Humility is a key attribute of great leaders, although it is too often in short supply among political, business and educational leaders.

Nelson Mandela, a great example of humility in leadership, said in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom: “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”

Humility was the overriding feeling at the end of the Association of School and College Leaders’ annual conference in Birmingham on Saturday, as hundreds of school leaders listened to Malala Yousafzai speak about her experience and her determination to spend her life working to give every young person an entitlement to education.

This remarkable 19-year-old, who had once said, “Let us remember: one book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world,” was an inspiration to the school leaders privileged to attend, most of whose pupils have so much in comparison with the millions of children across the world who have no access to education.

Ms Yousafzai stated her ambition: “I will never stop until I see the last child going to school.”

ASCL’s annual conference is very different from other unions’ yearly gatherings. Unlike other unions, ASCL policy is made by its elected council - the annual conference has no debates or policy decisions to provide newspapers with something to write about, as happens over the Easter holiday.

Instead, more than a thousand ASCL members gather for two days of intensive in-service training and speeches from political and educational leaders.

Justine Greening’s speech was politely received, and her messages on teacher professionalism and professional development were welcome, but her answers to questions on funding and grammar schools convinced nobody in the packed hall and the media reported heckling of the secretary of state.

In fact, it was more of a discontented murmur than a full-throated heckle. If the school leaders had used their collective school assembly voices to heckle properly, the noise would have been heard well beyond the conference hall.

Labour’s shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, had some open goals to score with this audience and her messages were mainly welcome to school leaders but, as she admitted, Labour has no coherent education policy yet and her address sounded more like a rousing call to a Labour party conference than an empathetic talk to school leaders.

In addition to the president, Sian Carr, and interim general secretary, Malcolm Trobe, there was a stellar line-up of speakers, including chief inspector Amanda Spielman; national schools’ commissioner Sir David Carter; Sir Michael Barber, of Pearson; Steve Munby, of the Education Development Trust; Andreas Schleicher, of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; Becky Allen, of Education Datalab; Carole Willis, of the National Foundation for Educational Research; and Baroness Campbell, of the Youth Sport Trust.

Putting the children first

Incoming ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton made a short speech, saying that, under his leadership, ASCL’s role would be “to speak on behalf of members; and to act on behalf of children”.

In his historical analysis of post-1944 education, Michael Barber had some good lines. Looking through the many secretaries of state, he observed that the Gove/Morgan/Greening era was not the first time that a man had made all the noise and women had to clear up the mess.

Bringing some perspective to education progress, Mr Barber reminded the audience that 0.8 per cent of the age group went to university in 1900 and now the figure is 50 per cent; that England is the most improved country in primary maths since 1995; and that a US news survey had found that the UK was the best country in the world for education.

Mr Schleicher and Dr Allen had other, less rosy, statistics about our education performance.

But this was not a conference about statistics, and the speakers who really caught the mood were those who talked about the moral purpose of teaching and the opportunities that school leaders have to shape the lives of young people if they have the courage to do what is right.

I have been to too many education conferences that have lost sight of the fact that teachers and school leaders are there because of the children. Those attending ASCL annual conferences can never forget this imperative, as the conferences are always compered by two 18-year-olds from the president’s school.

Our moral purpose in shaping the next generation was reinforced by the regular presence of students Emily Raj and Sam Wheeler,at the microphone and, in the final session, it was they who read out the questions to Malala.

For a weekend, the problems of school funding, teacher supply and increased selection did not go away, but they were set within the wider moral purpose of working in partnership to change for the better the lives of young people; a huge responsibility that constantly reminds all the best school leaders of the need to show humility in taking on such a big and important task.

John Dunford is chair of Whole Education, a former secondary head, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders and national pupil premium champion. His book, The School Leadership Journey, was published in November 2016. He tweets as @johndunford

For more TES columns by John, visit his back catalogue

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