A (special) day in the life of a Headteacher
I frequently get asked by students (and sometimes even staff or parents) what it is like to be the Headteacher at PHGS, and my response is always the same. A privilege. However, no two days are the same and you cannot predict what will be thrown your way, where you will need to be, or how best to respond dynamically often in very challenging circumstances.
Typically, on most days, I have a range of meetings and interactions with various staff and students either to line manage, support, develop, interview prospective staff or agree actions towards various school improvement strategies including financial constraints. Student interactions are a crucial and important part of my role and I get out on duty at social times or visit lessons every day.
Communication with other stakeholders is another key element with time set aside daily for the copious amounts of emails, telephone calls or meetings with parents, students, governors, community involvement such as MPs, businesses, primary schools, schools within the Collaborative Learning Trust and Red Kite Alliance and national conferences and events to name but a few.
One of the biggest challenges to navigate, however, is that long-awaited call from the ‘Big O’ – what every Headteacher and member of staff dreads - Ofsted! How we all respond to this extra pressure is fascinating and worthy of an Inside story, so from my perspective here is what we experienced over two days in November 2024.
At 10.30am on a Monday morning, I pick up the phone to a colleague from the office saying she has a call for me from an Ofsted inspector. Immediately, my mind goes into overdrive planning for the conversation which will pre-empt a team of inspectors to arrive the following day and I half listen to him, and half try to email my PA and other members of the team to come to my office immediately! I don’t even have to announce it’s Ofsted – they instinctively know! After a moment of mild panic, we schedule a follow up call an hour later so that all of the Leadership team can make arrangements to be present for the high-stakes two hour ‘preparation call’ where we will be interrogated on our policies, practices and impact. Everyone takes a breath and we remind ourselves that we have a school of which we are all proud and confident that this will be seen by our visitors but we need to convince the lead inspector on the other end of the phone before he even arrives so he can brief his team on what they might expect to see. After this ‘discussion’ various documents are sent to the inspection team - everything from lists of students to timetables, school improvement plans and numerous policies and analysis of student outcomes and experiences plus budgets and planning documents. How the team have time to scrutinise the amount of information sent is beyond me, but nevertheless, it is used to identify the lines of enquiry over the next two days. All that is left for the rest of the day is to brief students, staff, parents, send out links to questionnaires so all stakeholders can feed back their views and set the timetable for 6 inspectors for the following day in order for them to visit lessons, meet with staff and analyse data, triangulating information from across the team and the school. I don’t think many of us got a particularly early night on the Monday!
Early on Tuesday morning the team of 6 inspectors arrive before 8:00 am and set to work. They tell us which subjects they are going to ‘deep dive’ into and any other areas of school they want to look at. They also randomly pick students from across the school to hear their views on how the school works for them.
The inspection team split into different faculties around school and firstly have a meeting with the faculty leader asking ‘what will I see in your faculty?’. Our strong team of faculty leaders have a really clear idea of this and it is a great opportunity for them to explain the quality of the teaching and learning that we know students experience on a daily basis. After their initial discussions, the inspectors visit a range of lessons in that area throughout the rest of the morning looking to see if aims and practice align. Where this is not the case, this would become a further line of enquiry for the rest of the day or on day two. At other points on the first day the inspectors oversee breaks and lunchtimes, looking to see how students interact with one another and adults and they also meet with other key staff and, of course, the safeguarding team. In the afternoon the inspectors speak to a range of students. One group comes from a completely random selection that they pick from the list of names provided the day before, another comes from the lessons the inspectors visited that morning so they can follow up further. At the end of the first day I am invited, along with the deputy headteachers and CEO to observe the discussions between the inspectors as they consider how the first day has gone. This is obviously a positive experience when things are going well but is also an opportunity to hear what areas may be explored further on day two. At this time no judgements are made and we are not allowed to interact with the inspection team.
On day two the focus is for the inspection team to pursue or gather more evidence on areas of potential concern or perhaps where less consistency has been observed. It is paramount that we all ensure that the evidence is available to scrutinise quickly. The inspectors continue their visits observing form time and assemblies as well as further lessons in subjects not visited on day one. Day two also involves further discussions with students - for example inspectors spoke to some students who had received a suspension in the previous 12 months to get their views on behaviour and attitudes and how we operate. They also visited the reflection room to see the impact of this sanction and how learning was maximised and lessons learnt.
At the end of the second day we are again invited to listen to the discussions between the inspection team without contributing. These discussions are more detailed and aimed ultimately at coming up with a judgement for each of the areas of Quality of Education, Behaviour, Attitudes and Attendance, Leadership and Management, Safeguarding, Personal Development and Sixth Form.
The inspection team use the inspection handbook, which is published on the gov.uk website and look at the descriptors for each category to see where judgements are typically falling, from ‘inadequate’ to ‘requires improvement’, and ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’. I don’t think any of us will forget this experience, where four of us listened to Ofsted inspectors, who routinely visit hundreds of schools, talk so highly about aspects of our school, many of which were described as ‘exceptional’. To listen to such positive feedback was an emotional moment for those in the room and there were more than a few tears shed. This meeting lasted for nearly two hours and not forgetting that we are not allowed to contribute other than to confirm that we understood how the team had reached the conclusions of outstanding in every area, this was so hard! Once this meeting was concluded at approximately 5:30 pm, other members of the leadership team and the governing body are invited to join the final meeting where the inspectors share their judgements and a much briefer summary and overview of the school. Again, this was an amazing experience, which we could now share with the wider team. So, one of the best days in the life of a Headteacher was ultimately for us all to hear their accolades about the positive experiences the team had shared, to hear how they were impressed with our students, staff, interactions with one another and how our vision and values are enacted on a daily basis for the benefit of all. Finally! So proud!
Before the team departed after 6.30pm, we are sworn to confidentiality as to the final outcomes, so that these could be moderated and verified through a further QA process and in case of any queries regarding aspects of the evidence collated either from student, parent or staff feedback or further analysis. The next morning, we were able to give staff a brief overview of some of the positive feedback we’d been given, but unfortunately were not in a position to be able to confirm the judgements. Despite this, I like to think they understood from our beaming faces that clearly the inspection had gone well for us all.
After a very long fortnight of being sworn to secrecy we received the draft report, which was another proud read and a glowing commendation of just what an exceptional school and community we have at Prince Henry’s. If you want a reminder, the full report is here. I hope you enjoy reading it and thank you for your contribution!