Guest post by Mistleflower
By my reckoning, the successful Copland 6th form students who achieved creditable and ‘significantly improved’ results at A level this year enjoyed their 7 years of secondary education presided over by managements made up
of : first, a bunch of (alleged) crooks led by a man
knighted for ‘service to education’; second, a local Head brought on for a few
weeks when the alleged malfeasors had suddenly to be substituted; third, another
local Head on temporary loan for a season; and, finally, a longer-lasting Leadership team ultimately
deemed ‘Inadequate’ by Ofsted and put on a free transfer after failing to
restore the school to its former glory after a difficult 3 seasons in the lower
leagues. (The current management duo were drafted in too late to have had any
influence on the A level results in question). Despite all this disruption and disturbance,
these Copland 6th formers seem to have flourished in their time at the school.
Could it be that Michael Gove, ever on the lookout for a new
wheeze and a cheap headline, will see
Copland’s improved A level results after the school’s unusual management journey as a potentially
winning formula which he will announce at the Tory party conference is soon to be rolled out in (state) schools
across the country? Could it be that LA Directors of Education are at this very moment being urged by DfE clones
to headhunt gangs of fraudsters to help begin the ‘turning round’
of ‘failing schools’? Have all Ofsted inspectors
been ordered to produce the names of 10 ‘Inadequate’ Leaders by noon on September 1 or face being declared
‘Inadequate’ themselves to their eternal shame and that of their children, Yea
Even Unto the Tenth Generation? Are
teams of these newly-rehabilitated ‘Super-Inadequate ’ Leaders to be parachuted
in to ‘failing’ schools across the nation, to begin the process of driving up their A level results in time
for the next election but one? Could it be that South Brent will soon be held
up as an example of educational ‘good
practice’ in the same way that Gove has previously cited as relevant exemplars
the educational systems of Singapore,
Finland, Guam, Kyrgistan, Vanuatu, North Korea and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands
in the days of Arthur Grimble (ask your grandad) ?
Or…………. might it just be, in fact, that these
successful Copland A level students
worked pretty damn well over a period of 7 years in a school that had been robbed blind by corruption, that
was physically falling to bits, that was badmouthed by their friends and by
some parts of the press (though nobly supported by others), that was betrayed by its local authority, that
was woefully mishandled by incoming ‘Leaders’ who seemed to have been briefed
that the same staff who, on their own, had lanced the boil, were not really
themselves the victims of historic
criminality but were, in fact, the
problem?
And could it be that these staff carried on teaching these
students pretty well over these same 7
years, trying not to be too distracted by having to spend time doing stuff the
governors, the local authority or the fraud squad should have been doing (detection, financial auditing, evidence
gathering , taking witness statements, accusation, publicising, and then union action endangering their own livelihoods and
career futures) in order to bring to an
end the haemorrhaging of millions of pounds of Brent taxpayers’ money?
Could it be that
these teachers continued teaching these students by using the same guiding principles which had brought them into
teaching in the first place: a respect for learning, an affection for their students and a belief
in the potential that learning has to change their students’ lives? Could it be that they gave only weary
lip-service to the ‘Strategies for
Delivering a Good to Outstanding
Lesson’ spouted at them on INSET days by various Leaders, most of whom were themselves demonstrably incapable of producing anything
approaching the thing which they seemed
to imagine their status in the
management hierarchy gave them the
authority to pontificate on?
Might we not ultimately conclude,
therefore, that the most important thing
in any school has nothing to do with ‘Leadership’ and everything to do with the
organic relationship between teachers and students. That the mantra taught in
Leadership School , ‘I Am Passionate
About Making a Difference ‘, was never
more than a tired formulation ,
convenient for contestants on The Apprentice and those who lack the imagination to invent their
own platitudes, but one which barely conceals the barely-hidden fear of all
Leaders that maybe ‘Leadership’, in the
sense that it is encountered in many of our schools, ie separate from and
‘above’ the organic teaching relationship which
is the essence of effective education , is no more than a self-serving
dead end; that most ‘Leadership’ ultimately doesn’t make much difference at all to anything? And might we not hope that at least a few of the more talented
individuals who have gone down the Leadership road might now see the error of
their ways and find their way back into
respectable employment: as teachers?
Well done to those
Copland students. You did a great job in exceptionally difficult circumstances.
Well done also to those Copland teachers. And, if you’ve still got a job, keep up the
good work.
