I've been headteacher at my current school for 14 years, and I love the frenzied start to the school year. It's always a delight to lead those September assemblies with shiny-faced children, in shiny clothes and shoes sitting on shiny polished hall floors. This time of the year always sparkles with optimism, hope and renewed companionship. All around us, there's a sense of excitement to be underway again, to be leading our lovely children through this next stage of their learning adventure: teachers love their new classes, children love their new teachers and staff are full of praise for their new colleagues and classroom environments.

So how do we hold on to that sparkle as the year continues? How do we all shine on, throughout the new school year? How do we keep the tarnish from dulling all of that optimism and hope? I want to lose the feeling of crawling toward the end of a school year in July, barely able to stand the sight of those around me, before returning in a haze of promise and good intentions in September, only for it to be blown away in the reality of bitter experience by Christmas. I want to make less fevered new year promises and stay fresh enough to be able to hold on to something of my September-self throughout the entire school year.

I know the hundreds of feet that pass through our halls will inevitably reduce the sheen of polished wooden floors, that multitudes of playtime scuffs will tarnish the shine of new shoes, but buffing floors and polishing shoes will help to preserve as much of that shine as possible. It is harder to hold on to the shine of hope in our children and staff.

School values

Certainly part of the answer lies in managing workloads and remembering that the school year is a marathon, not a sprint. Of course, there will be times when we need to take a break and to nurse ourselves through difficult patches, before pushing onwards to ensure that children get their best out of their education, remembering that they only get one chance at this school year.

Equally, part of the answer lies in relationships and getting them right. This year we have launched a set of five whole-school core values that put learning at the centre of all that we do; adults and children alike. Our school values apply to all who choose to enter our building, children, staff, parents and governors. We are all striving to be:

• Kind learners who are kind to ourselves and others;
• Respectful learners who are respectful of the opportunities, resources and people who we have access to;
• Responsible learners who take responsibility for our environment, those around us and our own learning;
• Brave learners who are ready to take chances in our learning and push ourselves to do more than we thought we could achieve;
• Happy learners who are happy to learn, feel content with who we are and are happy in each other’s company.
   

These values form the basis of any set of rules whilst allowing the freedom to bend and accommodate. They can meet the needs of individuals with their ups and downs and are ambitious and demanding, whilst supporting and nurturing the people in our school community. They allow us to build successful relationships with ourselves and others and are definitely not zero-tolerance.

Of course, there will be sanctions and rewards to help hold to these values, but there is humanity and flexibility within them. This forms the heart of our school behaviour policy because we aim to build learning behaviour that helps people to fulfil their potential. It's potential that was outlined in the 2009’s Rose Review‘s three national aims for education: children need to become successful learners, responsible citizens and confident individuals. Though they were abandoned as a curriculum model, I find myself returning to these aims again and again as the defining purpose of my job. I do not believe that rigid behaviour policies, schemes of work and lists of learning will help to achieve these outcomes and I have exhausted myself for too many years in attempting to bridge the gap between these approaches. This year I am just going to focus on my core purpose and core values and get on with inspiring children to be happy, brave, responsible, respectful and kind.

I hope that by keeping it simple I can keep focused on the shine and sparkle in those around me and be able to shine brightly enough to keep us focused on the optimism of our core values. I want the whole of our school community to engage in the act of learning and remembering the words of the American philosopher Allan Bloom: “Education is the move from darkness to light.”

Siobhan Collingwood is the headteacher at Morecambe Bay Primary School