Melvyn Roffe has been the principal of George Watson’s College in Edinburgh since 2014. Later this year he will become the new chair of the HMC (Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference) group of independent schools.
He told us about why the skill of a teacher should not be underestimated, the importance of authenticity in teaching, and the memorably uproarious moment that helped him bond with a class.
1. What I wish I’d known when I started teaching is…
How much I would enjoy it. I was actually somewhat of a reluctant teacher to begin with. I thought for a while that I’d rather do something else, like being a lawyer, but I can’t imagine that now and I’ve been 35 years in the teaching profession.
When I started my teaching people said I was doing really quite well. In my first job, at Oundle School, an independent boarding school in Northamptonshire, the headteacher took me aside and said, “Well, clearly you want to be a head yourself, so what are we going to do about making sure that happens?”
What did he see in me? Relentless annoyance! I asked a lot of questions.
2. The most important qualities a teacher needs are…
That important mixture of subject knowledge and understanding what makes young people tick. You can see lots of people who do one or the other, but relatively few people do both.
I particularly notice this when we have non-teachers in school. With the best will in the world - whether they’re university academics or politicians or captains of industry of one sort or another - you can tell that they’re not teachers. The giveaway, quite often, is lack of humility; it’s thinking that what they’re saying in the space is the most important thing, when actually, in a teaching space, it’s always what children and young people are thinking that is the most important thing.
Unless you get that, then what you’re saying to pupils never actually lands.
3. The most important lesson I’ve learned from doing this job is…
Part of doing the job well is being yourself. All the best teachers I know are people who have a really strong sense of giving themselves, of their personality, into the classroom. I always tell student teachers or probationers that children and young people deserve to know who you are, to see you as a person and engage with you as a person. So part of the skill of being a teacher is knowing how to curate that and not be frightened of it.
It’s about being authentic - that’s the word. It’s scary, no doubt about it. In my early leadership years, I probably wasn’t as authentic as I should have been - I had some idea of what someone in my role in an independent should look like and the attitudes I should take - but it didn’t take me that long to realise that I was just not going to be able to function like that.
I didn’t have the confidence to say what I thought I needed to say. I would say that I could see we needed to do A, B and C, but because we’d always done X, Y and Z, I would equivocate somewhere around the middle - rather than saying, “Look, actually, we just need to do this,” and have the confidence to make the case.
Part of the role of leadership is to see the big picture to see how it has to be ultimately delivered, in detail.
4. The best change I ever made in my practice was…
In leadership, I’ve got this doctrine that I call the “lowest effective level”. It’s about delegating, about making sure that people who are doing, for example, particular things in a particular subject feel empowered to do that. They should know that, in the framework in which they’re working, they’ll be supported up the chain by leadership.
Your job as a leader is the big picture. There are lots of other people who are better and more effective at delivering the detail.
5. If I could change something about Scottish education it would be…
The singular lack of autonomy of my colleagues in the state sector. They feel unable to contribute to national debates in the way which my independent school colleagues are free to do.
Having been the head of a state school in England for 13 years, that has been the most stunning difference coming north of the border. It hampers so much of the conversation about what is right and wrong about Scottish education.
If there was one thing that would help to change the discussion, it would be genuine empowerment for heads of schools.
6. My most memorable moment as a teacher was…
The most bizarre moment was when I was teaching English. We were doing a lesson on irony in An Inspector Calls - and an inspector walked in the door.
It’s all about sharing a moment with a class. Someone said, “Sir, sir, an inspector’s called!” The entire class collapsed, leaving the poor inspector who’d just walked in not understanding anything about what had happened.
As a way of undermining any tension we might have had, that was pretty good. I think I will treasure that moment until the end of my days - it was a wonderful bonding moment between me and the class.
7. The worst mistake I ever made was…
When our second child was born, I thought it was more important to get back to school to start off an A-level exam (in those days an English teacher had to read out a passage in Middle English) than to spend time with my wife and newborn son. My work-life balance was particularly bad as a head of department and that was the worst example of it - which I hope I’ve learned from, a bit.
8. My top tip for aspiring teachers is…
My top tip for people who think they might want to be a teacher but don’t know if they really are one - a bit like me at the start of my career - is: do it, because you’ll probably do better than you think you will. If you’ve got that sense of a vocation, then try it out - you might surprise yourself.
9. When dealing with challenging pupils, my go-to strategy is…
You have to keep talking and believe that there is a good route through, with ongoing dialogue and by trying to find the point of engagement with the young person.
Having said that, I also firmly believe that, at some point, you have to be able to say, “No, we’ve done everything we can, it’s time for everyone to have a fresh start.”
As I’ve said to colleagues and our pupils on several occasions over the last two-and-a-half years: “Please believe that we are relentlessly on your side.” But it doesn’t mean to say that there aren’t limits.
10. The best CPD I ever did was…
It was a trip to Denmark, which I wrote about for Tes in 2019. I went across for a week to have a look at a school system that was being developed. By working with colleagues from across Europe and seeing another school in another environment, I learned so much about school leadership at all sorts of levels.
It enabled me to reflect on the context in which I was working. That was tremendously powerful. I would certainly advise anyone who is new in a leadership position to take that sort of opportunity, even if it’s a visit to a school just down the road, to get that sense of seeing something, which in some ways will be very familiar but in others very different. That gives you a perspective which is otherwise very difficult to achieve.
The HMC and Independent Association of Prep Schools (IAPS) are jointly organising their annual conference in Edinburgh from 5-7 October. Mr Roffe is keen to involve state schools from across the UK and Ireland - read more here.
Melvyn Roffe was speaking to Tes Scotland editor Henry Hepburn
