How heads can avoid mutiny

If headteachers are to be the captains of their educational ships they need to manage the crew’s workload better to avoid stormy waters, says Michael Tidd...

So, no great surprise, it turns out that the DfE didn’t have a magic wand to wave when it came to teachers’ workloads. The temptation is to presume that the department wasn’t really interested in doing anything for teachers, that it was all bluster in the lead-up to a general election. But perhaps the reason is not as obvious as first it seems.

After all, the challenge response document did highlight one concern – the important admission that ‘in some instances, headteachers can lack sufficient confidence in the way that they make decisions which affect the workload of teachers in their schools.’ Many teachers would say that their headteacher is more than confident when it comes to issuing orders, and dishing out tasks. After all, who can honestly say that they’ve never left a staff meeting grumbling that long-standing criticism of headteachers: “You can tell he doesn’t have a class to teach”? The trouble is, the confidence to manage a school doesn’t always go hand-in-hand with the ability to lead a school.

Who’d be a headteacher, eh? The traps are plentiful. The buck always stops there, whether it’s parents, teachers, pupils, governors, the local authority, academy trustees, Ofsted… every head must constantly be looking over her shoulder, waiting for the next criticism and hoping she survives another day in the role.

On the good ship Education, there are plenty of ill winds. In stormy seas, a ship’s crew must look for a captain who knows how to weather the storm and keep the ship on course. For that to be achieved, the captain must have confidence in his direction. There is, perhaps, a risk these days that too many headteachers are so driven by the prevailing winds that emanate from Ofsted, the media and various other sources, that perhaps their teams can feel constantly adrift.

Let’s cut to the point: some headteachers are so quick to adopt the latest technique that appears to be Ofsted-approved or praised by the DfE, that they can inadvertently overwhelm their teachers with strategies, paperwork, marking and responsibilities. All in an effort to do their best, no doubt, but they lack the confidence to lead from the front.

London headteacher, Tom Sherrington, posted a tweet a couple of years ago: “If there was no Ofsted, no league tables, no SLT, just you and your class, what would you choose to do to make it GREAT? Do that anyway.” The tweet obviously hit a chord, with nearly 300 retweets. Many teachers know that with all the external factors removed, their practice would be better. Might the same apply to headteachers?

In the current climate, we often hear older teachers talking about those newer to the profession, wondering how they’ll cope with life after levels. After all, they’ve never known anything different. Do we perhaps suffer the same problem with school leaders? Are some so used to being told what to do by Ofsted that they can see no other way?

If we could rely on Ofsted to be an entirely positive influence on schools, that might be fine. But too often the desire, or desperation, to satiate the demands of the inspectorate can be a key factor in increasing the workload of classroom teachers. The latest triple-marking policy, planning for umpteen levels of differentiation and tracking data every other day, they all add up. And for every courageous head who has the confidence to say ‘enough is enough’, too many teachers are in schools where every new approach is adopted by the school leaders, and promptly offloaded onto the teachers in the classroom.

The DfE’s suggested approach is to bolster coaching for headteachers. That could help. If we really want the best people in the role of headteacher – those who’ll have the courage to lead their schools well, and weather the many storms – then perhaps we need better support for our leaders, rather than the punitive model that sees one bad set of results or Ofsted experience as a career-ending episode.

Certainly, we can’t carry on as we are. As the Workload Challenge response says, headteachers ‘are responsible for…the workload and professional development of their teachers.’ We need them to get that right, for all of our sakes. We’re all in the same boat.

About the author

Michael Tidd is deputy headteacher at Edgewood Primary School in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.