Let’s begin this article on story-telling with a story. The Ship of Theseus is a classical thought experiment that goes something like this:
After returning from epic battle, the Ship of Theseus is battered and its crew is bedraggled and battle-worn. Back in port, the ship has parts replaced, repairs completed, and new crew members join the team for the next campaign. As this process continues over time, not one of the original parts of the ship remains; similarly, none of the original crew members are on board. The question to ponder: Is it the same ship? Can we still call this the Ship of Theseus?
For those of us without a classical education, it is the same idea as Trigger’s Broom. Many will recall the episode of Only Fools and Horses in which Trigger’s award-winning broom is heralded by the council for 20 years of dutiful service.
Cue the memorable one-liner from Trigger: “Mind you, the broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles.”
And so it goes for schools: the staff will change, students come and go, the building is updated, sometimes there is a complete move of site. All of which begs the question: Is it the same school?
Or, to put it another way, does your school have a core identity that runs like a golden thread, over time, and through everything you do?
This core identity should be the anchor for your story-telling, the essence of your Ship of Theseus, a kind of “lore”.
In the hustle and bustle of day-to-day operations and fire-fighting, it is this attention to story-telling that can be lost. As senior leaders, we must ensure that vision, values and “the big picture” remain front and centre of all communications – this goes for communications and messaging to staff, students, parents, and governors alike.
Like the captain of the ship, we must find our stories and shared history in order to galvanise the new crew to pull in the same direction.
So let’s take a look at how we can tell our story across three different stakeholder groups.
1, Staff: Assemblies are not just for the children
When we think of opportunities to deliver messages to staff, we might think of briefings, twilight sessions, and staff meetings.
However, in my experience these meetings often focus on urgent, operational short-term messages, rather than the longer term vision.
So, it is important to take advantage of other opportunities.
For example, assemblies are not just for the children. We’re all familiar with those assemblies that re-assert values and the big picture to our young people: this is where the best headteachers and senior leaders know that they’re also talking to the teachers around the edge of the hall.
A recent poll by Teacher Tapp showed that only 59% of teachers expect to still be teaching in three years’ time (down from pre-pandemic figures of around 75%).
Furthermore, only 58% of teachers indicated they would choose to become a teacher if given the chance again (compared to 71% pre-pandemic).
One of the levers we can pull to keep our great staff motivated and to buck this trend is to build a staff culture founded on a collective understanding that we are all working towards (and are part of) something bigger.
As Simon Sinek writes in his celebrated 2011 book Start with Why: “There are only two ways to influence human behaviour: you can manipulate it, or you can inspire it.”
It is up to the head and senior leaders to inspire staff by building the poetry of shared values and repeating it at every opportunity. Taking a long-term view, or “infinite vision” (Sinek, 2020), they see their role as one of service and custodianship of the bigger mission.
2, Children: The power of belonging
One of the most important edu-books to emerge post-pandemic, Reconnect: Building school culture for meaning, purpose, and belonging (Lemov et al, 2022), highlights three major challenges facing our schools and young people today:
- The smartphone-induced mental health crisis.
- The age of individualism.
- The breaking of the social contract through mistrust in institutions.
In brief, the authors explore the irony of rising isolation in an age in which we are more “connected” than ever before. Their core recommendation in this new age is to build true connectedness through a sense of belonging.
This can be done in many subtle ways and provides another motivation and anchor for our story-telling as leaders: “It’s especially important for the people who run places where youth gather and interact to understand that the mass adoption of smartphones has radically changed the social fabric of young people’s lives, even when they are not actively using them.”
Just as children now find their “crew” online, we must strive to ensure they feel part of the crew that is their school. This is easier said than done with teenagers, but there are small ways to make a start.
Teachers know the importance of metacognition in the classroom, but there is also a place for a kind of meta-narrative in our interactions and messaging to students. We should involve students in the process of building a school identity.
So, just as we would say, “this is how we are going to learn and remember this knowledge”, we could start by involving the children in the bigger whole-school picture by saying, “this is how we are going to work together here, and this is part of who we are as a community”.
It begins with shared language and values that are repeated and internalised over time.
As Lemov et al state: “...it’s hard to predict the values individuals bring to an organisation like a school, but you can frame specific values you think your school stands for and refer to them. You can always go back to the why: this is what we are trying to accomplish; this is why we are trying to accomplish it; these are the things we value as a community.”
3, Parents: Parental comms are not just for news
I don’t need to tell you that there has been a worrying rise in the number of children persistently absent in our schools. This speaks to the “breaking of the social contract” that Lemov et al (2022) describe as a growing problem, not just in schools but across a range of public institutions.
We know that parents are a major part of the jigsaw of school improvement; building these relationships is hard but begins with actively involving them at every opportunity in the overarching purpose of educating their children.
Reflect on the most recent parental newsletter or email circular you sent: did it weave in your values and themes? Did you take the opportunity to say not only “what has happened this week”, but “why we do all of this in the first place”? Was there an invitation for parents to get involved?
Lemov et al state: “A school should establish a shared vocabulary for the things it wants to instil and the purpose it seeks. This makes those things legible for students and parents. Ultimately, understanding and feeling connected to a purpose not only makes people happier, it also makes them more trusting.”
Final thoughts
Just like the crew of the Ship of Theseus, we have all had the feeling of getting to the summer holidays, somewhat dishevelled and in need of repair. But we also have great victories to reflect on and which help build our lore as schools and as communities. The new school year gives an opportunity to point to the future by building on our shared stories.
- John Smith is director of partnerships at Royal Grammar School in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He is a board director of the ONE Trust in Outer-West Newcastle and a member of the Strategic Board of the National Maths and Physics SCITT. You can follow John on X @EducatingHuman1 and on LinkedIn. Find his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/john-smith
Further information & resources
- Collins: Good to Great, Harper Business, 2001.
- Collins: Built to Last, Harper Business, 2002.
- Lemov et al: Reconnect: Building school culture for meaning, purpose, and belonging, Jossey-Bass, 2022.
- Sinek: Start with Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action, Penguin Books, 2011.
- Sinek: The Infinite Game, Portfolio Penguin, 2020.