Political party conferences rarely seem to touch the reality of education, as experienced by those who work in it and those whose children are going through it. This year was no exception and reminded me how fortunate I am not to have to attend these bizarre gatherings any longer.

During my 12 years as general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), I attended 36 party conferences in all and I cannot say that I enjoyed any of them. But, as they used to say in Rome, “Ab honesto virum bonum nihil deterret” (“Nothing deters a good man from the performance of his duties”).

So it was a particular pleasure this week to be able to ignore the parallel universe in Birmingham and visit two outstanding schools, William Edwards School in Grays, Essex, and Hungerhill School in Doncaster, to talk with real heads and teachers about the pupil premium and how it can most effectively be used to raise the attainment of disadvantaged young people.

It was also energising to attend a conference for new headteachers on Friday. Everyone is either a “drain” or a “radiator” - an energy user or an energy creator - and new heads are wonderful radiators of positivity in an education world that can sometimes feel full of negativity.

In the heyday of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), the annual conference for new heads was a big event in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, with a speech from the secretary of state. So it is particularly good that Michael Pain, one of the former NCSL staff, is putting on an annual conference for new heads through Forum Education.

‘Headteachers must be supreme optimists’

The conference speakers summarised their talks on YouTube. Jill Berry talked about the move from deputy head to head and the importance of context. By listening to pupils, staff, parents and the community, a new head can be much more confident about what is needed to take the school forward successfully.

The ever-inspiring Tim Brighouse talked about managing complex change, with the need to have all the elements of change in place - vision, skills, incentives, resources and an action plan. He, too, stressed the importance of context, but also of networking and listening. Headship can be a very isolated job and every head should have a network of people they can contact at any time. Good schools, he said, are places where teachers talk about teaching, observe each other and plan and evaluate together.

My talk was entitled “If I knew then …” and I reflected on what I have learned on my leadership journey that I wish I had known when I started, with no specific training, as a head in 1982. In retrospect, I can see how clarity of values for the head and the school enables change to be managed in a much more coherent way. Clear values can help a school and its leadership to be confident about its direction and enlarge the space for creativity and innovation.

Both Tim Brighouse and I stressed the importance for school leaders to be good communicators: good leadership is 10 per cent action and 90 per cent communication. Messages are continually conveyed by school leaders, not only verbally and in writing, but also through their actions. As I once heard someone say: “You can always tell who are the headteachers. They’re the ones picking up the litter.” Detail matters and, while strategy is important, the head’s actions are even more important than words.

As Tim Brighouse has written in his book Passionate Leadership in Education: “Teaching is for optimists. Headship is for supreme optimists.”

In spite of all the responsibilities and accountabilities that come with headship, there are few other jobs in which there is so much opportunity to influence the lives of so many young people. It is certainly a lot better than party conferences. 

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. He tweets as @johndunford

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