Principal’s Blog #8

Days of speed

We have covered a lot of ground in the last 12 weeks. A new social contract exists between people now it seems. It has been a very different road travelled and the distance may prove hard to measure. The end of March feels like a long time ago.

In #8, an extended reflection as we move away from restrictions and consider what we’ve done, how we are moving forward and some future challenges.

Part 1: Where can we live but days

In most things, there is a time to observe, a time to think and a time to act. We have lived in these times, found ourselves in a cycle of these times. Looking to find the best way through. Observe. Think. Act. Sleep. Repeat. The government speak often yet say very little, while all forms of media have said every possible thing.  There has been a lot of noise around schools. We have had to find new levels of agility to manage the daily and weekly changes that have surrounded schools re-opening. Change has been metronomic.

Articulating this to anyone outside of the staff team can sometimes be difficult. Who knows how it would be interpreted. As complaining possibly? Playing into the damaging media narrative of ‘obstructive teachers’ It’s been a reality on the ground though. Constant change to the conditions of re-opening. Hats off to Primary colleagues, they’ve been shifted around more than us. Across our town they have done a great job.

Managing change at this velocity is a test of mind-set. To have the cognitive agility to adapt daily to the changing messages from government. To take on-board what is being asked of us and then translate it into our context, our community, our building. For our site team it has been an almost daily requirement for physical agility (a great team).Changing and re-arranging the spaces. Sleep. Repeat.

So, in our lockdown days, we’ve observed, we’ve thought and then we’ve acted. Then we’ve repeated the process. And repeated. Treat the change like oxygen we say – suck it in and use it for energy. Move on. It’s got us to this point.

A non-zero sum game

Everything we are doing is predicated on three things. Safety. Continuity. Socialisation.

No surprises. Safety has become amplified. The deep bass-line that permeates your bones. Part of every thought and breath. Keeping people safe. It was ever so, but never more so.

Continuity is a design principle. We have stayed open across the lockdown period. We want to stay open, re-open to bring back all students and get back to delivering provision irrespective of any future challenges. Pure logistics. I’m balancing a finite resource (staff) against the student population knowing that we can be disrupted at any time by infection and the resultant self-isolation protocols. 7-14 days of further disruption to education. Irrespective of social distance limits (1m, 2m), whilst we have no vaccine or similar safety net, the impact of self-isolation will dictate how we operate our school. How we maintain continuity and importantly stay open.

Leaving our third predicate. Socialisation. There is a pre-supposition in neuro-linguistics. Everybody has a different map of the world but the map is not the territory. I pre-suppose everybody’s map is now very different. We’ve all been in lockdown. We may think we know the territory but it will have affected different people in very different ways. Everybody will see the way out of this period differently as well. In a people driven organisation like our school this has huge implications. Adjusting back to school is a form of re-socialisation. Adapting back into a unique culture. We need to create time and space to do this properly if the ambition we have for our children and our curriculum experience for our children, is to be realised.

These are the principles of our return. To create a win-win from this situation.

Here we go, back

So since 15 June we have started re-engaging with our Year 10 students. We chose a series of 1-1 conversations with the children and their families as a prelude to any academic return. Everybody has a different map of the world.

Understanding the experience of the individual, whether staff or student, precedes any academic classroom focus. ‘You can’t do the Bloom’s stuff if you don’t do the Maslow stuff’, a prescient mantra. Our experiences since 15 June have certainly supported this. The overarching theme of our conversations with everyone is one of social confidence. Is it safe? This will not be a finite conversation. It will lead to how we re-open to a wider population over the coming weeks and months. Re-socialising people into the new rhythm of school is essential before the teaching and learning machines fires up again.

The space between us

Social and physical distancing would appear easy, yet in practice may be more difficult. Whether 2m or 1m it is a very different way to carry yourself, particularly in school.  It takes a heightened level of concentration from people in situations they are usually on autopilot for. Mindfulness is key. Parallel to our Year 10 return, staff training and re-orientation has also started. Part of the experience was to walk through the building in its new form. Arrows, signs and markers dictate the space at the moment. Watching the adults navigate the corridors and rooms in a socially distanced world made them appear almost surreal. Slowed down from the frenetic pace of life that previously rendered our spaces. It has been a levelling experience. We’ll adapt quickly though. As confidence returns so will a new pace on which to build our daily lives at school. The space between us will lessen.

If someone can do it, anyone can

As I’ve started to see more of our staff through the training sessions I have told them I’ve been proud of what we’ve done, what they have done in this period. When the students return I’ll be telling them the same thing. So much of the work that teachers have shown me that has been produced at home is fantastic. We have missed the student energy here at school but seeing examples of what is happening out there has reminded us of the achievement boundaries they are capable of pushing. The limitations they can break. Creativity is a characteristic of what we have been sent. What has struck me is how the students have adapted quickly. Working independently and communicating on-line to complete work and maintain connectivity is an essential skill-set. When we return we will celebrate the work done but also catch the skills students have developed so we can build on them. This experience may have developed in some people the skills essential to success in the 21st Century. There is a lot to learn from this. We’ll see.

Part 2: Finisterre

The future ain’t what it used to be. As we come towards the end of lockdown, a sense of the scale of its disruption is becoming evident. All our work in preparing to re-open is having to take into account how to remain open if there are local outbreaks, rises in the R value, pockets of debilitating self-isolation amongst the staff and students – the list is tricky but manageable at school level. Outside the school gates disruption has an even greater depth.

The impact of economic disruption is yet to be seen but sits on the horizon. After a decade of austerity, this is a concern on a seismic social level and will likely shape the experience of all of us. Since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, we have seen once again the shadow of racism and the historical legacy that fuels it come sharply into focus. A pandemic, a global recession and the very human struggle of people from all ethnic groups finding a way to live together in a sense of harmony. Truly definitive of disruption in a historical sense. Things change in these periods and we all hope for positive change. All this needs filtering and working through with students across the age range we have.

So how can we tackle this when we return? It requires discussion, reflection and expression without doubt. On the other side of coming to terms with change, however, is how we should shape the change. As a school leader, one of my reflections has been that the prescriptive, constraining experience of an almost singularly academic curriculum is for our children. The courage to change this experience and make it more holistic, more rounded is required now.

Next time it will all be different

Adaptation is a process. Once we had established a routine back in March and April for keyworker and vulnerable children provision, we were able to consider the future. To reflect on where we were and what we could do next. To take the concept of change further, past the pandemic and into the future. Not just how to re-open on the other side of lockdown but what to re-open as.

The school has many, many strengths but, given the system that we are in, it wasn’t working for everyone. We want to change that. The school that closed to the majority of its students and staff in March can’t re-open to the same. There was so much good in that school but so much that could be better. If we have the courage to challenge the system and shape the change we want.  Not all of our habits were aligned. But habits are statements about the past and the past is gone. This is a time to start a new way. This is the essence of ambition.

So we have not wasted the time away from our students, we have been busy (amongst other things) re-imagining our ambition and aspirations for our children. Designing a better place for everyone. The re-imagination of our school can be amplified by this enforced period of closure.

We have been shaping a future vision. We want a school that works for everyone, a school that lives by its values, and we want to shape a new culture and identity across the town and the wider region. Leading this vision will be the development of our Science team into a sector-leading faculty, a personal development curriculum that blends character education with outstanding student experience and a Year 7 curriculum that makes transition from Primary school seamless. The vision isn’t finite. We want a hybrid school where virtual teaching mirrors physical teaching, highly personalised staff CPD that builds better teachers, a greater level of connectivity allowing even more opportunities for all our students… This has been a period of global adversity but it has undoubtedly presented a unique opportunity for improvement that must be taken whilst the opportunity exists.

What we did in the lockdown

Keeping a routine, being at work everyday and keeping contact with people is something that I have personally valued and been grateful for throughout this period, particularly during peak lockdown. Like many others I have learned to work differently. We’ve done our work in a new way. Used our time in a more agile, flexible way. Time has shown to have a different depth and quality. The spaces within which we live our lives have had the constraints removed – no school bells, no after school meetings. These have been reshaped. We use time differently now and I hope this is something we can take forward as we move towards re-opening fully.

Gratitude, like optimism, was a noticeable part of many peoples thinking and language, particularly in the early/mid-phase of lockdown. I heard so many people express the view that they sought real, positive change on the other side of this. In terms of themselves and society. We should work hard to retain perspectives like this. Positive energy is required in the coming weeks and months. There is so much learning to do about what we have all done in lockdown and the positive deserves its time on stage.

Part 3: Le Monde est a nous

Things go in cycles. I re-watched a film from my youth recently. A film that introduced me to foreign language, sub-titled cinema. La Haine. (One for the older year groups before you ask – It’s a 15) Its themes resonate with what we see today. Its tells a story of twenty-four hours in the life of three friends after a night of inner city rioting. It could be a portrait of now. Paris, rendered in black and white gives it a timeless quality. Social unrest and disruption are key themes throughout. This is juxtaposed against friendship across different ethnic groups. It is a film that transcends age and still feels effortlessly relevant and vital. There is a point to mentioning this in a blog about how we should shape the change happening to us.

There is a repeating metaphor throughout this film that has a relevance to us and where we go next. Society, it goes, is in freefall. At risk of causing its own destruction. Society is the man falling through time and space. As he falls he says to himself, ‘so far, so good, so far so good,’. As the ground rushes closer the narrator reminds us however, how you fall doesn’t matter, it is how you land.

The speed at which the days have passed have created a velocity that, at times, has felt like this. Uncertainty and loss of control can feel like we are falling. We can’t afford to wait and see what happens, we must make something happen. Make something positive out of this adversity. We owe it to ourselves and our children. There is always a choice - So let’s land on our feet.

Mr Fraser June 2020