy for my ability to teach and was fortunate enough to be already rolling out my ideas around teaching and learning to the wider academy. I thought, in my naivety, that I knew what good teaching looked like. But it was because of my passion for teaching that I ended up with a headship. The following day I arrived at my new school and I met the naturally disgruntled staff, they had been through a series of headteachers, 4 or 5 in as many years, SATs results of 27% (R, W and M combined) and here I was, the next unfortunate victim to take the helm of what appeared to be a forever sinking ship! 

I had 1 week before October half term to spend with an experienced Head, who happened to be my best friend and previous boss. Our mission was to establish a clear plan of action. How were we/ I going to bring about complete educational reform drawing upon only 2 years experience as a teacher and 3 years of initial teacher education? Did I begin to implement change using a model such as Kotter’s 8 step change model? No, No, No. I didn’t find out about that until the start of my second year of headship! What I did, upon reflection, I think was wrong…

I decided to throw absolutely everything out and I started again. Marking/ feedback, books, environments and assessment. All gone. I then gave each member of staff a folder which outlined and explained every change made. I held a staff meeting to give further clarity around expectations regarding new systems and we all left for half term. But how did I know what to bring in I hear you cry!? I didn’t. Through much reading and research I had an already formed a strong opinion about what I thought good teaching and learning looked like tied in with my practice being heavily influenced by the school I did my NQT year at. I merged the two and quite frankly hoped for the best.

Although I had taken a headship, due to the size of the school I had retained a teaching commitment of 3 days a week, I was also committed to delivering CPD to all the NQT’s within the academy over the duration of the academic year, as well as the small matter of leading a school out of the ‘depths of despair’. So I had a bit going on. I stepped into the classroom on the first day back and began implementing the changes to teaching and learning first hand. I brought in immediate and consistent structure, set incredibly high expectation for all pupils and teachers and began to develop that vital culture for learning using growth mindset as the vehicle for it. As a result I stopped all classes grouping children in terms of ability and moved towards assessment for learning underpinning each classes practice. Marking was replaced with feedback more specifically ‘live’ feedback. It was quickly identified that such feedback could only happen if we began to value teacher to pupil discussion more than we did written feedback. Now please don’t misinterpret this, there is without doubt a place for written forms of feedback. However, I do believe that too often in schools written feedback takes president and as a result teacher wellbeing depletes and the impact of it can be minimal. Dylan Wiliam makes an extremely important point around the topic of feedback in a recent podcast I was listening to. He said many teachers see the purpose of feedback as a means of improving a students work. He takes this further by saying that in his opinion the purpose of feedback is to improve the student. A valid and thought provoking point and one which upon reflection we accidentally did.

Next we did away with the conventional 3 part lesson and moved towards a more fluid, child centred approach where practitioners were expected to make the learning relevant and specific to children’s needs through the use of frequent AFL strategies. Gone were the days of teachers blindly following a lesson plans because they had spent hours writing it. Subsequently, we began to question as a team, exactly what was the best use of our time in order to maximise impact on children’s learning.

As we moved through each phase of improvement the sense of togetherness grew stronger and stronger. There was inevitably bumps in the road, staff left and new staff came in. Difficult conversations were had and standards challenged. But what we had was a whole school ‘buy in’, from the secretary to the support staff to the teachers. Everybody knew what we were working on, why it needed to be developed and how we were going to develop it and most crucially we were all driving it forward together. I made it a priority to be proactive instead of reactive and rightly or wrongly I allowed staff to see me for the human I am. I shared with them my sadness, annoyance, anger and happiness. I was their boss, their friend, counsellor and fellow teacher and I strongly believe that the later is one of the key factors in the turning around of the school.

There were times when balancing a headship and a teaching commitment appeared to be an impossible task. I hated feeling like I couldn’t fully commit to either responsibility with the same vigour . It felt like I was either an average teacher and a good head or an average head and a good teacher. I would frequently ring my best friend (the one who helped me at the start of my journey), who was non teaching, and plead with him to find a way to make me non teaching as well. I am so glad he didn’t. Dylan Wiliams once said that teachers lose their credibility when they are out of the classroom for longer than 6 weeks because they quickly forget how hard the life of a teacher actually is. Speaking from a non teaching position now. I 100% agree. The fact that I was a teaching head allowed the staff to see me practicing what I was preaching. If I, as the head, was planning, assessing, providing feedback, delivering CPD to the wider academy, dealing with all the things a head deals with on a daily basis as well as embedding a learning culture then quite frankly there was no excuse for the rest of the staff not to be doing it as well.

Once all the changes were made, the dust had settled, our direction clear and a whole school buy in established we embedded it all. We made sure that we were consistent, we reviewed and refined, we challenged each other and we did it all with a laugh and a smile.

At Christmas 2018, nearly 2 years since that journey began. As a staff, secretary, support staff, 1 to 1’s and teachers we sat down to take stock and reflect upon the progress we had made so far:

Whole School Attainment at the start of the journey for R,W,M= 24%

Reading Attainment at the start of the journey= 33%

Reading Attainment 2nd Year of the journey= 79%

Maths Attainment at the start of the journey= 46%

Maths Attainment 2nd Year of the journey= 77%

Writing Attainment at the start of the journey=24%

Writing Attainment 2nd Year of the journey= 75%

Our progress percentages increased 8% for reading, 36% for writing and 23% for maths in just under 2 years in comparison to the initial inherited data. The amount of Pupil Premium children achieving expected standard for R,W,M combined increased from 25% to 63% and we saw a huge spike in the amount of SEND children achieving expected standard in R,W,M combined having initially been at 7% we managed to shift this to 63%.

I haven’t written the data into the blog as a means of gloating nor in anyway blowing my own trumpet especially given that at the time my leadership was based heavily around educated guess work! What the above speaks of more than anything is the power of togetherness. It shows what can be achieved when a clear direction is set and improvement is unwaveringly driven by every member of the school community.

I have never publicly told of this journey and my only reason for doing so now comes from a Twitter post I commented on recently by @SENDISaunders where he was talking about how reasonable setting a goal of being a Headteacher by 40 was. After commenting a gentleman about to start his Headship (@MrARawlings) asked about my personal, some what fast tracked journey into Headship. So here we now are. First blog written. The process of which has been more cathartic than I could have imagined. It has undoubtedly caused an overwhelming sense of pride and in truth stirred up many different emotions along the way. I want to end with a short reflection on what I have learnt from this journey and try to break it down into 5 specific things. A seemingly impossible task! So here it goes:

1. Don’t be too proud to admit when you’re wrong or don’t know.
2. Relationships, relationships, relationships.
3. Practice what you preach.
4. If you’re not willing to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.
5. Have confidence and courage in your convictions.

Being part of the big wide world of education is a privilege and I feel extremely honoured to have been given the opportunity I was at such a young age. Many may argue that 25 was too young to become a head and for some individual cases they may well be right, headship isn’t for everyone. However, if you value people, place the children at the heart of all you do and fully believe in what you are trying to achieve. Anything is possible!