There have been some seismic polls in recent times - Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labour leadership, Brexit, Donald Trump. But last week the education world had its own electoral earthquake.

Geoff Barton was voted general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders in a landslide, winning more than 80 per cent of the vote.

The headteacher had triggered the first election in ASCL’s history by deciding to run against the executive’s preferred candidate, Chris Kirk - a former PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant with considerable education experience, but no track record in teaching.

When Barton meets Tes at King Edward VI School - the Bury St Edmunds secondary he will have led for 15 years when he departs for ASCL in March - he says he had no idea that his victory would be so convincing.

Barton is a prolific Tweeter, and while the “Twitter bubble” seemed to be suggesting that he had been “anointed weeks ago”, he knew that most school leaders were not active on social media. “I genuinely had no instinct for how it might have gone, which is what made it so gratifying,” he says.

Like the election of Corbyn, it’s easy to see Barton as an anti-establishment insurgent who beat the “insider” Kirk in a grassroots revolt of teaching leaders. But the 54-year-old insists his goal will now be to effectively influence policy from behind the scenes, rather than shouting from the sidelines.

For a man who is about to become one of the most high-profile figures in the teaching world, Barton had very different career ambitions growing up.

A clue to those aspirations can be found in his office, in the form of a plaque on the wall given to him by a former head girl. It simply reads: “Geoff Barton - Head Teacher - Debating Coach - Drive Time Radio DJ.”

DJ Jazzy Geoff

“When I was at school, I wanted to be Noel Edmonds,” he says, almost apologetically.

Finishing school with “dreadful” O levels, he sought to emulate radio DJ Edmonds by mailing an audition tape to a local station, but it was sent back in the post (“Didn’t even have the dignity of a return slip,” he adds ruefully). With hopes of a DJ career “shattered”, he “drifted” into sixth form, where he met a “sensational” English teacher, Roy Samson, who inspired him to teach the subject.

But the boyhood passion wasn’t entirely fruitless - it inspired a lifelong love of radio jingles, which has become Barton’s calling card. He compares a jingle to a “well-crafted short story” that “packs a punch”.

However, he admits that his wife isn’t entirely happy with the amount of money he spends having them specially commissioned.

“She thinks it’s a such a complete, ridiculous, self-indulgent waste of money. I say to her, ‘Well, it could be worse, it’s not like I’m a heroin addict or anything’.”

Barton believes his election at ASCL has come at a time when the union - and education in general - is at a crossroads.

“At this particular point, what we’re seeing is school leaders feeling a huge sense of alienation,” he says. “Government appears to be coming up with ideas and driving them through, and it’s headteachers in their schools who are then left picking up the pieces.”

As a “battle-hardened veteran” with a history of sticking his head above the parapet to criticise government policy, he thinks ASCL members plumped for him because he would speak truth to power. “Members need to feel that their voice is being spoken clearly and directly, and I think government ministers need to hear it,” he says.

The potential danger of this approach is that Barton could be marginalised by the government as a tub-thumping populist - a risk that he is aware of. But while he admits that his biggest challenge will be “influencing behind the scenes”, he insists that he won’t be “the ranty man in the pub”.

“I’m hoping that members weren’t voting for me because they think they’re going to get someone who will rant,” he says.

“It needs to be a bit more nuanced than that and it needs to connect with actual policy.”

Public spat

It was Barton’s tendency to be outspoken that caused sparks to fly during the election race.

ASCL vice-president Carl Ward criticised him in an open letter, raising concerns over comments he had made about grammars and academies - schools in which the union counts many members. But Barton insists there’s no “schism” within ASCL. “I run a very good debating society in school, so I’m not in any way squeamish about us having arguments,” he says. “What the open letter did was to bring into a more public focus…the kind of questions that my critics were asking.”

He says the letter was the first thing he discussed with Ward after his election, and that the two are “100 per cent committed to working together”.

While Barton insists he has no quarrel with existing grammars, he is opposed to plans to expand academic selection, which he sees as a “microcosm” of ministers’ cavalier approach to engagement with schools. “It is not acceptable to me that, in the middle of a summer holiday, we have announced something about selection which has not been in a manifesto, has not been in a Green Paper, [has] not had proper consultation.”

Barton says he decided to move on from headship because he was “haunted by the idea of people saying he ‘used to be good but he lost interest’”. While it is clear that leaving his school will be an emotional wrench, he’s departing in his inimitable style. On his last day, Barton will play a specially commissioned farewell jingle to his staff and pupils.

“It will be played twice,” he grins, “once, when I finish here and once at my funeral - and I’m hoping that they won’t be the same day.”

This article was originally published in February 2017