Stuart Clyde is the headteacher of Bertha Park High School in Perth which, in 2019, became Scotland’s first brand-new state secondary school since 2002. Tes has previously documented the school’s burgeoning reputation for innovation.

Clyde talks to Tes Scotland about how an apology at school had a lifelong impact, how parents bolstered staff morale during Covid and about his career as a musician before he became a teacher.

1. Who was your most memorable teacher and why?

I had loads of memorable teachers for different reasons. One of the most memorable was a guy called Charlie Noble, a PE teacher - he taught me the value of a genuine apology.

He was a big hulk of a man and I was a quiet kid at school. I didn’t cause any grief but, one time, something happened in PE. I don’t know what came over me but I barked back at him. Nobody ever challenged Mr Noble - he was far too scary for that - and I was sent outside the five-a-sides hall.

Mr Noble barged through and I was about to get the biggest dressing down ever. And as he opened his mouth to speak, I said: “Mr Noble, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me, there. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I’m genuinely sorry.” He was completely dumbfounded because nobody had done that to him before - nobody had actually genuinely apologised.

So, he went: “Oh, well, OK then, come back inside the hall.” And there was a light-bulb moment. I thought: “Wow, a real, genuine lesson there - a proper apology can defuse a situation and really turn things around.”

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

The most enjoyable parts of school weren’t the formal classes but the extracurricular stuff - the time I went to the Netherlands on a bus for days and days on end sticks in my mind really well.

The school rock concerts as well - because music was the thing that I really loved. Also the friendships that I made performing, and all the musical activities, rock concerts and battle-of-the-bands competitions. The friendships that I made during those times, I still have to this day.

The worst was the frustration of having kids there who obviously didn’t want to be there. While perhaps their conduct didn’t impact directly on me, indirectly it did because it took so much time and energy away from the teacher that it actually impacted my learning. I still don’t think we’ve completely nailed the fix for that.

3. Why do you work in education?

Being a music teacher was all I really ever wanted to do. I went to school at a time when there were lots of strikes by teachers and, when I left school, I thought: “Well, I really don’t want to be in a job that you have to strike all the time for better pay.”

So I ended up going in a different direction; I went to university to study something different. That didn’t work out and I went on to become a professional musician for a while.

I ended up working in a music shop and somebody who worked in a school music department came into the shop. I got quite friendly with him and we went out for lunch one day. He told me about a course called a bachelor of education in music.

Everything just fell into place - I met the right person at the right time with the right background, and got the right advice. And six months later, I was studying. I’ve absolutely loved it ever since.

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

I think I’m most proud of being given the opportunity to open a completely new high school - not just a replacement building for an existing high school but something completely new, with no institutional memory.

The thing I regret most would be not listening enough to outgoing members of staff, particularly the deputies and headteachers that I’ve worked with. Some of them gave me some very good advice, which I have employed, but probably a little further down the line than I should have.

5. Who would be your colleagues in the perfect staffroom?

OK, in the staffroom, for motivational purposes, it’d be great to have Simon Sinek around my staff - he’s a leadership coach. I’d have him on my staff in a heartbeat. He cuts all the faff out and really seems to understand what leaders are facing these days - and young people, too.

For entertainment in the staffroom, I’d get a piano put in the corner and have Tim Minchin permanently in residence - he’s an absolute genius.

I’d also have a drop-in centre for any of the previous headteachers and deputy heads and principal teachers and class teachers that I’ve worked with over the years - they have so much to share.

6. What would you say are the best and worst aspects of our school system today?

I think the school system today has more support mechanisms in place to meet the needs of every child; it’s no longer trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

The level of support offered is far greater than I can remember. The opportunities that the pupils have nowadays are absolutely incredible.

I do get frustrated, sometimes, with what some people expect of schools. On a daily basis, we can be teachers, we can be counsellors, detectives, judge and jury, marriage counsellors, social workers, negotiators, punchbags - and sometimes parents as well.

We need to balance the roles that we fulfil, or that people expect us to fulfil, with the core business of teaching and learning.

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

I’ve always been drawn to people who do things a little differently and buck the trend of what’s traditionally expected of them.

Lots of people have got a preconceived idea of what a teacher should be like, or what a headteacher should be like, and I’m inspired and influenced by people who don’t conform to that.

I’m a great believer that the person defines the role, not the other way about. So, I seek out people that have done things differently. For example, as I left Alva Academy [in Clackmannanshire] as a deputy head about to take up my first headteacher role, the headteacher told me something that stuck with me for a long time. He said: “Hire the crazies, son, just hire the crazies.”

In the nicest way possible, of course, he meant I should hire the people who think a little bit differently, who have got a different slant on to how things should be done, who just don’t fit in to the conformity of what everybody thinks that role should be, who push the boundaries a little bit.

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

I would continue to look at aligning schools with what the 21st-century workplace might look like.

Too often, what’s going on in schools doesn’t look like what’s going on in the workplace - we get that feedback from employers regularly. In order to successfully prepare young people for the workplace, we need to actually emulate a little bit closer what it’s like to work in 21st-century society. A lot of places are still preparing young people for a world that no longer exists.

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

If continuing to work throughout the Covid pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that you don’t always have to do what you’ve always done to get the job done. Flexible working, remote working, distanced learning - they’ve all been forced upon us, but there have been great successes in these areas in an incredibly short amount of time.

I think it’d be a travesty if we just now collapsed all that and put it in a drawer. Let’s learn from what we’ve all been through and take on board some of those things that have been a success. The Scottish government’s intention to put devices into all young people’s hands will certainly open the door for that to happen. We should start to see much more flexible working and approaches that reflect the world of work.

10. What one person do you think has made the most difference to our schools in the past 18 months of the Covid pandemic?

The biggest difference - certainly to our school during the closures - was made by the very large group of parents who regularly got in touch with words of encouragement and thanks for what everyone was doing for their children. We never saw that coming, we never really expected it. If ever there was any doubt as to how big an impact a small word of thanks or encouragement or thumbs up could make, just speak to our staff about the difference it made to them.

Those words of encouragement for the staff drove everyone to keep going to innovate, to try new things, to try even harder to make everything the best that they possibly could - you really can’t underestimate the impact of a kind word now and then.

Stuart Clyde was speaking to Robyn Barclay

This article originally appeared in the 24 September 2021 issue