School leader - be your own person

You were chosen for your talent.  You were considered to be a good match for the job.  You are you.  They want you to be you.

You are not a cog in a machine.  You have more freedom than you realise.

One of the huge privileges of my job is to visit lots of schools and meet lots of school leaders.  It strikes me that the outstanding ones are always more independent-minded than those who are good.  Colin High at Holland Park (11-18) has an associate head and about 10 assistant heads.  They dress as sharp corporate executives and the eye for detail in the school is second to none.  The special effects in his assemblies create the atmosphere of a temple.  Mitch Karunaratne is co-leader at Kaizen Primary School with Rebekah Iiyambo.  They do all the strategic planning and higher level school improvement and developmental work.  The four assistant heads aren't assistant heads; they are 'trainee headteachers'.  Talk about intent residing in a role title.  The four of them are the operational managers on a day to basis.  Both schools are graded outstanding by Ofsted. 

I could give you another five examples off the top of my head of individuals who boldly create new structures and new modi operandi.

If schools are to adapt to the needs of their local circumstances, we need school leaders to be independent-minded.  That does not mean maverick, un-collegiate or dangerous - although there is an element of each in the make up of most outstanding heads I have met.

I had to agree with Tom Finn-Kelcey, writing in the Times Educational Supplement on 21st Sept ('The Creeping Rise of Follow My Leader'):

Many in the profession are so reliant on the state and its array of educational bodies to tell them what to do that they are prepared to set aside their own principles and inherent sense of what actions they should be undertaking....

The growing freedoms in the sector being encouraged by this - and, to be fair, the previous government can only be seized and taken advantage of when leadership is confident and individual.

More anon, I think.