A teacher for 35 years, Phil Kemp became president of the NASUWT teaching union last weekend. But his proudest achievement, he says, is running an alternative provision unit over the past 10 years, where he has helped more than 1,000 key stage 4 pupils at risk of exclusion to gain “far more than what they would have done” in mainstream schools, including some “fantastic GCSE results”.

The father of two started his year in office with a speech calling for a return to a mandatory pay scale for teachers and branding the huge salaries of MAT leaders as “verging on criminality”.

1. Who is your most memorable teacher and why?

To be honest, none really stood out, but I think that’s a good thing because I was really happy at school [and] I enjoyed it, which suggests that the vast majority of teachers were actually quite effective with me: I was quite difficult at times.

A memorable incident, though, was: when I was in primary school, at Vane Road Primary School in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, the headteacher died in a head-on car collision. [It was] one of those freak things that happens on the road.

But what I remember is that for six, seven, eight months afterwards, there was this huge cloud over the school. And I think that demonstrates how important schools are to local communities and the people in them.

I do remember, even as a young kid, that that guy had the respect of everybody in that community. I remember he was a fantastic storyteller. And to be able to get what would have been 400 to 500 kids sitting in a hall just listening to every single word you’ve got to say - I think that is a unique skill. I’ve come across some incredible teachers in my career but I’ve come across very few who have that skill, who can just talk, chat to kids en masse and keep their attention.

2. What are the best and worst things about your time at school?

For me, the best thing was that sense of belonging and I think that came from playing for sports teams in school. It was really, really important to me and my group of friends. The peer group that I had were in all the teams: football, basketball, cricket, athletics. And for me, lessons were secondary to that.

The worst bit is very easy: German and French. I should never have been anywhere near modern foreign languages.

3. Why do you work in education?

I love working with young people. I’ve been an NASUWT rep at various stages for over 25 years and, often, people have said, “oh, you’ll be good at this, you could work for the union”, and I’ve had that for many, many years, but it’s actually the teaching that’s always attracted me.

I did have an interview for quite a good job in one of the unions once [to be a regional official], and I was driving down there with my partner and I stopped for a coffee, and during that break I had a eureka moment and I thought “what am I doing?”

I thought: “I’m actually going for an interview for a job I’m not certain about and I’ve got a job back there that I actually love.” So I rang them up from that coffee break and said: “I know you’re going to hate me for this but I’m going to turn round and go home.”

4. What are you proudest of in your career and what’s your biggest regret?

My proudest achievement is over the past 10 years in North Tyneside, running the local authority’s key stage 4 alternative curriculum provision, based within Churchill Community College in Wallsend, Newcastle, for pupils from across the region who are at risk of exclusion.

We’ve had more than 1,000 kids, 15- and 16-year-olds, come through us, all in danger of exclusion, and I think we’ve achieved far more than what they would have done if they had carried on in mainstream education.

We’ve had some fantastic GCSE results, we’ve had some fantastic post-16 opportunities and we’ve built a team of people who basically know exactly what they’re doing with these young people - and know exactly how to break down those barriers.

My biggest regret? I’ve loved working in alternative curriculum provision over the past 20 years and I feel as though I might have wasted my first 15 years because [of] staying in mainstream. But I’ve a feeling those 15 years made me a better practitioner.

5. Who would you have in your dream staffroom?

I’m not just saying this because I have to go to work with them after Easter but it’s got to be the current staff I’m working with. I think they are genuinely the best practitioners.

I’ve come to the twilight of my career and I know there are some fantastic people I’m working with now who will do an equally good job with these quite tricky youngsters who we deal with. And I think the staff I’ve got currently working with me are probably the best I’ve ever had. They’re my dream team.

[We] tend to focus on those kids who are disengaged in education and in danger of exclusion. It’s a Marmite job; you either spend your first day in work and end up running out the door screaming - and it’s no disrespect to those individuals, it’s just not for them - or you love it. And I don’t think there’s anything in the middle.

6. What are the best and worst aspects of our schools’ system today?

I would say this, wouldn’t I, but it’s true: I think the best thing is the frontline practitioners. It’s the people who actually work there - it’s the teachers, the headteachers, the support staff, often working against the odds, who I think do great things for our kids in schools.

You can have the crappiest building in the world, and some of them still exist, but if you’ve got the right people in that building then I think kids get great, great outcomes from it. And I think the past year has probably shown that.

Teachers and educationalists as a whole have come out fighting from March 2020 to show they can keep schools partially open, they can open schools at the drop of a hat, they can teach kids from their own living rooms at times, and I think that actually has demonstrated the resilience and brilliance of the teaching profession.

The worst [is that while] the majority of headteachers are effective and do great things, the one thing that damages the life chances of young people, in my view, is when a school is led by a poor headteacher. Over the past 25 years, as a union representative in North Tyneside, the majority of heads I’ve come across have been professional and competent. However, I’ve seen at first-hand the damage a poor head can do in a school. The whole governance system in the school system is simply inadequate at dealing with it.

7. Your own teachers aside, who in education has influenced you the most?

The thing that’s influenced me the most in education is actually the youngsters that I’ve dealt with, who were in danger of exclusion or have been excluded. I’ve literally spent most of my professional life in the past 20 years thinking about approaches that will support and help them to get the very best they can out of their education.

8. If you became education secretary tomorrow, what would be the first thing you’d do?

I would tackle my biggest bugbear in education: I would reintroduce a national pay scale for all staff working in schools and I would certainly legislate to ensure schools adhered to it. It’s such an important job in society, working in schools, that I think staff should be paid appropriately. But it’s got to reflect that schools are full of what I still see as public servants who are paid for out of the public purse, so good salaries but appropriate salaries.

You look at the educational freedoms [regarding teacher pay, but] the only freedom that I see as being effectively applied has been the ability to pay obscene amounts of money to chief executives of multi-academy trusts. Some of the pay ranges of the leaderships in these organisations are eye watering.

I mean, I’m sure the Harris [Federation] is well publicised - it’s almost half a million quid that guy gets a year [the salary of chief executive Sir Dan Moynihan is published as being in the range of £455,000-£460,000 as of 2019-20 accounts]. And there are some schools in the North East that are a one-school academy with about 800 kids, where the head is earning £160,000 a year.

What on earth is that about? Something needs to be done about that because it’s an awful lot of teachers, an awful lot of glue sticks and an awful lot of paper. That [money] could be used for what we should be doing, which is educating kids.

9. What will our schools be like in 30 years?

Different. The year of Covid has shown how technology can be applied in schools. The past year has almost brought five or six years of technological changes in a year because it’s been forced. How on earth can anyone say what it’s going to be like in 30 years? Because I don’t even think we can imagine what technologies are going to be available.

10. What one person do you think has made the most difference to our schools this year?

There’s only one person it has to be, and that’s Gavin Williamson. I’m not going to give a commentary on whether his decisions were wrong or right, but I think if there’s one year where a secretary of state has actually had a huge impact and effect in schools, it’s this year.

Interview by Tes reporter Dave Speck

This article originally appeared in the 9 April 2021 issue