As a Deputy Headteacher try and gain as much experience as you can within the different areas of school leadership. You know, go and spend time with the bursar or the business manager and find out exactly what goes into constructing a budget – Alex Wilson

Alex began her teaching career in a girls’ full boarding school, living in and working with them. After six years, she moved to teach at her alma mater, North London Collegiate School, one of the top-performing schools in the country, where she remained for the next seventeen years. When she first moved to NLCS, she taught Religious Studies and History. Over the years, she progressed to become Head of Department and then Deputy Head (Pastoral) for six years before taking on the role of Acting Headmistress in the Autumn Term of 2017. Alex then moved on to her current Headship at Hull Collegiate School in Yorkshire.

You can here within this interview how Alex is truly passionate about teaching and learning. To the point that they are currently running open lectures on topics and subject of specialty which can be attended by both staff and students!

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for show notes, transcript and links…

SHOW NOTES

[0:48] Alex’s route into teaching

[1:47] Learns in the early years

[5:36] How Alex built a successful department

[7:17] Moving into Senior Leadership

[10:33] Advice to aspiring Head Teachers

[12:10] Supporting staff as a Head, its the little things that matter

[15:14] Alex give her advice to NQT’s and student teachers

[18:40] Alex’s favourite interview question

[21:21] The biggest influence on Alex’s career

[22:04] Schools new Academic Lecture Programme initiative

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Lee Stanley 0:06
Hello and welcome to Hadfield Education good to great webinar series where I interview the leading teachers and education specialists in the UK and talk to them in terms of their experiences and paths to their current successes. Today, I’m joined by Alex Wilson, who is the headmistress at Hull Collegiate School in East Ridings in Yorkshire. So good afternoon, Alex, how are you?

Alex Wilson 0:36
Good afternoon. I’m very well. Thank you.

Lee Stanley 0:38
Excellent. Excellent. So Alex, what I like to do is always start by just finding out what actually took you into into teaching and into education.

Alex Wilson 0:48
So I think it was something that was always with me. I think even going through school, I always knew I wanted to go into teaching. And so I followed a fairly traditional route from school to university to PGCE and then back into schools.

Lee Stanley 1:06
And wherever else did you initially train? And where was your first first job?

Alex Wilson 1:11
Okay, so I did my PGCE, my teacher training at Cambridge. And my first role was actually in a boarding school down in Berkshire. And it was an all girls full boarding I lived in, and it was full on 24/7 3 weeks at a time. So it was a great launch into teaching

Lee Stanley 1:33
Sounds Sounds intense.

Alex Wilson 1:36
Yes, it was a bit, but hugely fun and actually getting to know the pupils in a completely different context. Obviously, outside the classroom was was good as well.

Lee Stanley 1:47
Sure. And in terms of your initial learnings and moulding of your your teaching styles. What What were your what were your big sort of learns within the first couple of years of teaching

Alex Wilson 2:01
I think because of the subject areas that I teach, so I’m I graduated in theology in history. And for most of my career, I’ve taught both religious studies including philosophy of religion, and history. And I think the biggest thing for me was learning how to deliver discursive lessons and actually, to give the people space to have those discussions and to not be afraid sometimes to you know, where we go off the syllabus or where a discussion takes an interesting turn, and not feeling all the time that you have to stick to a very directed lesson plan.

Lee Stanley 2:41
And he moulded your style who would do your biggest influences in the early stages?

Alex Wilson 2:51
I think there were a couple of other staff that I worked with, fairly early on who I really admired. I obviously do quite a lot of lessons observations in the early days and just watching them in terms of the level of confidence and how relaxed they were in a classroom was was really what, what looked at that for me.

Lee Stanley 3:11
And in terms of successes, did you have any particular like, early stage successes with your teacher?

Alex Wilson 3:17
And yes, I think my the one of the proudest moments was in year three of teaching, that was my first A-level cohort to actually go through. So I started teaching them in my second year, the end of my third year, my first a level cohort that went through every single one of them went off to read Theology at university, which, you know, I think that said quite a lot about how much they’ve enjoyed what we’ve been doing together.

Lee Stanley 3:43
Excellent. And in terms of the next step for you, and where did that take you?

Alex Wilson 3:49
So I then moved into a day school. I moved from that boarding school in Berkshire to a large London day school, very academic school. And it happened to school I been to as a child. And going back there 10 years after I left school to join a staff room where the staff many of whom have taught me when I was younger, was it was an interesting learning curve. And that’s where I spent the next 17 years.

Lee Stanley 4:22
Fantastic and how did you settle into that environment? Because that must have been quite unnerving in some respects.

Alex Wilson 4:30
It was, I mean, having, you know, walking into the staff room for the first time were obviously as a child might have been a room you never went near and using first names of teachers, it was quite daunting, but actually there was so welcoming that I very quickly settled in and it was such a busy school that actually you just have to get on with it really and through yourself into it.

Lee Stanley 4:53
And so in terms of the the path there is that is that why you took what What was the next stage tech head of department role?

So yeah, I, I went there as a classroom teacher. Four years later, I took over his head of department. And then a few years further on, I became deputy head. And then Head of School, which was a senior deputy role. And then in my last term before I moved up to Yorkshire, I was the acting head so,

Excellent. And in terms of of taking a head of department role, how did you build, you know, a successful team? What did you What did you put in place?

Alex Wilson 5:36
I think for me, it was looking at what we were actually teaching across the school and looking for particular subject areas and courses that we were running and appointing subject specialists in those areas. I mean, I was very fortunate in the school that I was in that we had the money and the resources to be able to employ really high quality staff. And we’re also you know, being in London we attracted a very high calibre of staff to, but I think it’s getting the new really confident subject specialists who are passionate about this subject rather than, you know, worrying too much about sort of the science side of teaching, if you like.

Lee Stanley 6:23
Sure. And what were your what were your achievements within being a department head?

Alex Wilson 6:30
And well, for many years, we had the best results in one of the top schools in the country, and certainly at A-level, we had over 85% a star at a level every year. So we were academically very successful. We were also given we were in an academic day school to have two thirds of the year group taking our subject for GCSE, given that it was religious studies, which I know some parents and don’t always valued at the same level of something, say like history,

Lee Stanley 7:03
Sure.

Alex Wilson 7:04
But for me, it was the fact that the subject had that credibility within that very high achieving school.

Lee Stanley 7:12
Brilliant. And then what took you into into senior leadership?

Alex Wilson 7:17
And I just sort of felt ready for the next step. I saw I was appointed pastoral deputy, I’d always been very keen on the pastoral side of school. And I, the roles happen happen to come up really and I knew I ultimately wanted to run my own school and this seemed a natural step. And if we able to,

Lee Stanley 7:41
sorry, I was just gonna say was that something that was always always in the back of your mind that you you did always aspire to be a head teacher?

Alex Wilson 7:48
I did. Yes. Yes, it was something I always really wanted to do. Having sort of, you know, worked with some incredibly inspirational heads.

Lee Stanley 8:01
Fantastic. So tell me about the the step up. What sort of challenges did you find there?

Alex Wilson 8:10
And I think I probably had all of the the best steps up in some ways, but having a term at a school that I’ve been at most of my life as an acting head, so it allowed me to sort of step up and experience life as a head somewhere where people trusted me and I kind of knew how everything worked and was able to try things out a little bit before moving into a school where, where I was completely new. And so I think I was just, you know, the timing of that was very fortunate. But I think, you know, when you you step up to being ahead, the suddenly everything being on your shoulders, I mean, I I was given a huge amount of responsibility as a deputy. I was allowed to take the lead on things that I know many deputies weren’t and that’s not saying anything about me it was the style of headship that my head has had. And she very much believed in empowering her team and preparing them for the next step. So I think for me to be in a process from the moment I became a deputy, I almost felt I felt I was being shaped for the next step of my career.

Lee Stanley 9:23
And in terms of the difference from being a deputy or Head of School, and what did you feel was was was the difference? Did you did you feel again, from the way in which you’ve been trained and supported? Did you feel that that that benefited you becoming Head teacher?

Alex Wilson 9:47
Definitely, very much. So it definitely benefited me and I felt confident that I knew all the challenges that were going to come up I may not have actually dealt with them personally. But I’ve been involved. in conversations, for example about, you know, writing budget or, you know, I was allowed to lead on things like high profile media cases, I think the experience I’ve been given meant that actually, within a sort of school context, there were very few things I haven’t at least had an insight into, even if I hadn’t been responsible directly for them.

Lee Stanley 10:25
And what advice would you give to any sort of aspiring heads, currently assistant head or deputy head in school?

Alex Wilson 10:33
I would say, try and gain as much experiences you can have the different areas of school leadership. So if you’re an academic deputy, make sure that you don’t just become sort of stuck on the academic side. You know, go spend time with the pastoral team, and learn about safeguarding and pastoral care in schools equally. You know, go and spend time with the bursor or the business manager and find out exactly what goes into constructing a budget and that sort of thing. And I was we were certainly very much trained that at any point were we to be rotated within the senior team that we could step into each other’s shoes. And I think that was a really wise way of training people up for headship that you, you, whilst we had our fans, almost users of Cabinat analogy, we all had our sort of portfolios that we were responsible for. But at any one time we were across what each other were responsible for to in terms of, knowing what was going on being part of the discussions around those areas.

Lee Stanley 11:42
Brilliant. And in terms of within school now, what successes have you had initiatives or what happens is something that I didn’t notice within your school and in particular on your school website, as an awful lot of mindfulness and well being Which obviously, in current circumstances is quite, you know, at the forefront of employment and employability.

Alex Wilson 12:10
Yes. So I was fortunate when I joined here that there was a real focus on well being, and not only just for the children, but actually the staff well being as well. And I mean, that’s thanks to a very strong pastoral team. They’re absolutely second to none, I have to say. But I think either the pastoral care and the fact that we very much encourage children to speak out they feel comfortable being a smallish school. I mean, whilst we’re over 600, in total, and within the senior school were relatively small. And it means that every child is known by name and is known as an individual. And I think that has been instrumental in making sure that we’re able to cater for them as individuals rather than as your nine or as a group.

And, sorry,

Lee Stanley 13:03
I was just gonna say in terms in terms of the staff well being, because it seemed that there was there was quite an emphasis and a focus on that. And what what initiatives do you run?

Alex Wilson 13:16
So we have and so for any new staff join us that we have a new staff supper close to the beginning of the autumn term where all the staff go along. We have staff, Christmas parties, they sound sort of silly little things. But for example, you know, if I have a member of staff who has a child whose child is graduating on who has something, you know, an important milestone in their life, I tried to facilitate them being able to be there for that. I tend to try to be flexible with people and perhaps with young children so that if that they are free, towards the end of the day, they may be able to go and pick up young children occasionally from school and that sort of thing. And just those little things seem to make quite an impact on the staff and it’s certainly been commented on.

Lee Stanley 14:08
Yeah, definitely. I think I think that’s certainly something that if you get that right, and your staff are considerably happier arnt they, and they feel bought into and they feel supported, and if you could change anything within the education, setup and system, what would you change?

Alex Wilson 14:35
I think I would, I will try to put more emphasis on subject passion and teachers being able to teach subjects and being less bogged down in terms of syllabuses and specifications and sort of almost hoop jumping. And, you know, I would like to think that my history teachers are trading up the next level. You know, the next generation of his Historians rather than just teaching them to pass GCSE history. And so I would want to allow a degree of freedom within the curriculum within timetables for teachers to inspire people’s with the love of subjects.

Lee Stanley 15:14
Excellent. And in terms of advice to an NQT or somebody who’s thinking about going into teaching now, what would you give them?

Alex Wilson 15:27
I would say, go into some observation and look at a different range of schools and get a feel for the sorts of school you might be comfortable in. I mean, there’s such a range of schools out there. And different people’s characters perhaps might suit different institutions. But I would also say if you are passionate about what you have read at university and you want to instil that into the next generation, go for it. Because actually, there’s no more satisfying career. I don’t think not that I’ve experienced of anything else but for me, it’s very much, you know, it’s been about at subject inspiration really

Lee Stanley 16:08
brilliant. And if you could change anything, you know, click of a finger, where, where school is concerned? What would that be?

Alex Wilson 16:17
My the current school I’m in at the moment.

Yeah.

Um, I think I would update some facilities more quickly than than perhaps, you know, obious normal financial planning would allow for. We know we’re incredibly strong in terms of things like drama school, I would love to have a theatre here. And so, you know, rather than wait a couple of years to build up funding for that I, you know, I could kick my fingers I’d have a new fit.

Lee Stanley 16:48
And in terms of your, the outside of school, what kind of what kind of interest you have.

Alex Wilson 16:56
Okay, so I love cooking. So that’s how I tend to unwind. So I love cooking even during the week, I will always take time out to do that. And then in the holidays, I mean, this is also part of the reason for moving to Yorkshire. In the holidays, we like to be outside. So I particularly enjoy sea kayaking. Andjust being outside in the opener generally Really?

Lee Stanley 17:24
Yeah, there were some good locations for that around Hull arent there.

Alex Wilson 17:29
There are you know, so where we are sort of 10 or 15 minutes to the coast and there’s a, you know, a huge coastline here, varying from chalky cliffs right down to, you know, to sandy beaches. So we’re very lucky.

Lee Stanley 17:43
Yeah. Nice part of the world. Very nice. And in terms of book, what book are you currently reading at the moment?

Alex Wilson 17:49
Good question. I’m currently reading a book by somebody called Winifred Holtby and it’s a classic. It’s called South riding it essentially it’s about Except in this part of the country, by somebody from from this part of the country and it’s about Headmistress who I was just gonna sound such a cliche, but I have mistress who moved up from London to teach you to school in Yorkshire and try to do her thing up here. I’m enjoying that very much.

Lee Stanley 18:20
And how does it compare

Alex Wilson 18:23
what to my story? Yeah. There are some quite surprising similar similarities. But of course, it’s then it’s about a century ago, so not too many.

Lee Stanley 18:35
Okay, and what’s your favourite interview question?

Alex Wilson 18:40
Oh, gosh. I can tell you my least favourite interview. I think probably the one about something that you’re most proud of or you know, a success or a pupil or something that you’ve dealt with, that you’re most proud of.

Lee Stanley 19:05
And in terms of holiday destinations where jobs go away to

Alex Wilson 19:09
Oh, I’m very unambitious when it comes to holidays and I, I like to holiday in the UK. And so I you know, I, we we count as a family we do a lot of camping and so we we’ve been all over England doing that and we have a lot of fun. I mean, I have travelled to the far east I have you know, we’ve spent a lot of time in France in previous years but actually I, for me, there’s nothing better than getting out into the British countryside

Lee Stanley 19:37
is quite interesting. The more heads that I speak to in terms of you know what they do during the holiday time and break time The more I see that do prefer staycation and staying local or within the UK at least anyway so it’s quite interesting either thought that you’ve just wanted to cut free and you know got as far away from from school as possible.

Alex Wilson 20:02
No, I mean, I think because I camp. And, you know, we tend to do it in a fairly basic level in terms of you know, we don’t have electricity or anything. So when the phone dies, it really dies. So for me, I do feel quite cut off unable to really switch off from school.

Lee Stanley 20:17
That does some good to be honest. Yeah, to get away from technology, what would be a brilliant thing in terms of technology, and what what’s your favourite app that you use within school within your work?

Alex Wilson 20:30
Gosh, I’m probably the very last person you should ask that question to I’m a total Luddite.I probably couldn’t answer that, to be honest. It’s something we’re looking at as a school at the moment and looking at whether we might want to sort of develop more of a digital strategy. Because we are, I would say it is an area we need to do work on.

Lee Stanley 20:54
Okay. Okay. And in terms of, if you weren’t a teacher What career path Do you think you would have taken?

Alex Wilson 21:05
I probably would have done something like law had I had I not been a teacher something sort of fairly traditional, sensible, probably.

Lee Stanley 21:14
Okay. And he’s been the biggest influence on your teaching career.

Alex Wilson 21:21
Probably the head I worked for in London, and both in terms of her as as a leader, and then as a sort of direct boss when I was on the senior team,

Lee Stanley 21:34
Brilliant and in terms of life, who’s been the biggest influence in your, in your life?

Alex Wilson 21:41
My dad, absolutely no doubt about it. Yeah, I mean, he’s not with us anymore. But he was very much my sort of role model and hero as I was growing up.

Lee Stanley 21:53
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time, and is there anything in particular and the current Working on any initiatives within schools that people need to know about.

Alex Wilson 22:04
And I think probably the only thing that we have launched recently that is going sort of better than I expected. So I will share this with you is we’ve launched an academic lecture programme for the staff. So the staff are giving lectures on areas that they are interested in beyond the syllabus that they teach. So I launched it with a lecture on the history of clocks. Little bit niche. I know but, but actually, you know, lots and lots of staff have signed up for these these talks. So every couple of weeks, a different member of staff will be giving a talk for the staff, but pupils are invited along as well. And it’s really nice to have that sort of joined to sort of adult children, time discussing some some academic things.

Lee Stanley 22:49
Fantastic. Fantastic. And in terms of how can people get hold of you? what’s the what’s the best way for them to communicate with you.

Alex Wilson 22:57
I just contact the school. either by phone or by the an email link on the school website and I’m happy to talk to anyone who would like to have the conversation.

Lee Stanley 23:10
Brilliant, brilliant, what I’ll do I’ll put links into the into the video and also into the the role below. And yeah, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it and great insight into being a Headmistress in your career today.

Alex Wilson 23:26
Thank you very much. No, no problem.

Lee Stanley 23:29
Take care.

Alex Wilson 23:30
Bye

SELECTED LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE 

Headship is all about leadership, it’s about changing policy, it’s about questioning whether we could do things better all the time – Andrew Hampton

Andrew Hampton is the Head Teacher at Thorpe Hall School in Southend-on-Sea. He has been teaching for over 25 years, initially qualifying as a Music Teacher. Andrew has been Head at Thorpe Hall School for over 12 years seeing significant growth and changes in the school, currently looking to make the school 100% sustainable and promote his fantastic “Girls on Board” initiative.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, check it out here https://www.girlsonboard.co.uk/ it is a truly brilliant program and something Andrew is incredibly proud of.

Listen to more of Andrew’s fantastic experience and how he became the Head Teacher he is today.

QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Scroll below for show notes, transcript and links…

SHOW NOTES:

[2:42] Andrew’s insights into being a teacher.

[6:37] Andrew’s progression into Senior Leadership.

[12:00] Advice to any aspiring to get into Headship.

[13:48] Biggest influence as a Head.

[14:57] Current challenges as a Head Teacher.

[16:36] What would you change in education if you could?

[17:47] Girls on Board Initiative.

[21:30] New Boys initiative.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Lee Stanley 2:16
Hello, and welcome to had Hadfield Education’s Good to Great webinar series where I interview the head teachers and senior leaders within the UK education sector. Today I’ve been joined by Andrew Hampton, who is the head at Thorpe Hall School in Southend. Good afternoon, Andrew, how you doing today?

Andrew 4:09
Very well. Thank you very much indeed. Yes. Great to be here.

Lee Stanley 4:12
Excellent. Excellent. So Andrew, um, I always like to start off by just finding out about you and how you got into education.

Andrew 4:20
Yeah.

Lee Stanley 4:20
So what took you into into teaching?

Andrew 4:23
I when I was about 11 years old, I want to be a teacher, which makes me very sad. And I think probably the age 12 probably wants to be a head teacher, which makes me even sadder. But I went to university, I kind of fell into show business at that point. There was one moment just as I graduated, that I actually did apply to teaching Teacher Training College to become an English teacher was offered a place but actually, the leader of the grease makeup on stage was too great and I went on to do acting major TV things and did lots of stage work. And at the end of that, I thought, well, actually, my parents spent a lot of money on my education. I was educated privately, there I was in on a stage in Liverpool, you know, basically being directed not not to bump into the furniture, speak louder and get off. And that was it. And I thought this is no job actually, for the intelligent and well educated person. So I kind of thought went back home and thought and I will try and get into education at this point. I did actually have a career a little bit of a career as a composer then, but started teaching claranet and saxophone that was my first job in school. So taught at the King Alfred school in North London, for one day week teaching saxophone, did that for five years, became head of music. And then decided at that point, that’s when I wanted to kind of you know, reignite my ambition to become a leader of education. And so I qualified through doing a master’s degree in education, leadership and management the OU various other qualifications including NPQH and got my first headship when I was 45. I ran a small school in Nottingham for four years and then I come down to Southend so I jumped over deputy headship and Yes, I’ve been a head 16 years this Christmas.

Lee Stanley 6:03
So when you were initially teaching as just a normal music teacher and what? What were your biggest insights? What were the learns and experience that really sort of probably, they structured a moulded you into the teacher that you were.

Andrew 6:25
I was a music teacher. And I think that’s a very particular subject and sort of your teaching, you’ve got effectively kind of two types of music teaching to be done. First of all, the key stage three, which is music for all, so you have to kind of tailor them what you’re doing to make sure that everybody whether you’re musician or not can do it. And then when you take it to GCSE and you’re dealing with musicians, I think for me, it was always good lesson planning was important, and a good structure whereby there would be an exposition as for lesson and then making sure that the lesson was really active and had things that the children can participate in and demonstrate that they’ve done. And certainly, the plenary at the end was great, very real. And they will take away the things that we’ve learned from that lesson. And I thought that, you know, that’s what I tried to do pretty much lesson after lesson every single time, just varying the topic, but always trying to get them to do make music, do something very active and send them on the way.

Lee Stanley 7:21
And in terms of mentors and real sort of guidance, yeah, who influenced your your teaching?

Andrew 7:27
I think that I learned a lot by doing the master’s degree because I didn’t do a teaching qualification. And it’s been, it’s been a strange career. I watched colleagues, I employed people who I then became very influenced by at one point I, as a music teachers, you know, trying to get 10 things done in the lesson, and I watched this other teacher, and she was like doing two things. And actually, I could, but they did them really well, you know, and they can way having learned those two things. So I thought that was that was pretty influential for me. But I think Yeah, the first year at my master’s degree, we looked at teaching and learning and how learning takes place. And a lot of that stuff really went in so that they got skin cache, and lightning finger and the peripheral participation theories. So quite a lot about those kind of learnings. There was a kind of really enjoyed and took two, and then went on to do quite a lot of management theory and second two years, that master’s degree in that was very influential to

Lee Stanley 8:23
brilliant and then obviously, that the natural progression is to then lead a department when when did that happen?

Andrew 8:29
That happened after I mean, slightly odd career. So I was actually working two schools working at the King Alfred school under the Hall school, which is a prep school and Swiss Cottage as a claranet and saxaphone teacher, but gradually getting invited to come into the classroom to take lessons. And then it King Alfred school they had a crisis with the head of department that they had appointed on to people who didn’t stay for more than a year. And I put my hand up and said, Look Ill do it, and they said, Yeah, you should, which was lovely, it was really nice moment. And so at that point, I kind of had to write all my schemes of work throughout all the years I did very rapidly and get myself into the classroom and pretty much taught myself how to be a teacher. But obviously you’re talking to colleagues along the way, and just just learning on the job as much as anything else.

Lee Stanley 9:14
And in terms of department was a standalone role or did you have other musicians with you?

Andrew 9:20
I think being a head of music is a great learning ground for becoming a head teacher because it was a very big department, by far the biggest in the school if you include the 11 or 12 instrumental teachers that I had to manage. So I had a part timer working with me and he says three, four and five. I was also the head of music for the lower school, which was a prep school, a key stage one, stage two. So those were the kind of music teachers I was managing, because I saved them managing 11 peripatetic teachers and periptetic teachers actually very difficult to manage because often they are musicians first, and teachers second. So they kind of roll up, you know, three hours late going, Yeah, well, I did late night last night, okay. You have no idea. The problems you’ve caused me. So yeah, there’s a real kind of batons by fire music and yeah, it prepares for Headship extremely well.

Lee Stanley 10:11
And so where did you move from head of department?

Andrew 10:14
Yeah.

Lee Stanley 10:15
How did you then progress into the senior leadership and then into Headship?

Andrew 10:19
Painfully, I think is the first one.

You know, after I’ve been headed music for about six years, I decided that I had the master’s degree and I was in the process of doing NPQH. But I would like to move on to deputy headship for the next four years, I think it took I applied to well over 90 applications. I had 16 interviews, I was offered two jobs, turn them down. I was turned down internally four times, you’d have thought I’d learned by them. And then actually, a couple of people just said to me, the problem that you’re experiencing getting a deputy headship is that your not a Deputy Head, you’re a Head, one person particularly said to me I would never employ you are a Deputy head you are to Far too scary, knowledgeable, you know, you’ve got a very, very, very clear what you want to do in education and so not absolutely not. And it literally got the first headship applied for so.

Lee Stanley 11:13
And how was it taking the main chair in school?

Andrew 11:20
You know, there’s no doubt about it. It’s scary stuff. It’s scary stuff. Because particularly because I’ve been at the King Alfred school for such a long time. I think probably from the age of 28 until 45. So you know, there’s a long, long, long time to be embedded particular school that was had its own particularly ethos King Alfred is very funky, they call their teachers by the, by the Christian names and no uniform and then going back into a much more conventional School, which is what it was, was called Dagfa House school Nottingham on which was closed now. But it was scary, but also very, very exciting. So one of the things that happened was that the behaviour was very, very poor in that school, and after I’ve been there about 10 days, I had a knock on the door from the contractors who were working next door on the building site. And they were very polite. And he came in and said, Look, I dont want to make a fuss about this, but perhaps you could ask your children not to throw bricks at my contractors. Goodness me what earth is going on? You know, so I we’d also had an incident before I joined, I joined in January. And I heard that the Christmas tree they put up in the foyer, all the baubles had been smashed by the children. And I thinking wow, you know, that’s, that’s quite a gesture, from the Year 10 children, you know, just smashed things like that. So I thought this is a deeply deeply unhappy school. And indeed, the teachers were saying to me, well, we’re okay in the classroom, but on the corridor and really hanging on by our fingernails in terms of discipline. So it’s a very dramatic moment and because I come from a liberal school as a teacher, but also actually very liberal school as a boy, which is very liberal school. So I called everybody together and I said, So things things not going very well kids, you know, we’re kind of beginning to lose sense of, of propriety and dignity of the skin, we need to sort of do something quite dramatic. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to just stop having detentions. And this is, you know, Penny drop, then a gasp and sort of, you know, two people turning to this guy for real, you know, it’s been here two weeks to do something very dramatic. So yeah, so don’t see the point of detention. It’s not working. What we have to do is punish you. So what we need to do is to go build that trust between you and us and try and break down that language and just say, Would you mind behaving yourself now? And then that’ll be great. And they kind of run? Yeah, okay. I then had to persuade the team, you know, but it did. I mean, they really did. They kind of came with that journey. And then the teachers there was a moment when one of us arts teacher said I just don’t understand the leverage left for the bar, and then the head of English to see what I’ve got Stevie said, I’m so fed up with taking your detention all you ever do to fail to manage the behaviour in your classroom put them into detention on Friday afternoon and I’m the one has to take that detention.

Lee Stanley 14:05
Sure.

Andrew 14:06
So you know I’ve sent to teach you you’ve got to control the children and you’ve got to do that through pace and through compassion. And so you know, go out there and make that happen. I didn’t tell the government’s until after it was a success. I think if I told them they would have gone, what dont do that.

Lee Stanley 14:26
What other successes did you have while you were at Dagfa.

Andrew 14:30
I just had to unravel an extremely authoritarian headship that have been before me. So it was having to reschedule people. So literally, I mean, one thing I did was to try to deploy money sensibly. So I gave person who decided to take on all the displays in the junior school, and I gave her £300 to do that. And after a couple times, I said so so you haven’t spent any of your money? And she said, Well, but that’s not mine. That’s it, but it is yours and she said, I thought I you know, You would spend on my, No no!, I gave you some money go spend it, you know, so that those will be sort of things I was doing and just constantly trying to liberate and lift the lid off the school so that it could breathe as much as anything else.

Lee Stanley 15:12
And what advice would you give to any aspiring deputy that’s looking to take their first Headship?

Andrew 15:18
I think that that’s something I kind of know a lot about. Because I’ve been running with a woman called Jill Perry in the independent sector. I’ve been running a course for about seven or eight years now for aspirant new and aspirant heads in the independent sector. And people can look that up. It’s called leading an independent school.co.uk. So that’s something that Jill and I work with about 60 people a year on precisely that. So I would say the first thing to say is that headship is a very difficult job. I mean, I wasn’t a deputy. So I don’t know from first time but the deputy head is about the status quo. It’s about organising it’s about making sure that the school runs smoothly, that you understand what the policy is and then you make sure that you stamp policy onto the school and make that those policies are running, where’s headship is all about leadership, it’s about changing policy, it’s about questioning whether we could do things better all the time. And also, I think looking at every problem from a strategic and structural quantity, so somebody makes a mistake. It may be that the deputy head is the one who sort of says, excuse me, um, you know, that went wrong, you know, what are you doing? Why you’re not concentrating, blah, blah, blah to a teacher to hold them to account? Which I think the head is going. So structurally, is this something wrong with this? Is that person overworked? Is that why these things are happening? And quite often you think, no, there is no structural issue. There was just human error. But I’m a great believer in no blame. I think, you know, people beat themselves up quite enough. There’s no need for you to be going. I’m disappointed with you. Because that doesn’t really work. It just makes them feel frightened of you and anxious. So yes, it so again, my style is very liberal. Deputy Head Yeah, so lots of high school experience and be ambitious. Keep your eyes up on the horizon in terms of the wider picture. If you’re looking for a school, look at the community, but it’s em. I was always given a good tip. And if you if you are given an interview and take a taxi or something, you know, ask ask local people like what they know about school, do your research. I think that’s absolutely critical. So it goes to school knowing absolutely everything there is possibly know about that school, and that will impress them, and also give you a sense of what you want to work. Because not every school is right for me.

Lee Stanley 17:25
So he’s been your biggest influence as a head teacher.

Andrew 17:33
I think my father probably he wasn’t a teacher, but he was a he was an industrialist he ran a steel a company up in Sheffield. And he was his style was always not to not tell people to remember he was just like, Okay, all right. That’s really, you know, and that was his style as a dad. And I think that’s what I’ve always done and I think that has liberated people to do what what they what the can want to get the best out of people is to be gentle and compassionate with a huge influence. Something that sense. And to be honest, you know, some say it feels a bit kind of arrogant and childish. But I learned a lot by working on the head teachers who weren’t terribly good look above and think I do it like that.

Lee Stanley 18:15
It’s often the way isn’t it, if, within any employment, if you see good practice, you you likely to mimic and to replicate. And likewise, if you see somebody real, really make a hash of something, you’re less likely to, to replicate that as well. So and in terms of your biggest challenges within your headship currently, what are those now,

Andrew 18:39
currently, I think the school has has grown quite a lot. So when I got here, it’s about 350. Then it went down to 300 games now at 390. And so the challenge is sort of keeping that small intimate school feel going, keeping on top of all the projects that we want to do so I think this term particularly, you know, a lot of people around me saying, gosh, we are, you know, noticeably more busy and that therefore means you’re dropping balls here and dropping balls there. We’ve just decided to become, you know, genuinely sustainable school and actually the amount of work coming across my desk is is considerable on that and it’s really quite hard to keep keep track of that. So it’s trying to keep all the balls in the air, I think always, you know, keeping those kind of long term strategic goals going, but also, you know, talking to a little Oscar who’s being a pain in the playground, you know, and that’s, but that’s one of the joys of Headship but it but it’s very challenging in terms of keeping all those things running concurrently. Yeah, sure.

Lee Stanley 19:38
And in terms of education, what’s one thing that you would change if you if you could?

Andrew 19:44
I think we’ve the education is just possibly emerging from an absolutely hideous period of neoliberalism where everything is measured, and it’s all about the data state sector still is, I believe, like hugely data driven, I think there are still a lot more, you know, warm and fuzzy, but they still still about, you know, well, if the results backwards, you know, I think, well, that’s a real shame because behind every set of results, there are some human stories, and you need to know those human stories. So I think that what I would change about education is, is to remove some of the testing, a lot of countries don’t test anybody really seriously until they’re 16 or even 18, for that matter. So I think putting pressure my wife will have disappeared. My wife works in, in a state primary school, and now the pressure that she’s under to get those results, I’m looking at this child looking at that child in a pressure pressure. And you can see, if you started getting good stuff, you can say like, here’s a bunch of 8 years olds. So what we’ve got to do is measure where they are measuring again in six months and then again and then again, when they get really worried about that and then blame the teacher because they haven’t learned to read. You know, you say something to like the world one day they’ve got it completely. The next day they they don’t remember What they were in school? I mean, it comes with a learning curve, not a straight line. I mean, it’s it’s a bumpy curve and I think if we could really embrace that in education, I think we would, will be a lot happier.

Lee Stanley 21:11
Fantastic. agree completely. And like you say, there’s always a storey behind every child isn’t there? Like I said, we’re all we’re all learning as we go.

And in terms of current initiatives within school, yeah. Do you have any any particular favourite sort of things that working specifically?

Andrew 21:25
Yeah.

Well, I’ve mentioned sustainability that’s just getting off the ground. The other thing that I have been doing successfully school is a thing called girls on board that I want to tell you what I’m doing now for boys, which is the new initiatives that girls on board, I think that I invented here about seven or eight years ago, and it basically is a different way of supporting girls when their friendships go wrong. So I think the hardest thing for girls and supporting girls because when those friendships go wrong. They get very, very upset and they can really struggle to get back into a kind of a, you know, happy state again. And I think the reason that it goes, the reason that adults don’t support them effectively is because when a girl is upset, she starts telling her story and teachers start to write things down on the assumption that because she’s upset somebody must have upset her somebody must have been doing something wrong.

Lee Stanley 22:20
Yeah.

Andrew 22:20
So upset. But actually that is rarely the case. Sometimes that is the case sometimes bullying were bullying is taking place, but actually, a lot of the time. It’s it’s just turbulence in the friendship groups. You know, they’re all really worried about their friendships. They’re anxious about those friendships and things have happened. And that girl has chosen to come and talk to you about why she’s upset. So instead what we do within the girls and boys school is we listen to that storey we check that she’s not being bullied. It may be that just listening is enough. I’m just kind of feeling okay how you feeling now? Yeah, feel. Got it off my chest and get back out to the corridor show or If not, we’ll call it go support session because I’m your session is really just an empathy raising moment. Where we say, look, all girls have this anxiety, every girl must have a friend. So let’s just look at this the things that happened in the school day. So you’re walking down the corridor, three, three side by side, and you have to go single file and kind of got the front of who’s going in the middle. And of course, the girls got my God, this is a real problem. He tells the boys like kind of going to watch the question. Seriously, this is Miss you where you’re going, Wow, that’s amazing. For the girls. Like we could talk about this for half an hour. And we do we analyse it. So why would you go to the front, okay, here because I only got a middle, and they’ve all got reasons, even as young as seven years old, they can tell you why they would get the front middle back. So at the end of that, you would have effectively kind of raised that empathy. So they looking across the group thinking, you know, she’s unhappy, someone’s got to sort this out, she’s gonna have to join a friendship group. So with them having to go source stuff themselves grown ups stay out of it. And that’s been very successful here. I was given permission by my governors until about two and a half years ago to commercialise to monetize that. So I’ve as a head teacher, I go out to other schools and invite people to join me in those schools, my host training sessions, we’ve got 110 schools across the country and doing girls on board. So if you want to do that girlsonboard.co. uk. Thank you. So, brilliant.

Lee Stanley 24:17
So you cover the entire UK where that’s concerned, not just a locally

Andrew 24:22
Going up to Scotland next summer.

Lee Stanley 24:24
I’m just thinking from a from a I mean, I’m a dad of two girls, and I can 100%

Andrew 24:31
Yeah,

Lee Stanley 24:32
and I appreciate everything you’ve turned around and said, and I also compare that to my friends who’ve got boys and they are so different and like you say, the way in which they take on board the emotional state, and the worry and the anxiety which is really significantly heightened nowadays. So much like every everybody’s got, you know, huge problem. They face and trying to deal with. So sounds like a terrific initiative.

Andrew 25:06
It is a very powerful, we want a couple of prizes for that. So that that’s going very well. Because along the way, obviously people keep saying to me, so what are you doing the boys? And I do have finally an answer to that. And it was taking a very, very long time to kind of work up what I want to say about boys. So the first thing I’d say is that friendship isn’t the issue for boys the most intractable or difficult problem is engagement is motivation is disappearing down the wormhole of grotty, Moody, depressed, you know, I don’t care about anything, Baba. So basically, what I’ve done it in a similar way is kind of codify that and so the first of all the qualification would be it’s about it’s not about ice and for girls, it’s about isolation. It’s about avoiding isolation for boys. I think it’s about avoiding humiliation.

Lee Stanley 25:52
Yeah.

Andrew 25:52
It’s about retaining dignity, and that will drive them to behave in ways that they’re not always entirely proud of, in order to avoid condition it humiliation on certain people, then I think you’re looking at the emotional literacy generally of understanding that you’re not annoyed. You’re furious, you’re really angry. Once you get angry about well, actually, boys all get angry about some things that get angry with siblings, with parents to patronise them. teachers who are boring, football, full stop, you know, gaming that goes wrong. And again, you’re kind of raising the apathy in the room by having this kind of conversations, whether that doesn’t necessarily change the way they relate to each other. So what I’m trying to do more is to create a new kind of ethical and moral framework around the way they relate to each other. And what I’ve been going on in the past is doing that too late. So I’m trying to kind of go, Oh, look, whatever, all the boys in Year 9 hideous and they mean to each other and they’re miserable, but it’s too late. I’ve missed the boat. They have established the culture with which they will address each other, particularly when it comes to banter and things like that. So what I’m doing now is working with year seven were actually they understand what I’m saying, but they haven’t yet become grunting horribles. So literally working with your seven this week, and asking them to tell me about the older brothers, boys and girls, and they kind of said, you know, it’s really moody and really mean to me. And so I’m just similar skills about I liked that teaching of just getting people to reflect. So it’s not didactic, it’s just like, I use a phrase a lot. Isn’t it true to say, What do you think, if you experienced that, so they’re digging around in their own experience and putting and making connections between things that they have experienced? So that I’m hoping that by doing that, I’m looking at a banter, looking at sensitivity to banter looking at what’s acceptable isn’t, you know, perhaps being a little bit more deliberate when it comes to things like sexualized language and saying, actually, I’m going to disagree with that. I just don’t think we should do that. You know, that’s not dignified. So there is a kind of a model, of course, but there’s a lot of just getting them to reflect on the fact that if they allow their banter to become very harsh, it has a ratchet effect. It’s very difficult to come back from the humour that was gentle it will no longer is gentle. Yeah And at the heart of that then after got pretty much completed my thoughts on this is his masculinity so I’m hanging it all on the kind of what is gentle masculinity? What is sour masculinity is a great podcast called boys don’t try. They use the words tender monotone and I’ve kind of converted that for myself. And we start with lessons throughout the school. Just saying so what is gentle and what is sour? You know, it’s harsh, its kind, it’s respectful, it’s considerate, or it’s, it’s tough and it’s over competitive, it’s arrogant. It’s selfish, it’s rude. And just yeah, let’s just reflect on those things. And what kind of body what kind of man Do you want to be? And then the boys are kind of go over all these things. We’re finding the sweet, lovely, then it goes kind of go. Yeah, now you’re not having the girls there? Absolutely not. So I guess you know, it’s early days for this but I’m hoping that that will have an effect. Looking at, as I say, the way in which boys relate to each other

Lee Stanley 28:57
sounds fantastic.

Andrew 28:58
I’m really interested

Lee Stanley 29:01
If we can, perhaps have a follow up, you know, around about an end of end of term or end of year, whichever, whichever you see fit

Andrew 29:09
In terms of masculinity probably ended year because I think it’s going to take time to kind of embed that and have several lessons I’ve got one of my teachers is doing NPQSL and she’s going to do it on masculinity. So data and see if we can, you know, prove prove a point, I think what we’ll do is probably take what what I’m recommending for her to do is to take maybe 10 boys have a look at attitudes towards say homework and see if we can change the attitudes towards

Lee Stanley 29:36
Sure. makes sense

Andrew 29:38
to work. Not a bad thing. You know, it’s cool to work my uncool. Yeah.

Lee Stanley 29:42
Well, yeah, it is interesting because I seem to be given the impression within my peer group that nowadays, being clever and being a bit of a school geek is actually seen as cool. Which when I was at school, it was completely the opposite you know that it was a complete pole apart. So, again, quite interesting where homework and things like that a concerned.

Andrew 30:09
Yeah, exactly. You’re right. Geekiness has become cool way which you know, which is a great thing yeah

Lee Stanley 30:15
yeah definitely well, there were so many there are so many niches now and children are exposed to such a vast variety of influence and it really is an influence and you know, we I probably would say that with my upbringing and my education, it was very much a meat and two veg it was this way or that way you’re either clever or you were sporty. There was nothing really in between and yet now. You know, every every child is so unique and it’s good but it’s incredibly difficult to cater for. Obviously from from within within school. Fantastic Excellent. So in terms of moving forward, then was just a couple of other random questions. But what are you currently reading at the moment? Whatbook? Are

Andrew 31:09
Reading a book called The interestings. It’s an American book, my daughter gave it to me. She’s very good at finding new authors. For me. I can’t remember the name of the author, but it’s a lucky book of life in America and growing up and I love it. Yeah, it’s great.

Lee Stanley 31:23
And what’s your favourite interview question?

Andrew 31:27
I like to like talking about girls on board.

Lee Stanley 31:31
And in terms of, if you weren’t a teacher, where where would you be? What would you be doing?

Andrew 31:36
You know, I have I have another life which is in music. So I play saxophone. And I’d love to do more of that be able to compose more and play more that that’s always been, you know, something Ill do when I step away from headship should do more of that. But I hope also to have the chance to come up with furthering education, of interest separation headship is as well as consultancy and song Yeah,

Lee Stanley 31:58
brilliant, brilliant and favourite holiday destination.

Andrew 32:01
I like home. I’m a staycation guy. I really am. Yeah.

Lee Stanley 32:05
Excellent.

Andrew 32:06
Going away very stressful.

Lee Stanley 32:10
And in terms of apps, because we live in an app culture Now, what’s your favourite work app?

Andrew 32:17
Well, I would say that. Twitter, I mean, you know, is that an app? I don’t know. I mean, I spent a lot of time on Twitter. And I think across the board, it’s been very useful. So I do enjoy time on Twitter.

Lee Stanley 32:30
Is that something that you have within school specifically?

Andrew 32:33
Not so much. I mean, the school has Twitter accounts and so on, as everybody does. We’ve had we tend to use Facebook a lot more than Twitter. But girls on board on Twitter has been very successful because an awful lot of teachers on Twitter who are doing their own thing, so fantastic English educators. community that is very, very powerful. So I think that’s been really, really good. Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Stanley 32:53
Um, what about your favourite app in general

Andrew 32:59
you caught me out there. I don’t know. I don’t know.

I don’t know. But the world is sort of changed him away isn’t it because everything is driven through app so you might want to watch TV if I want to watch you know, Amazon Prime, it’s through an app and email so that everything’s okay. I’ve got some great music ones that I must admit this and this ones that you can buy as a saxophone player where it gives you the music and then it plays a great the acompanyment months and then it turns the page over for you. There’s one called Ireal where you could programme in the chord sequence and then close it download thousands and thousands of songs and we can play it many key and tempo them style. They’re amazing response in terms of being able to to be a home and practice and have something interesting to play rather than just playing C major all the time. Yeah,

Lee Stanley 33:44
sounds good.

Andrew 33:45
Ireal well that gets my vote.

Lee Stanley 33:47
And who would you say has been the biggest influence in terms of your life?

Andrew 33:52
Overall

Lee Stanley 33:54
Yeah.

Andrew 34:01
Difficult one. My wife I think probably is influenced me a lot. My children have influenced me a lot. But they’re not my children has never been shy to kind of go Yeah, yeah, but no, no, you’re wrong. You know, you got all this wisdom but I just think you’re wrong and I loved I love that kind of relationship. I have an all three of them actually, that they are more than happy to correct me. But they do it very, very gently. And so I think I’ve learnt to sort of, you know, not be arrogant. I think my dad sometimes it’s like, well, yes, Andrew, but do what you may need to understand this new concept I’m doing. Okay. But my, you know, I’ve learned not to do that to my children because they just don’t think so. I’ll teach you now

Lee Stanley 34:39
is the interesting like you say that the respectfulness that the difference in respectfulness that you have from when a parent will give you a negative or a suggestion compared to when when your children do Definitely, yeah, yeah, I can fully relate to that having having two girls as well. It’s

Andrew 35:00
They’re very gentle. I’m writing the girls on board book now. And I did a 40,000 words first draught, and I showed it to Holly. He’s 23. And she is, you know, she’s like, yeah, doesnt work at all and bless her, she kind of spent the next four days going through every single sentence with me trying to work out where it’s going wrong. And we, you know, we labelled every paragraph and then restructuring the book from from the ground up. So she is prepared to put the legwork into kind of support. That’s brilliant.

Lee Stanley 35:27
Brilliant. Excellent. So thank you ever so much for your time and being a part on this webinar? And what’s the best or where are the best places for people to find you

Andrew 35:40
on Twitter or on called girls on board UK and Thorpe Hall school? I got a blog on thorpehallschool.co.uk again, and those are probably the two best places to find me. Yeah.

Lee Stanley 35:52
And what was the head teacher

Andrew 35:55
that’s a good one actually. It’s called Leading an independent school, which is all one word .co uk. and gentlemen, I run that for four weeks into half term every term. And we used to take on around 25 people. And yeah, we’ve had probably 500 people go through the years of for over 100. And now in post brilliant, remotely interested independant education coming up, I strongly suggest to do that. It’s quite well known as you can imagine as a course. And I think if you put that on your CV, people are recognising that you’ve gone through that common quality mark.

Lee Stanley 36:29
Excellent. Well, what I’ll do, I’m add the links under here and also in the in the real below. So if anybody wants to get in touch with you, they can, and thank you ever so much for your time.

Andrew 36:41
My pleasure. Thank you. Take care. Okay.

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