Message from the headteacher

I hate being out of school. Some headteachers and executive types relish the opportunity to go and sit around a conference table and eat croissants, but I would far rather be in the thick of it at school.

In recognition of this, governors have set me targets to get out more but, unless the external meeting is unavoidable, I still tend to be in school. A friend of mine, who now has a (well-deserved) OBE - or perhaps MBE, I can’t remember - once criticised me for this and sent me a picture of him standing next to the PM of the day as an endorsement of the benefits of ‘networking’. I won’t say which PM it was, but it did significantly strengthen my resolve to stay in school.

On Monday lunchtime in school, for example, it was ALL GOING ON. One of our students had a back spasm and took a tumble on the stairs. As a precaution a first aider over the radio requested a wheelchair. I was nearest to the wheelchair and so carried it, as fast as I could, to the scene of the accident. I then managed to push the student up a very steep slope and around the huge detour needed to avoid steps. By the time I returned to the pastoral office to ensure that our accident records had been updated I was dishevelled, breathless and bathed in sweat. At that moment an ailing student rushed around the corner on her way to the bathroom and vomited quite spectacularly. In an effort to be helpful I started mopping up the worst of it as her pastoral team looked after her and site staff were called. I was just leaning over the wet bit to put one of those ‘don’t slip on the floor’ warning triangles down, when I slipped on the floor, performed a short Irish style dance with legs flailing and then hit my head on the door frame. I toyed with the idea of calling for the wheelchair but in the end I limped back to my office where my (never sympathetic) PA had a giggling fit.

Despite this reluctance to prise myself away from the action I did find myself today (Friday) at a meeting of headteachers and chief executives to look at the impact of recent unfunded budget increases. I hope you are following this story in the news. It is desperately concerning for those of us responsible for young people of school age. Along with my colleagues in EMET and other headteachers nationally, I am hoping that government will review their decision to increase schools’ payrolls without increasing their funding to match. The huge figures involved (think hundreds of thousands for many schools) simply cannot be clawed back through savings as we have made all the savings possible over the last 10 or so years. I heard a reporter ask a headteacher recently ‘can’t you just increase the size of classes further?’ to which the headteacher replied, ‘not unless someone increases the size of classrooms further’.

Anyway…this week I have been into as many classrooms as possible. In one of my favourites this week I found Harrison in Y10 making what looked like an extremely fragrant and tasty carrot and coriander soup. And in a form time the teacher was modelling ‘Plan for Reading’, one of our key strategies this year, to explore the article of the week (AOTW) which was about the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

I hope that the extended weekend allows you to spend some time with loved ones witnessing, what I am sure will be, memorable and historic scenes at the state funeral on Monday.

Best wishes A Marsh Headteacher