Secondary headteacher and author Bruce Robertson became the rector (headteacher) of Berwickshire High School in the Scottish Borders in August 2020. In his first nine months in the job, his goal was to meet with every member of staff one-to-one because, he says, “it is difficult to get the best out of someone if you don’t really know them”.
Here he explains why the “broad general education” for three- to 15-year-olds in Scottish schools “barely counts as a curriculum”, and why teachers - and school leaders, in particular - must “read, read, read”.
And he says: ”Learning is our core business. Sadly, I think sometimes our profession can lose sight of that.”
1. What I wish I’d known when I started teaching is...
Without question, I wish I’d known more about cognitive science and how learning happens. I wasn’t really taught anything about that in teacher training. It’s like Craig Barton tells us: a teacher (or school leader) not understanding how learning happens is the equivalent of a doctor only taking a casual interest in the workings of the human body, or a baker only taking a casual interest in the best conditions for bread to rise. Helping students to learn sits at the heart of what being a teacher is about. Learning is our core business. Sadly, I think sometimes our profession can lose sight of that.
2. The most important qualities a school leader needs are…
Leadership is all about getting the best out of people in pursuit of clear goals. If you aren’t getting the best out of people, then you aren’t leading as well as you could be. The qualities that a school leader needs relate to this principle.
It is difficult to get the best out of someone if you don’t really know them. Therefore, school leaders need to be prepared to dedicate time to getting to know people and talking to them on a regular basis. As well as helping you get to know people, this helps them to feel valued. Understanding how to make best use of your time is a key quality in a school leader.
Just as important: staff need to trust their leaders. They need to trust that they know what they are talking about, that they have the best interests of staff and students at heart, that they will do what they say, and that they will support them when the going gets tough. Earning the trust of your staff is a key leadership quality.
3. The most important lessons I’ve learned from doing this job are…
When I started as rector of Berwickshire High School in August 2020, I set myself the goal of having a one-to-one meeting with every member of staff over the first nine months. I thought this would be important so that I could get to know people, so they could get to know me, and so I could find out as much as I could about what was happening in the school. The lesson that has come from this is a realisation that making time to meet staff one-to-one on a regular basis is something that needs to continue to be an integral feature of my working week. I’ve learned that it’s not something I should ever stop doing.
4. The best change I ever made to my school was…
I think I have made three important changes. The first was to align everything we do to a common goal of continuous teaching and learning improvement. We stripped back the priorities and cleared out the clutter. Really, we now just focus on four key areas: pedagogy, attainment, curriculum and ethos. We summarise this using the acronym “Pace”. All our improvement plans are aligned to this.
The second was to strengthen the quality of the in-school professional learning offer available to staff. In part, this has come about by appointing a principal teacher of pedagogy, who plays a key lead role. It has also come about by investing time and money in initiatives that support this. These include a high-quality professional learning library, professional reading groups, voluntary lunchtime and after-school workshop programmes, and the development of a coaching culture.
The third was to ensure that rules and expectations are crystal clear across the school. This has really helped to transform standards of behaviour and bring about the calm, purposeful learning environment that was recognised by inspectors in a recent visit.
5. If I could change something about Scottish education it would be…
The quality of the national curriculum. In my book The Teaching Delusion 2: Teaching Strikes Back, I argue that the “broad general education” we are currently working with for three- to 15-year-olds barely counts as a curriculum. The “experiences and outcomes” of Curriculum for Excellence have a lot to answer for. So too does a lack of clarity about what schools should be doing with them. What really needed to happen was that they needed to be unpacked to make clear the specific content - knowledge and skills - that we want our students to be learning. However, in most schools, this hasn’t happened. As a result, teachers, school leaders and parents are woefully unclear about what, specifically, is being taught in a particular school or across a cluster of schools. No one really has a handle on this. It really isn’t good enough.
6. My most memorable moment as a leader was…
As we were preparing for our recent inspection, a significant number of staff were asking if they would get a chance to speak to the inspection team during the visit. We weren’t sure that they would, so someone suggested we make a video to give everyone the opportunity to say what they wanted to. A few days before the visit, I was given the chance to see the video. I was blown away by the pride and joy coming across from staff and students about the transformation we had brought about in the school. I’ve always thought it important that staff and students enjoy coming to school, but hearing people talk about their real, lived experiences really hit home. It’s a great memory.
7. The worst mistake I ever made was…
Not making enough time in my earlier days as a school leader to prioritise professional reading. Had I done that, I would have upskilled myself in terms of my professional knowledge and understanding about what makes great teaching. The conversations I had with teachers about this would have been richer, the presentations I gave would have been better, and fewer staff would have been sent in the wrong direction.
8. My top tip for an aspiring school leader is…
Read, read, read. You are unlikely to be an effective leader in a school unless you have a sharp understanding of learning and how it happens, and key messages from educational research about what really makes great teaching. There are a lot of delusions out there. School leaders need to be able to identify these, call them out and protect staff from them. If they don’t have an in-depth, research-informed understanding of what makes a high-quality curriculum and pedagogy themselves, it’s difficult to imagine how they can lead others to get better and better at what they do.
9. When dealing with challenging pupils, my go-to strategy is…
Calm assertiveness. There are very few challenging incidents that are best managed by losing your temper. Staying calm is key. But just as important is taking control of the situation. That’s where assertiveness comes in. If you are talking to a student, you should expect them to listen. If they’re not listening, you need to tell them to. The way you do that shouldn’t be aggressive or confrontational - it should be assertive. This means clear and authoritative. Tone is key. So, too, is volume. You don’t need to speak loudly. Some of the best behaviour management I have seen comes from use of silence and a quiet voice, but with an absolute clarity in what is being said. If I am dealing with a challenging pupil, in my head I am always reminding myself to be calmly assertive.
10. The best CDP I ever did was…
I’ve taken part in a lot of great CPD. Generically, I think professional reading is some of the best CPD you can do. So, too, is watching other teachers teach and getting into discussions about this. A high-quality presentation can be powerful CPD, but we always need to remember that this rarely serves as anything more than a starting point for further exploration. Your professional practice is unlikely to change unless you commit to “doing something” with the key messages you take from the presentation.
