Given the changes we have experienced recently in education, this time of year is especially busy: new specifications, new assessment frameworks, new accountability measures have got teachers and school leaders working at full tilt.
Education has changed significantly in the past six years. With increasing numbers of schools becoming academies and with a clear direction of travel towards a world where all academies are part of multi-academy trusts, competition between schools has increased and it is at the start of an academic year when this can be the most fierce.
But how schools and school leaders behave in this government-engineered competitive marketplace of education can place a strain on relationships between schools and compromise local collaboration.
Schools enter an important recruitment season in the months of September and October and the comparison of examination results inevitably occurs as parents use this as a way of judging which school to send their child to.
This isn’t new and since the introduction of league tables there have always been “winners” and “losers” when local papers publish GCSE results in a tabular format. However, once upon a time there was an overarching body who held ultimate accountability for education in a local area and who ensured that schools operated within a coordinated framework, held hands and played nicely.
Nowadays, in areas where a local authority’s power has diminished and where all or most secondary schools have become academies, the fight for students can seem like the wild west.
It is not always the case and I know of areas where all secondary schools have become academies yet there is still local coordination, collaboration, respect and trust between schools.
However, this is not the norm and in areas where local partnerships have become fractured, during this crucial recruitment season it can only be described as “bandit country”.
Where I work, the local educational landscape is a mixture of what I have described above. Some schools are willing to act in the best interests of young people, some are unashamedly out for themselves. Navigating this environment successfully has been challenging.
As the headteacher, although I have a responsibility to recruit a full pupil admission number each year to ensure my school has financial sustainability, I have always tried to operate in an honest manner, respecting parental choice and ensuring I do not talk about other schools, only my own.
However, I have found that not all school leaders work in this way and it has been hard not to rise to what can only be described as unethical and unprofessional behaviour from other local schools.
When schools who are your direct competitors are telling prospective parents that my school has multiple supply teachers (we have zero) and that behaviour is out of control (we have the lowest exclusion rate in the area), it is both alarming and disappointing.
My response to this has been to stick to the principles that are important to me and which have always served me well in my school leadership roles – be honest, act with integrity at all times and place your faith in young people. When prospective families talk to me about these rumours I ask them to take a walk around my school with me. We pop into lessons, stand back and observe lesson changeovers and watch how students behave at lunchtime.
I ask them at the end of their tour what their honest opinion is and invariably they are impressed. I put my faith in the students, who are the best advocates for our school and they never let me down. I talk openly with parents about the values that matter to us and I refuse to talk about other schools.
My advice at this time of year for parents is always the same – look at all schools locally, see them during a normal working day and follow your gut instinct.
More often than not I see these families again when they enrol a year later. It just goes to show that in the end, if you act with integrity, parents see this as a strength and they will trust you with the education of their child.
- SecEd’s headteacher diarist is in his third year of headship at a comprehensive school in the Midlands.