In the age of short-termism and the cult of the school improvement ‘lightswitch’ - Who’d be a School Leader?

I am prompted to write this article after giving significant time to digest Amanda Spielman’s comments about the circa. 500 hundred schools who have been classed as ‘intractable’ (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/752721/HMCI_PAC_letter_311018.pdf).   It is pleasing to see that there is going to be a concerted effort to research the reasons why this is the case and to look at “…why interventions designed to secure improvement, including inspection, have not been effective in some schools”.

I’m sure that many school leaders would hold a view on this, I know it has left me feeling deeply unsettled, even a number of weeks after it was published.  I think this stems from:
1-      The moral scandal as articulated in the letter – it is a moral scandal, but it reads as if it is entirely the fault of the schools
2-      The distance between OFTSED and the schools that is presented by the language of the text – again, it reads as if Ofsted is an observer of this situation rather than part of the system that might have some power to effect change
3-      A deeply felt empathy for the communities of those schools identified.

Picking up on point 3, what must it be like to be a student, parent or member of staff in one of those schools?  Presumably they are able to identify themselves?  The text of the letter appears to be another case of institutionalised ‘school shaming’ articulated so well in this blog post by Tom Sherrington https://teacherhead.com/2018/11/17/edu-shaming-starts-with-ofsted-grading/

I am particularly interested in the leadership aspect of these schools.  Regardless of whether they are Academy schools under the umbrella of a MAT or if they have somehow managed to hold onto Local Authority control – What must it be like to be the Headteacher of one of these schools?

I know of one such school.  I have lost count of the number of headteachers they have had in the past decade.  Plural MATs have had a crack at the nut.  All of the headteachers were able to demonstrate a track record of success in previous roles.  All of them got their fingers burnt and are having to pick up the pieces of their careers. 

If the current trend of ‘leader shaming’ is in place in these schools (there is no reason to suspect it wouldn’t be) then I guess that many of the schools will, within the last 2 years, have replaced the Headteacher in a similar cycle as described in the example above.  They will probably have new Headteachers, who have not been in position very long.  These brave souls have probably stepped into challenging circumstances, following a rigorous recruitment process with the eyes of the whole community on them.  One would assume that there has been a hearty celebration that the right person has been selected for the job.  I applaud them, but how long will it be before they are considered part of the problem?  How long will they be given to find the school improvement ‘light switch’ that so many others before them failed to find? How long before they are the next leader to be shamed and thrown onto the bonfire ready for the whole cycle to be started again?  How many times will we repeat the same actions expecting a different outcome? I imagine Einstein looking on in despair.

When will this madness end?

When will we accept that there must be something much more fundamentally wrong with schools that are struggling to reach the expectations that we all have.  When will we stop assuming that if schools are unable to reach that expectation then the reason must be down to feckless leadership and a staff body resistant to change and improvement.

I, for one, would like to see the staff in these schools and their leaders celebrated.  I would like to see a collective whole sector approach to these schools (and any others that fall foul of the dreaded ‘inadequate’).  I would like to see the term ‘Special Measures’ mean something beyond additional scrutiny.  I would like to see an approach that accepts that if we are to avoid the perceived failures of the past then perhaps these schools are going to need longer than a 2-3 year turn around time.

Headteachers are not superheroes and neither are they use less but we are rapidly heading towards a world where, when it comes to the schools that are uniquely challenging, you are one or another.

For now, here we are – these schools are now ‘intractable’ and therefore part of a national scandal.
​ 
School/leader shaming has just stepped up a notch.
 

  
















 
What if the same approach were taken with Schools from a disadvantaged background as were taken with disadvantaged students?

Like many in Education I have watched with interest as the latest iteration of the OFSTED school inspection framework has been hinted at and teased to the education world since September.  I am hopeful that we will have an external evaluation framework that works in the best interests of improving our schools.  However, I find myself slightly dismayed that we will find ourselves operating in a similar world to the one created by the current framework, albeit with an adjusted focus based on the school curriculum.  Don’t get me wrong, I am in favour of a focus on curriculum, it is the bedrock by which schools should be operating and a good viewpoint from which to evaluate the work of the school in making improvements.

What worries me is that at the heart of the framework and therefore the judgements we will continue to assume that all schools are operating on a level playing field.  This assumption, in my opinion, is damaging.

Whilst lighting the fire for the moral imperative in regard to disadvantaged students we often used the picture above to illustrate that for many of these students the playing field is not level – therefore our job as teachers, leaders and schools is to level it.  As a system we readily accept this, understand it and act to address it, supported by additional funding.  Is it not possible to take the same approach for our schools?

Schools can be disadvantaged for a number of reasons.  For my School, Finance and School Improvement Timeline were two key factors:  
-         School Improvement Timeline – Historically, has the school kept pace with school improvement?  If not, it is inevitable that it will be behind other schools
-          Finance – all schools are suffering with funding reduction but some are struggling more than others.
I won’t describe in detail the reasons for this here, if you are interested please refer to my blog series ‘School – My leadership Story’.

​Whilst writing our school self-evaluation we were sure to describe our context as we felt it was important in understanding where we were on our school improvement ‘journey’.  The problem is that the framework has no place for context – interesting but irrelevant.

Imagine a world in which we took the same approach for disadvantaged students… i.e. we assume the playing field is level, taking no interest in the context of the child.  In this world we would take no action to raise the child’s aspiration, attendance, engagement with education and the outcomes they achieve.  We would assume that the playing field for them was level with all other students.  Worse still, imagine, if having made this assumption of these children, we labelled them ‘inadequate’ for not keeping pace with their peers.

Of course, the disadvantage that a school might be operating in should not be used as an excuse.  In the same way that we do not use it as an excuse for children.  It should be the starting point for the evaluation of the strategic action plans that the school is using in order to address the context.
​
A good starting point would be to drop the term ‘inadequate’ from the framework.  If a school needs to improve, the term ‘requiring improvement’ would seem to sum the situation up nicely.  Next, let’s make ‘special measures’ mean something for those schools that are requiring improvement.  The 500 schools identified by Amanda Spielman recently, will have been in receipt of ‘special measures’ as a consequence of their long-standing ‘Inadequate’ status… what have they actually been in receipt of that is special?  Some steps appear to being taken in this regard (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-plans-to-support-underperforming-schools) but I would argue, is it enough?   and at the heart of this is another assumption, that if a school is RI or Inadequate, and has been for some time that the leader(s) aren't good enough.  (another blog post to come).

If we really want a framework that works for the improvement of all of our schools let’s stop assuming that the playing field is level and let’s start helping schools to level it. 

I find myself writing this blog post for 2 reasons:
1.       Over the course of the next 6 weeks I will feature heavily in a documentary series made by the production company Label1 to be broadcast on BBC 2 - ‘School’
2.       I wish to shine a light on my own experience of leading schools in challenging circumstances, with the same intent as the programme referred to above, to spark a debate about the state of the education system in its current iteration. 
I believe, my own experiences, described here and shown in the series will resonate with many school leaders up and down this country.  It is not my intent to deliver a blow by blow account (I’m saving that for the book!!), rather to describe some of the key contexts and decisions taken whilst managing a challenging set of circumstances.  It is the first in a series of blog posts that will aim to discuss some of the broader challenges that we all face.

The rhythm of the year, Year 3 for me.  The added ingredient?  We were definitely getting an OFSTED visit this year.  We continue to do all things we had in our plan, we face the day to day challenges and celebrate the day to day joy.  Every Monday to Wednesday we wait for the phone call.  12 noon, breath, get on with it.  It’s almost comical, but it’s too important to laugh at it.
It comes towards the end of the year.  A year in which it felt our momentum was building.  Like buses, for me, as executive headteacher of a primary, it came twice.  Primary first.  Hard, we toughed it out.  A primary school that had been struggling for years.  Last inspection, special measures.  This one we were self-evaluating at RI but in truth we had changed a lot in 14 months and we had a secret hope of pushing to a good.  In the end we got the RI with lots of positives to take forward that the school would be good very soon.  A smile, a job well done, a celebration and then back to the planning board.  Tick.  10 days later OFSTED visit two and it was brutal.  Day 1 you fight for all you are worth.  This is my school this is me. Let me show you what we are.  We know ourselves, we are not good, we are RI – progress is our key issue but we are not below the floor, we have identified the problem and we are acting.  The kids were amazing, the inspection team did not see one single piece of disruption, low level or otherwise over the two days and they referenced it.  By breaktime on day one, two hours into the inspection, I know we are in trouble as the word ‘inadequate’ is launched for the first time by the lead inspector.   If you have experienced it, you will know the sinking feeling in your gut.  They listened to the context, save £2million pounds in two and a half years and improve the school– interesting, not relevant not in the framework.  As I write I this I am looking at my notes from the day 1 ‘feedback’ session and the anger rises in me.  It is so surreal, it is so contradictory it isn’t what the OFSTED leaders have been saying for the past 10 months across the media and twitter – the historical data seems to be all that matters in this inspection.  When talking about teaching and learning the Maths inspector reports that he hasn’t seen anything less than good and some excellent practice.  The English inspector agrees.  Teaching and learning – inadequate.  Don’t get me wrong there were things that were not good and we didn’t disagree with them but they were also not surprises to us.  This is what our self-evaluation had said.  In the end, despite the positive, despite the obvious positive culture displayed uniformly by our students the die was cast.  We were ‘inadequate’ and it changes everything.
It all came down to the following, perverse and circular argument - In the last inspection the school was RI (as described above this is highly questionable) the school self-evaluation says RI – therefor you have not improved quickly enough, therefor, you are inadequate.
Inadequate colours everything and you have to rip everything up and start again.  As a headteacher it is personal, your school reflects who you are and the report is a reflection on everything you have given in your time at the school.  For the remainder of the year you dig deep into your emotional intelligence reserves.  Face your public with a mixture of anger and pain but remain the composed leader at all times.  What was a fragile but tangible recovery has been blown out of the water.  I think about resigning (self-doubt reinforced by external feedback) but actually, I believe in what we have done (self-confidence despite the feedback).  I talk to staff one to one, I describe the difficult year ahead, I see the fear and the emotion in their eyes and in their body language – it reflects my own, suck it up buttercup.
At the same point we, the secondary schools within the trust, have agreed to make a tv programme. So the ‘what happens next’ will be visible in a strangely compelling 2 hours of television to be broadcast on BBC2.  In summary what you will see is the unravelling of everything we had achieved in regard to the culture of the school.  The worst moment of the outcome?  Having to stand in front of the staff and the students and tell them we are in special measures.  When I call the assembly the sense of anticipation is palpable.  I know what they are thinking as they sit there in front of me in their perfect uniform ‘did we get a good?’.  For them, the majority of the students, the school has changed beyond recognition, they are happier, their learning is better.  When I say it there is an audible gasp in the sports hall – the emotion is real from these kids.  I swallow hard to stop my own emotions overtaking me.  The parent reaction is similar – anger and upset from those who have not bought into what we have done but from the quiet majority a series of very supportive e-mails expressing disbelieve, for many their journey has been the same as their children.
I resolve to fight and fight hard on behalf of my beloved school.  A lot of challenging, difficult and emotionally draining work is done before and during the start of the next academic year. 
The year starts, perversely, with the celebration of our best ever attainment results and the welcoming of the first significantly increased number of year 7 students in 6 years.  We worked hard to manage the messages to those parents who had bought into our philosophy and they stuck with us. Despite what has been reported by local press I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of parents who took students out of the school and stated categorically that it was because of the OFSTED judgement.  The rest stuck with us and I am eternally grateful to them for doing so.
The reason they did?  What they said was it doesn’t ‘feel’ like an inadequate school.  My child is happy and safe and they are enjoying their learning.  Go figure!
The year also starts with the same financial pressure, savings required for the next budget equal £970,000.  By the end of the academic year 2017-18 the income for the school had reduced from £5.4million when I was recruited to £2.6 million for the start of the academic year 2018-19.  Each and every school has its own challenges but I would maintain that ours were pretty unique – take a rural, leafy comprehensive that has been neglected for a while and improve the quality of the education whilst saving £2.8 million pounds in 4 years.  I don’t think this is spelt out clearly enough in the TV programmes so I am doing it here. 
In me, though, something has shifted.  I am by nature a glass half full person and I have carried that glass right through the last 3 years.  But now the anger and the sense of injustice are taking over.  This is compounded as I watch things around me start to disintegrate as a consequence of the outcome, sadly some of the students will wear the cloak of inadequate very quickly ‘this school’s shit’ and the ongoing pressures created by the staff reductions.  We all fight on but it feels very different.  For me there is a rising sense of doom on most days, I can hear in my own head the rising note used in Movies to provoke a feeling of impending disaster.  I smile, I joke I try to keep everyone positive but there is just not enough capacity to deal with everything we need to do.  My days get longer, my sleep gets shorter and I watch it all happen on television as I look ill and tired.
Monitoring visits? Turned out to be one step forward and two steps back.  Apparently, things are improving but not quickly enough, we were fortunate to be allocated a HMI who was astute and sensitive to our context.  Ultimately, though, there is a framework and Marlwood does not fit the framework.
Despite all of this we ended the year with the books balanced, another ok set of results and a systematic restructure (how many restructures in 4 years?).  The School is set up very well for the future if someone can find a solution to the financial difficulty.  The foundations are strong and the succession plan to replace me has left the right leader in place to see it through – I think he will be brilliant.
I thank my lucky stars I was in a trust surrounded by brilliant and supportive colleagues, I’m not sure how I would have coped as the head on my own.
This was my reality of being a headteacher in a challenging school.  We work in a system where the margins between an inadequate and an outstanding school are quite small.  We all know that in our inadequate schools there will be an awful lot of good stuff and some brilliance going on every day but the term ‘inadequate’ permeates everything and becomes all consuming.  I know that there will be teachers, support staff and leaders who will have got up this morning and have had to take a big deep breath to face the reality of what is in front of them.  As a headteacher?  Well the reality is that when we are asked if we are ok – we all say yes, don’t we?
I think the time has come to say ‘no’.  it’s not ok. 
It is inevitable as we prepare for the launch of the programmes that people ask me – why did you leave?  Well actually not for the reasons people may assume.  I genuinely think we achieved something at Marlwood but I am self-aware enough to recognise it needed a new energy to see it through.  I don’t think any big decision we make in our lives is ever for one reason.  For me there were a lot of reasons to think that I had done my bit professionally and I needed to invest a little bit in my personal and family life.  I loved my job.  Without a leadership post I still think of myself as a school leader because that is who I am, riddled with self-doubt and self-confidence.  If anyone will have me I hope to step back into the ring soon. 
The second question I am being asked a lot in the current climate is ‘would more money have helped?’.  Well, yes of course. I think it is dismissive and ridiculous to be told it is not about the money – this was stated several times to south Gloucestershire headteachers.  However, I agree that it is not all about the money.  In fact, what I needed more of was, time.  I get dismayed by our finances, but I get more dismayed by the short-termism that currently exists in our system.  I will unpick this in another blog post. 
If you are an aspiring leader please continue to aspire, our profession needs you.  If you are a current leader I doff my cap to you, keep going!  In either case if you want to get in touch and discuss your context, or an issue you are facing, or you want to rant, or celebrate something please get in touch through my website contact [email protected].  I am looking to build a network of likeminded leaders who are fighting hard, in extraordinary times, to prevail but who also believe that there has to be another way.  This work is happening with the brilliant NourishED.
Round one to  the machine.  I’m in training for Round 2.
​

I find myself writing this blog post for 2 reasons:
1.       Over the course of the next 6 weeks I will feature heavily in a documentary series made by the production company Label1 to be broadcast on BBC 2 - ‘School’
2.       I wish to shine a light on my own experience of leading schools in challenging circumstances, with the same intent as the programme referred to above, to spark a debate about the state of the education system in its current iteration. 
I believe, my own experiences, described here and shown in the series will resonate with many school leaders up and down this country.  It is not my intent to deliver a blow by blow account (I’m saving that for the book!!), rather to describe some of the key contexts and decisions taken whilst managing a challenging set of circumstances.  It is the first in a series of blog posts that will aim to discuss some of the broader challenges that we all face.

The start of a new year, I am a ‘headteacher’.  I have a lot to learn but I have confidence, principles, a vision and a plan:
-          Be visible
-          Build confidence amongst the staff body
-          Get the culture right amongst the student body
-          Create a culture of development, open doors, sharing good practice, celebrating the positive
-          Give clarity to leaders and a clear strategic plan
There are some key moments, where the reality of what you have taken on hits hard, and they come thick and fast – the first INSET day and open evening are two that spring to mind.  You are a public figure, get the messages right because everyone is looking to you!
The first year was an absolute whirlwind and I loved it.  I got to know the school well, there were lots of positives, as there are any in any school but there was a hell of a lot to do:
-          Teaching and learning.  A decade of education development seemed to have passed the school by, in regard to the curriculum (lacking any plan or cohesiveness), schemes of learning ( in places excellent, but in others non-existent resulting in teachers having to invent the wheel for every lesson) pedagogy (some superb practitioners but others who had not been invested in and this was reflected in their lessons)
-          Student Culture.  Amazing students (aren’t they all?) but too many with low aspirations, negative about their school and lacking responsibility for their own learning
-          Finance.  The budget that had been set in April (as an LA school) had to be remodelled for the transition to an Academy.  What became clear, very quickly, was that the budget for the year did not balance.  The carry forward had been used to balance the books which created a double whammy: the carry forward was not as much as had been thought (ouch 1) and that there was an in-year deficit of a quarter of a million pounds (ouch 2).  Planning forward to the following year also revealed that the fall in student numbers was going to cost us dearly.  A point here for clarity, as it was often mis-represented in the press, students were not leaving they were just not joining.  A year group of 200 students leaves year 11 to be replaced by a year group of 100 in year 7.  In total – save £1million pounds by the following September and save a quarter of that in- year
-          Post-16. Unsustainable, Amazingly confident young adults but too few of them.
In essence, the school was a mess.  We didn’t talk about OFSTED but we agreed as a school that we were RI and that as long as we were improving that would be enough.  However, despite the dedication and hard work of many of the staff it was clear that the RI judgement 9 months earlier was generous.  I wasn’t fazed.  What it meant was we would need to be creative and radical in our thinking and brutally honest about where we were.  We became an academy, governors left, staff left, we relentlessly targeted year 11 (short term – play the game!), we restructured everything we could and became an outward facing school learning from our primary partners, secondary partners locally through the trust and the LA and further afield through AFA, London Challenge schools and a teaching alliance.
Writing this down, it’s easy, looking back, to stack everything up negatively.  However, this was school leadership, the energy was amazing, the challenges were clear, it was an incredibly exciting time.  The staff accepted the various challenges and their solutions.  We developed a three-year plan, our journey to excellence.  Subject areas across the school developed teaching and learning excellence maps that they would hold themselves to account for.  Maths and English worked hard with primary partners (who were amazingly generous with their time) they ripped up KS3 schemes of learning and developed new ones with more stretch and challenge based in the reality of what they had seen that the pupils were capable of at KS2.  The culture started to shift, a house system, new uniform and clarity around behaviour expectations was having an impact, more so in the younger years but still an impact to be celebrated.  We balanced the books both for the year and for the following year’s budget.  We ended the year on a high, everything was starting to change. 
You don’t get a lot of feedback as a headteacher.  But at the end of the year the feedback I did get from the community, parents, students, staff, my CEO, partner headteachers and governors gave me the confidence that we were making progress.  The strategies were the right ones and were having an impact.
Another headteacher moment – results days, the anxiety, a very public ‘proof in the pudding’ moment.  Post-16 results were ok, not brilliant but not a disaster.  At GCSE a couple of subjects, who had previously delivered solid results, bombed.  Despite all the intervention for year 11 the picture was a long way from good.  Damn, ok dust yourself off and go again, Rome was not built in a day.  You start to feel the rhythm of your organisation and the school year.  New year, new leaf.  Students in new uniform.  Looking smart, feeling proud.  Culturally it all felt different, the results may not have been there but this was moving, we were improving, people were smiling!
You welcome the new year, but it is a fleeting moment, before you know it you are planning for the one afterwards.  The strategic ‘quick wins’ are in place and up and running. 
Now to nail the big stuff – the curriculum, if we get that right and launch it for the following year we will have done the single most important thing.  Attainment at the school had always been ok and sometimes was good, a reflection of our above average intake.  The progress wasn’t ok and our curriculum needed to address this if we were ever going to get away from the hamster wheel of year 11 patch, repair and panic intervention.  Our curriculum would be planned to build on the pupil’s prior success at KS2, to reflect the above average nature of our intake, to excite the students and to stretch and challenge them ALL.  This is the key stuff for me, its long term and it is the backbone of your tenure as a headteacher.  The curriculum, in its broadest sense to include the principles, the structure, high quality schemes of learning, the pedagogical development to deliver it and the extra-curricular.  The financial pressure meant we had to be creative, but the educational benefit was more important.  Our students deserved the best, they were bright, but they were ‘coasting’ and our curriculum was going to push them.  New GCSEs on the horizon.  All of this went into the pot, we looked at what was out there, we researched.  We developed something collectively as a school, there were high levels of buy in – we were going to launch the following September and we needed to be ready.  Oh, and the small matter of the finances, those student numbers haven’t stopped falling so we need to save, approximately, another £800,000 for next September.
Again, we ended the year on a high, it had been challenging but the curriculum we had developed had given the whole staff something to get behind.  Confidence was up, I had created additional leadership capacity which meant I could contribute to ‘the system’ I was chair of the secondary headteachers and became executive headteacher of a trust primary school.  The results were up but progress was still a problem.  The books didn’t quite balance at the end of the year so we had a deficit and there had been no way for us to set a balanced budget for the following year, so we were also looking at a future deficit.
​

I find myself writing this blog post for 2 reasons:
1.       Over the course of the next 6 weeks I will feature heavily in a documentary series made by the production company Label1 to be broadcast on BBC 2 - ‘School’
2.       I wish to shine a light on my own experience of leading schools in challenging circumstances, with the same intent as the programme referred to above, to spark a debate about the state of the education system in its current iteration. 
I believe, my own experiences, described here and shown in the series will resonate with many school leaders up and down this country.  It is not my intent to deliver a blow by blow account (I’m saving that for the book!!), rather to describe some of the key contexts and decisions taken whilst managing a challenging set of circumstances.  It is the first in a series of blog posts that will aim to discuss some of the broader challenges that we all face.
 
In 1997 I trained to be a teacher.  I didn’t have any particular desire to work in education, it had not been a long-held career aim.  In reality, I stumbled into it.  At best I endured the college sessions.  However, from the moment I stepped into the classroom with my first attempt to deliver a lesson and light the fire of science learning in students, I loved it.  For the first time in my own education and working life I had found something that I really enjoyed doing and to my own surprise appeared to have some aptitude for it!  At the end of my training year I secured a teaching position with my main placement school.  Over the next few years I grew in confidence, buoyed by the impact my lessons were having on students.  I guess I was fortunate to be working in a confident organisation surrounded by brilliant colleagues who guided and helped me.  I was also fortunate to work for a very inspiring headteacher.  Leadership opportunities came my way and I took them.  I loved teaching and the craft of teaching, but I also loved pastoral work – I really enjoyed working with kids. I became a Head of Year, then a Head of Science and finally an assistant headteacher.  From those early leadership opportunities grew a desire to be a Headteacher – I believed (and still do) that if I could impact on students as a teacher then I could broaden that impact by leading and working alongside my colleagues.  If I was to secure a headship I felt I needed more than one school experience, I secured a deputy headship at another school.  I continued to learn and develop but my core belief did not change.  I wholeheartedly believe in the power of distributive leadership, for me it is not about how good I am at something but that as a leader I can help others to become better at what they do.
Headship, here I come! 
(Leadership applications are a brutal process, from the moment you start to pen your application letter you are riddled with a strange mixture of self-doubt and self-confidence.  For me this also defines leadership “I can do this/I can’t do this”!  In part this is driven by the context of our profession, we labour, with moral conviction and good intent in a sector operating as a deficit model – the negative rhetoric is relentless and presented, sometimes, gleefully, in the media ‘education is poor/inadequate, it needs to improve’.  Is it any wonder that the profession is racked with self-doubt!  I will expand on this in later blogs.)
After a few failed applications I was successful at Marlwood School.  Some context.  Student numbers had been falling for a number of years, simplistically this had been attributed to the school not providing a good enough education resulting in parents sending their children to other schools.  Whilst there was an element of truth in this, what had not been looked at in any depth was the local demographic, in short there were not enough students in the area for the school to ever return to the size that it had been in the past.  This point is very important for the context of my leadership at the school, the lack of any action or forward planning to address a problem which had been known about since 2008 created a key issue that needed to be urgently addressed and would impact on everything we did educationally and financially.  In December 2013 the school was inspected, the headteacher at the time was absent and the staff did their best in very challenging circumstances with no leadership.  The LA were heavily involved as was the CEO of an emerging trust.  The school secured a Requiring Improvement judgement on the understanding that it would join the trust and rapid action would be taken to resolve the issues.  The remainder of that academic year would be spent trying to secure the best results possible for Year 11, recruiting a new headteacher, restructuring and working to restore some sense of order prior to the school joining the trust formally in December 2014.
Marlwood felt like a school where I could achieve something.  It was clear that the school had endured a difficult few years.  At the time of my interview it did not feel as if these would be insurmountable.  I was struck by the openness of the staff and the acceptance that something was not right and it had to change – the ‘burning platform’ was obvious to all and there would not be a need to overcome resistance from the staff body.  Completing ‘due diligence’ whilst being interviewed over a 48 hour period is nigh on impossible in my experience.  The budget, as presented, looked good and there was even some carry forward to help soften the increasingly tight finances.  More than that it felt like a good fit for me, I liked the school, the staff and the students.  The fact that it was joining a trust also gave me confidence.
Once I had been offered the job I spent the remainder of that academic year finishing off my work as a deputy and working to get up to speed on my new school.  This is a strange period of time in the education world, you feel like you are holding down two jobs, excited about the one ahead and sad to be leaving the one you had
 To be continued...