Experienced secondary headteacher Stephen Kelly was appointed City of Edinburgh Council head of education on a permanent basis in January. He talks about why school leaders should show “radical humility”, the best CPD of his career, the wrongheadedness of a “culture of fear” and the dangers for heads of the job becoming all-consuming.
1. What I wish I’d known when I started teaching is…
It’s not about me. Thinking about my teacher training, there was so much about my performance - but not so much about the impact of my performance. The whole notion of teaching as performance is super-flawed. [Comedian and broadcaster] Romesh Ranganathan said he quit as a maths teacher when he realised it wasn’t about him - that’s exactly it. Ultimately, our job is to facilitate learning. It’s not about performance, it’s not about us.
I would tell younger teachers to focus on learning - and that what you’re doing has to bring about learning for everyone in your class. You can have a lesson that feels good but might not have worked for the people in front of you - it’s about the outcomes, not the process.
2. The most important qualities a school leader needs are…
Optimism, empathy, courage and love. You have to get young people to believe they can be a better version of themselves, and staff, too. You’re not in your position to limit someone’s potential.
And all this within a culture of love - you walk into some schools and get a real sense of a collective community where the kids are loved, the staff are respected.
3. The most important lessons I’ve learned from doing this job are…
In the move from being a headteacher into a local authority role, you see that we live in a democracy and that the council officers by and large are facilitating a democratic process. Everyone in the system is trying their very, very best, but we all see the world from where we sit and widening that perspective is beneficial for everybody.
4. The best change I ever made to my school was…
There’s a wee bit of a cult of the leader - in society, not just education. You see extremes of that just now in all that “strongman leadership” nonsense with the likes of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
I think the most successful thing that I did was empower the sense of the collective - a flattened hierarchy, certainly at Liberton [High School, in Edinburgh]. I made clear that ideas have a value, not a rank, that we were doing things together.
There’s a point in school culture where, actually, the people closest to the action are best placed to decide how to make something better. The maths department, for example, collectively transformed their performance, by really analysing what the issues were, engaging in collective learning and putting things in place over a long period of time.
It’s about people taking responsibility - but you have to empower that sense of the collective, rather than saying: “Do this because I tell you to.”
I like the phrase ”radical humility”. As a headteacher, it’s about having the confidence to say: “This is not about me.” You do have accountability, but if we’re going to improve, if we’re going to take on what is a really complex, difficult thing to do - raise attainment - it’s the teachers who are best placed to decide how to do that. Your job is to facilitate and set the conditions where people feel empowered and have the skills to do it.
5. If I could change something about Scottish education it would be…
Two things, the first around parity of esteem - to have more pathways through our senior phase that involve employers, that get young people linked to vocational opportunities. I would like to see a collective sense of responsibility to educate all of our young people, and big employers, big institutions, being a real vibrant part of those diverse pathways.
We’re not necessarily saying that “you’re going to be a joiner at the age of 16”, we’re talking about pathways that allow young people to experience new things, that widen their skills, so that they can access employment - and for those pathways to be equally valued. I think the expression that five Highers in Scotland is the “gold standard” is really damaging.
I would also love to see an education workforce representative of wider society, particularly around race and our colleagues from black and ethnic-minority backgrounds. What we need is a workforce that has representation at all levels: director, headteacher, senior leaders, middle leaders, teachers.
It would be transformative because when young people see themselves they go into that workforce and they’re part of a wider community.
6. My most memorable moment as a leader was…
We worked with a guy from Lismore Rugby Club on a rugby pathway, who was telling parents he wanted to produce a Scottish international, and you thought, “Really?” Five, six years later we had a captain of the under-18s Scotland women’s team, Alex Stewart.
I think ultimately, though, the biggest thing is the new Liberton school building that’s coming up. It’s a building site just now but it’ll be amazing and will transform the community.
7. The worst mistake I ever made was…
It’s about being that new headteacher, feeling under pressure, looking at attainment, being a bit “blamey” in my approach. You can get sucked into that.
Don’t get me wrong, we all need to be accountable - accountability is absolutely essential - but it’s two-way, and challenge should be within a culture of respect. I’m very comfortable holding people to account, but I’m also very clear that I need to be thinking about my accountability and performance.
Accountability is about improving performance. It’s not about individuals - it’s not personal. You need to separate the value of the person from performance, and that allows you to work together. People can’t improve if they’re scared - you can’t improve in a culture of fear.
8. My top tip for an aspiring school leader is…
The job can be all-consuming. You want to be the best version of yourself at work, but you also need to be the best version of yourself at home.
I’m reminded of [school leadership expert] Steve Munby addressing the [education directors’ body] ADES conference, talking about his 360 [review process] at work - it was glowing. But then his family suggested he do his 360 with his family - and it was less than glowing. Work-life balance, setting your boundaries, is really important but also really difficult to do.
A second thing would be to network, network, network. There’s always someone, somewhere doing things better than you. There’s the BOCSH network [of experienced secondary headteachers], for example, their events are amazing.
So many things set up schools to be in competition with each other, like those crazy league tables you get. But people in Scottish education want to help each other - there’s an incredible community, as you see on social media. If you compare [education] social media in England, it’s quite poisonous.
9. When dealing with challenging pupils, my go-to strategy is…
All schools need boundaries and really effective systems - all those things need to be in place. And for the vast majority of young people, those systems in schools work very, very well.
But you do have young people in large numbers - often care experienced - who have extremely challenging life circumstances. They’re not to be “dealt with”, because that centres the problem with that person. Young people are not going to be punished out of a really dire situation; we need to care about these young people completely separately from their behaviour.
We need schools that are calm, safe environments for young people and staff. Also, we need a way of supporting and including young people who have had the most challenging life circumstances, that most of us could not imagine. So my go-to strategy is based on [influential psychologist] Carl Rogers’ person-centred therapy, on empathy.
If you equate naughtiness with massive dysregulation, with trauma, care experience, domestic violence, dad in prison, organised crime - get a grip. People are going to be drawn to simple solutions to the problem, but it’s reductionist - it’s actually false.
10. The best CPD I ever did was…
I did the Scottish qualification for headship, and that really changed me in terms of who I was as a person, that whole intellectual rigour. People like Dee Torrance, Stephen Covey, Terry Wrigley - who sadly passed away a few years ago - and others challenged my thinking.
The one thing I would say is that it’s focused massively on leadership, which is important. Where we perhaps need to focus more is on skills around project management and managing change.
But without a doubt, it was a huge investment in me as a person, that qualification. It allowed you to take a step back and it threw up a reflection on all sorts of things - how you behave, how you influence people, how you generate change.
We explored long-term sustainable change, and how you might contribute to that - not just as a person, but as part of a collective.
Stephen Kelly was talking to Henry Hepburn, Scotland editor at Tes
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