What’s the worst thing that can happen?

There are times when being a head teacher, and the responsibility that designation brings, can feel overwhelming.

On the one hand headship can feel an enormous responsibility; on the other hand, there are over 24,000 schools in England. That’s over 24,000 head teachers, just in England. There are even more on this tiny island if you count Welsh and Scottish schools. Leap the Irish channel and you have a whole load more. Think how many more there are across the globe!

I was one in a series of head teachers who have led Huntington School. There will be many more Huntington heads after me. It wasn’t long after my tenure ended that I rang the school. The new receptionist asked my name. Her voice revealed no hint of recognition. “And what is it you want to speak to the Business Manager about?”

And yet things matter. Forgetting once to thank the Art department at a Friday staff briefing for putting on such a great A level Art exhibition brought me inordinate, yet deserved, grief. The art teachers had made a huge effort to organise the event, staying after school, night after night, to ensure it was perfection. They had every right to feel aggrieved. For me to forget to thank them publicly for their efforts was unforgiveable.

The Anglo-Saxon poem Deor prepared me for life’s more difficult moments. As a green undergraduate, the poem helped me develop a philosophical acceptance of life’s vagaries. In the poem, Deor’s lord has replaced him. Deor mentions various figures from Germanic mythology and reconciles his own troubles with the troubles these figures faced, ending each section with the refrain þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg! That passed away, so may this.

When we had an unexpected fire alarm I would stand in the centre of the playground, as 1,700 people massed around me, and tell myself that, à la the Deor poet, This too shall pass. It really helped. Especially if it was raining.

And everyone has a backstory. If I learnt anything in my time as a head teacher, it was from chatting with my colleagues about things other than work. We all have a life going on beyond school, a life which is more important and which is often emotionally demanding. I was amazed, on a regular basis, at how colleagues kept doing a great job when they were living through difficult times outside of school.

No job is worth your health or your marriage or your sanity. Our colleagues are first and foremost people, something school leaders do well to remember.

In his final interview before he died at the age of 61, Philip Gould, Tony Blair’s close adviser, said this to Andrew Marr and I had it pinned on my office wall: ‘What would have been better for me would have been to have said, ‘I’ll do what I can do, which I do quite well’ and then just push it back a little bit’.[1]

Gould’s insight came too late for him, but it wasn’t too late for me, and it isn’t too late for you.

[1] Philip Gould, The Andrew Marr Show, (BBC TV show, 18 September 2011)