Secondary headteacher Billy Burke was the only practising teacher on the expert panel led by Ken Muir charged with shaping the reform of the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland.

The publication of Muir’s report is expected early this year, but here Burke talks about what he has learned from his day job, leading Renfrew High in Renfrewshire.

He speaks about the importance he places on relationships and getting to know staff and pupils as individuals - which he contrasts with his own experience of school, where he remembers feeling like “an input into a big machine”.

He also shares how the death of a colleague and friend in 2017 left him “absolutely devastated” - but, ultimately, strengthened the school community as they mourned their loss together. 

“That kind of event allows you to be really open and display that full range of emotion and be sad together and cry together - as we did,” he says. “It lets you be human.”

1. What I wish I’d known when I started teaching is...

More about cognitive science and things like positive psychology. When I started teaching the focus was very much on what teachers do and less on what learners do - you can teach the best lesson in the world, with the shiniest resources but if it doesn’t actually achieve the learning you are aiming for it’s pointless.

Assessment is for Learning is a good example - that forced us as teachers to focus more on exactly what each individual young person had understood, whereas I think that teacher training maybe focussed too much on the class and teaching to the class. 

But the class is made up of individuals and it’s really about how the learning is being experienced by those individuals.

2. The most important qualities a school leader needs are...

A kind and generous heart, a commitment to social justice, and a belief that what we do cumulatively leads to a better world. That’s the purpose of teaching, I think.

Leaders also need the personality to connect with learners. Not everyone can do that. Young people respond to humour and kindness and they can sense if you are genuine and if you really want to help them.

There’s a lot involved in being a successful teacher and a successful leader but that’s a good place to start.

3. The most important lessons I’ve learned from doing this job are...

You absolutely can improve lives and you can improve the system around you if you stick to your core purpose and your core values, but it’s a long game. School leadership is a bit like coaching a football team - it’s the season that matters not each individual game.

We can get so caught up in the processes and the policies and other pressures but it’s about people and the culture you help create for them to work in and learn in.

It’s better to focus on the right things than to get everything perfect.

4. The best change I ever made in my school was...

Shifting the focus from a traditional institutional approach, which has been commonplace in the education system - schools were institutions, they were hierarchies. Pupils could feel like they were just a number and they just had to wear the uniform, keep left in the corridor, pass their exams and keep a low profile.

But actually, it’s their school experience and they only get one shot at it and they matter. The person matters. I don’t think that was the case when I was at school. It felt institutional and uniform, and as if you were an input into a big machine.

I have built a culture based on a relational approach where things like caring for each other and fairness are important - so that focus on people and the positive relationships between people is the biggest and best change we have achieved in the school

As I was saying it’s not the teaching that matters, it’s the learning that matters, and that means we need to understand the learners. All of them.

5. If I could change something about Scottish education it would be...

I would want a system built around trust and genuine collaboration, not forced. We are a small country but the system has many layers and much complexity. I feel strongly that we need to simplify and that there should be less political involvement in the fine detail.

Core for me is that the best resource the education system has is the person in the room with the learner - it’s the teacher or the member of the support team. I want us to do what we have pledged to do and shift mindsets so we work from that point outwards, instead of from the top down.

As far as possible, headteachers - in collaboration with their school community - should make the key decisions. So decisions should be made as local as possible.

6. My most memorable moment as a school leader was...

There are joyful moments almost every day - young people are just fun to be around and I love the things that don’t happen every day like trips and events and competitions and shows. The things that build community - I love that.

The most memorable moment in my career was being appointed as the leader of a school community. That’s a great honour, but my most memorable moment as a leader was a really difficult moment when we lost a colleague, a young deputy headteacher, who was also a good friend, to leukaemia.

He was called Liam Cullen and I was absolutely devastated - we were all devastated - and I literally wondered how we would manage. But the good part of that memory is the way the school community came together - the compassion and the respect for Liam, the way we tried to grieve and honour him, and the way we supported each other.

Day-to-day sometimes we forget that while we are teachers and staff and pupils, we are all humans and we have emotions and feelings, and good days and bad days. That kind of event allows you to be really open and display that full range of emotion and be sad together and cry together - as we did. It lets you be human. 

7. The worst mistake I ever made was...

As a young principal teacher, I copied the practice I had been exposed to and I thought my job, when pupils did the wrong thing, was to shout at them.

That was my worst mistake. I enjoyed great relationships with pupils and suddenly I was a boss and it was my responsibility to try to deal with things that were going wrong and I went about it the wrong way.  

It’s crazy really - why did I think shouting at another person was going to improve a situation if we promote mutual respect? That kind of practice, and worse, was commonplace in education for far, far too long, but I stopped really quickly when I realised ‘this is not who I am and it does not work’. It is counterproductive.

I met my wife around that time, who was a probationer in the school, and there was a boy who we were both fond of. He was a boy who had a lot of challenges - he actually had a brain injury I later discovered - and he had gone to her really angry with Mr Burke because I had shouted at him. She came and said to me, “Why are you shouting and bawling at that wee guy? You like him.”

I said, “Yeah, I do. And you’re right.” It’s what brought it home.

Teachers do need to raise their voices at times to be heard in a classroom environment - what I am talking about is those times where you should be having a conversation, not a sparring match.

8. My top tip for aspiring school leaders is...

Human nature is to learn. We do it from the second we are born until our time here passes, so learning is key and I would encourage everyone to keep learning and then use that learning - and that means changing things.

You can’t improve things unless you change something - even if it is small and gradual. One of my favourite sayings is: ‘If you keep doing what you have always done, you will get what you have always got.’ That was Henry Ford.

Another favourite of mine is from Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor, which is - and I’m paraphrasing - our greatest freedom is to choose our attitude. So teaching is challenging, it is complex, but we can choose how we respond to situations and keep perspective. As I said earlier it’s about the long game.

9. When dealing with challenging pupils my go-to strategy is...

To remember the dignity of the individual or individuals involved. The hard news for all student teachers is you can’t actually control other people - we don’t have those powers the police have. Even the justice system doesn’t control people. We still sadly have a lot of crime.

But what you can control is your own response, so when I’m dealing with a challenging situation, whether involving young people or other adults, I try to remember that incidents pass but relationships last.

So in the moment, you can choose to make it better or make it worse. My choice is always to try - nobody is perfect - but try to de-escalate. What resolves most things is a conversation, talking it through.

10. The best CPD I ever did was...

Doing the Scottish Qualification for Headship [the precursor to Into Headship]. I believe that master’s-level learning is important for people. It helped me deepen my understanding of the very complex landscape of learning and leading.

I would also say, at a school level, restorative approaches training. But the biggest CPD for me has been getting involved in my professional association, School Leaders Scotland. That just allowed me to learn how things work at a national level and beyond. Understanding more about leadership across the system, and across other systems, has made me a better leader.

Billy Burke was talking to Emma Seith