Twelve years ago I was appointed headteacher at Anton Junior School in Andover, Hampshire. Anton is a two-form entry junior and at the time of my appointment the school was judged to be "in need of improvement". SATs results were around 65 per cent for Level 4 and we had around 220 children on roll.
Fast forward to the present day and you will find a school that has just been judged to be "outstanding" by Ofsted in every area, we are full with 256 pupils (32 in each of our eight classes), we have a waiting list in all four year groups and our Level 4 SATs results have been in the mid-90s for more than five years.
The socio-economic background of our pupil population is very mixed. Our percentage of free school meals and Pupil Premium is in line with the national average, as is the proportion of children who are SEN. Educational aspirations of our families are lower than in the other schools I have worked in across Hampshire and this is something I feel we have addressed. There have been no "quick fixes" – without doubt, the secret of our success has been quite simply a lot of hard work by a lot of people over a lot of years.
An interesting story to tell
When I was looking for a headship, I visited three schools with vacant headteacher positions in one day and only applied to Anton. What appealed to me was the ethos of the school, the strapline Educating the Whole Child attracted me, and this is still very much at the heart of the school's curriculum a decade or so later.
On taking up the post I knew (from my participation in NPQH) that I was supposed to deliver some sort of INSET to staff on my "vision and values". To this day I have still never done that, but I would like to think that by what I say and what I do on a day-to-day basis, the staff are all very clear on my educational values.
What I did do in those early weeks and months was work with the staff to develop a Behaviour Policy, in order to ensure a fair and consistent approach to managing behaviour that I felt was missing from some classrooms. Looking back this was a really important thing for us to have done – it led to me confronting and dealing with a number of children whose behaviour was totally inappropriate. This wasn't really a strategy, it was more of a reaction to a small number of pupils who, at that time, thought inappropriate behaviour was perfectly acceptable.
Reflecting on it, it is clear that as well as giving a strong message to the children, our fairly firm stance (which included a number of exclusions) also reverberated around parents, who started taking a bit more responsibility for the behaviour of their children. I should make clear that these exclusions were just a day or two here and there, though I did eventually have to permanently exclude one child who, after a series of fixed term exclusions, assaulted a member of staff.
Recruitment
When I talk to new headteachers and they ask what I believe the key factor in school improvement is, I always give them the same answer: recruitment. I believe that getting the right people on board should be absolutely the number one priority for heads when they take on a new school.
I remember the first time I had the opportunity to appoint a class teacher, I was so excited and devoted so much time to the process as I was determined to get it right. I recall one of my teachers asking me why I was "wasting so much time" showing prospective teachers around the school when we had a teacher we regularly used for supply back then.
I asked how good the supply teacher was as a classroom practitioner and she said they were "okay". I replied by saying that if we appoint "okay" teachers we are likely to end up with an "okay" school. The teacher I ended up appointing was outstanding, she worked incredibly hard and was extremely talented in the classroom. One of the outcomes of this teacher joining our team was that it made all her colleagues raise their game a little.
I have subsequently interviewed and appointed more than 40 members of staff and I am pleased with every single one of them. When I have an appointment I write an advert carefully to try to make it attractive to as many strong candidates as possible and I actively encourage them to visit the school. I then meet individually with every single candidate who is interested enough to come and see the school and I make a few notes on each person – I refer to these when their applications arrive.
In meeting each candidate, I show them round the school – this can take anything from 10 minutes to an hour depending how interested I am in them. By the time they leave the school I am fairly clear as to whether I would want to see them at interview or not. If I am interested in them I will often invite them to spend a day in school – this gives my teachers a chance to see whether they like this potential new colleague and it also gives the candidate an opportunity to see whether the school is right for them.
While there is a bit of a crisis with recruitment at the moment, I don't tend to compromise my high expectations of potential new staff. In fact, over the years I have become more blunt at this initial stage of meeting applicants, as I outline very clearly just how hard my staff and I work. This definitely puts some candidates off applying to our school, but I guess if that is the case it is better to find this out at this early stage.
Our interview process is fairly typical of most schools. Interviewees are asked to teach a year 4 class for half an hour – we ask them to "share a book" with the class and provide an activity for the class based on their chosen book.
I am definitely not expecting the children to make huge progress – the candidates don't even know the class, so that would be a little unrealistic. What I am actually interested in is whether the teacher shows warmth and can begin to develop relationships with the kids. It is also interesting to see what book they choose and whether the activity they provide is creative or imaginative.
The interview part of our process is fairly informal, the questions are straight-forward and the atmosphere is fairly relaxed, as I want candidates to perform well. To involve pupils, the School Council also has an opportunity to interview each candidate and we observe this session. The kids enjoy it and if the interviewees play it properly, it gives them an opportunity to show a slightly lighter, friendlier side of their personality. Some of the questions still reveal important information, for example one child will ask: "Mr Donohoe and the staff at Anton work very hard and he has very high expectations of our teachers, how does that make you feel?"
There are several aspects of a headteacher's role that I am definitely not very good at, however I feel confident that recruitment of staff is very much a strength. My recruitment philosophy is very simple, I look for two criteria: I want staff who have the potential to be outstanding and the desire to achieve that, and who are nice; I want pleasant people who are thoughtful about the feelings of others.
I know this sounds very simple, but I honestly feel it is that simple. I guess the difficult bit for some heads is identifying the teachers who are going to grow into the outstanding ones. It is also difficult sometimes to be brave and not make an appointment at all – when you feel that there is not a candidate who is strong enough, you have to be brave and not appoint someone that you may end up wishing you hadn't. I have done this several times and have never regretted it.
Responsibility and reward
When I look back on my years at Anton, another important factor in our success has been responsibility and reward. At Anton, teachers are given responsibility very early in their careers. We talk about "setting people up to succeed" at our school, so while we do expect a lot from staff relatively quickly we also make sure that they are effectively supported so that they can succeed. I think we are able to have such high expectations because we employ such good people in the first place.
All teachers at Anton are subject leaders and core subjects can be taken on by teachers in the early years of their careers. Our last three maths managers have all been teachers who have only had two years' classroom experience; all have gone on to achieve promoted posts in other local schools after their spell with us.
We are big with Schools Direct and we employ several learning support assistants (LSAs) with degrees each year with a view to them going on to train as teachers with us. This means that virtually every teacher who wants to can have a mentoring role. This year, for example, my two superb NQTs both had new young LSAs straight out of university working in their classes and I know they thrived on having that responsibility – the LSAs, for their part, were the first to say how much they learnt about being a new teacher from working alongside the NQTs. A win-win situation.
As long as my teachers want it, I will happily seek opportunities for development for them; several have gone on to achieve Advanced Skills Teacher status and one in particular is well known throughout Hampshire for her quality in planning and teaching high-quality PE – 450 schools currently access (for free) our planning resources that she has developed on our school website.
We also deliver a lot of training for student teachers at universities and when we deliver these sessions, we insist on doing this in pairs, in order to give more colleagues experience of taking on this additional responsibility.
While responsibility is important, we also believe that giving staff rewards goes hand-in-hand with this. At our school we pride ourselves on making sure we give praise and show appreciation when it is warranted. I think we are good at saying thank you – whether that is in person, face-to-face, or through notes, emails and texts.
Teachers who have joined us from other schools have been surprised at this and conversely teachers who have left Anton and moved to other schools often comment on how little they are thanked and praised for the "extras" they do.
When there are significant moments we try to do larger gestures to show our appreciation to staff – when we opened our Music, Dance and Drama Studio, because the staff had worked hard to raise funds for this new building we gave every member of staff two term-time days off of their choice (most put these together and had a long weekend). This was a simple gesture, we covered staff absence ourselves so it didn't really cost us anything, but it was greatly appreciated by staff.
All our staff give up their own time to run extra-curricular clubs and at the end of the year they receive a one-off payment in their July salary – it is only around £100, so not a huge amount, but it shows that this extra time commitment is appreciated. We routinely give gift tokens for staff when they have attended residential trips or given up their own time. While these tokens are appreciated, a number of staff at Anton just prefer to be thanked in person for their efforts.
Relationships
A number of years ago I was involved on a project with a group of headteachers and I ended up having a heated discussion with one of the heads, who was also a nun. I didn't want to get in too deep, but I wanted to make my point that I firmly believed that the quality of relationships is the key factor in an outstanding school, while she felt it was the subject knowledge of the teachers.
In the end, we agreed to disagree but I have never changed my view that the quality of a school can be measured quite simply by the quality of the relationships. I have lost count of the number of people who have described our school as a "family" and we do certainly look out for each other and pride ourselves on being there for each other if and when there is a need.
After our inspection, we bought all staff polo shirts with "Team Anton" printed on the back and it really does sum up how we support and look after each other. I was amazed at how much staff love these shirts and wear them with genuine pride – that can only be the case because we really are a team, in the true sense of the word.
Resilience
While resilience might be an overused word in education in recent times, it is definitely one of the factors that have contributed to our success. From a personal view there have been many occasions when I have been pushed to the limit and have sometimes felt that I did not know which way to turn.
There have been times when my principles have really been put to the test and it would have been simpler to take the easy option and it has been on these occasions when I have needed every ounce of resilience I could muster. Admittedly, on some of these occasions I have needed the encouragement of a colleague to help me continue down the right path.
My teachers too have all shown resilience in spades; in recent years there is no denying that teaching has got harder as the bar seems to be raised at every turn. I think teaching has become a more difficult job to do than it was 15 years ago when I did it; expectations just seem to keep getting higher. Yet the teachers at Anton remain positive and optimistic, consistently displaying the conscientious work ethic that we talked about when I interviewed them.
Realism
Having high expectations is obviously crucial, but I think it is equally important to be realistic – I think the best headteachers remember what it was like to be a teacher, just as the best teachers recall what it was like to be a primary pupil.
I believe one of the greatest challenges headteachers face is to continue to raise standards in teaching and learning without turning teaching into a "joyless profession". I am endeavouring to keep this at the forefront of my mind as I continue to lead my school; I must stick to my priorities, my values – what we consider to be important, keeping our principles in mind while being realistic about the workload that teachers are coping with.
Conclusion
I have lost count of the number of times headteachers have said to me that I am "lucky". My response is always the same: "Lucky? Yes – and the harder we work the luckier we get!"
When parents are kind enough to praise our provision I have often replied that "we are getting there". I am accepting and acknowledging their praise, but also recognising that we need to continue our journey.
In the year since we were judged to be outstanding by Ofsted, we have embarked on the journey to become a Teaching School. We realised that we have a lot of very hard-working and talented teachers at Anton and if we worked as a National Support School these teachers could work with colleagues from other local schools in order to have a very positive impact on teaching and learning in the area.
Having achieved Teaching School designation, the next chapter of our journey begins; teachers from across the town will become Specialist Leaders of Education and genuine and powerful collaborative working will bring about improved and enhanced educational experiences and outcomes for all children in the locality. Exciting times!
- Tom Donohoe is headteacher of Anton Junior School in Hampshire.