Senior Leadership & the Value of Teachers, a Teacherly Story with Simon Uttley
Everybody loves a good story and nobody tells one better than a teacher. These are Teacherly Stories: for sharing authentic moments, shining a light on the human side of teaching, and celebrating the incredible teachers we know.
Simon Uttley has been a headteacher for sixteen years; he has taught for over twenty years, and is a course leader and professor for several universities. He first studied philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford and has a masters in the economics of education and a doctorate in Catholic education and philosophy. Simon has been a headteacher for three schools: one of which he built from the ground up. He is an Executive School Leader as well as Chair of the Bishop’s Steering Group for Education, and co-Founder and co-Chair of the Eastern Slovakia Education Conference.
“I want to create schools where young people flourish: where they feel valued and loved. I want staff members to experience dignity and to be empowered to take risks and innovate, and I want everyone to be aware of a shared vision for the school. If we get good results that’s a bonus but that’s not why I go to work.”
Origins
I had a fascinating ten years after university. When I graduated I started out as a police officer in Birmingham and then I did lots of volunteering work with the church. I began teaching on a voluntary basis and I liked it and realized I was quite good at it so I decided I would pursue it as a career. When I stepped into my first post, within a matter of minutes, I had a very strong sense that I wanted to lead a school. I knew it was a noble thing to do: something that could make a big difference.
One of my most valuable mentors was my first headteacher Ani Magill, who has since become a Commander of the British Empire CBE, and rightly so. She was an outstanding school leader who instilled in me the philosophy of encouraging teachers to be innovators and to take risks. When I told her I wanted to be a headteacher she was warm, supportive and encouraging. She could’ve easily discouraged me and told me that it would be a long process, but instead she said, “okay, that’s achievable. What are the things we need to do to get you there?” I went from being a teacher to a headteacher in seven years and a lot of that was because of her. She approached it in a very practical way. She told me what I should try, encouraged me to apply for everything, and then helped me to realize that rejection isn’t a bad thing: it’s something to learn from. Having someone who believed in me and who was willing to have that conversation early on made a huge difference.
Advice for aspiring senior leaders
I do a lot of work with people who aspire to leadership and I always say that the first thing you need to do is form a relationship with someone you can trust: a good mentor. Someone who is well thought of, who you respect and who is able to work with you. There are some people who are very successful but don’t know how to mentor, so be sure to find someone who will coach you rather than simply telling you what they’ve done. Look for someone in your own organization first and prioritise that relationship because they will also benefit from investing in your growth. If you don’t find someone suitable in your own organization, don’t give up. You can find them in another school. Even if they don’t know you, most good people will be willing to give you a half hour of their time so that you can start that conversation. If they get to know you properly then they can stop you from being either overly self-assured or overly timid. A good mentor will tell you what your strengths are and what you need to work on, but you need to be the one to take that first step and ask. You can’t wait around for it to be offered to you.
It’s also important to go for things in the interim and learn from them; learn from your failures and keep innovating. Don’t wait to be asked to do extras because you might be waiting for a while, and don’t wait to be paid more for them, because you might be waiting even longer. You can do things like begin a programme in something you’re passionate about, or do some research and create a project or a paper and submit it to your school. It’s good to realize that being a leader in any kind of institution doesn’t mean you know everything or have all the answers. It’s important to be knowledgeable, but it’s even more important to recognize the strengths of the people around you. In my opinion, the biggest job of a headteacher is to appoint fantastic people and retain them. If you do that then you’ll have a fantastic environment for the young people you’re serving and also for the staff.
What makes a great teacher
Being a great teacher is about 15–20% knowledge, and the rest is your pedagogy. What I look for in a fantastic teacher is someone who can immediately engage a young person in the experience of the subject. I want to have a sense of what drove the teacher to that subject and I want to know that he or she will be relentless in pushing and encouraging the student to do more than he or she ever expected. I want the teacher to be a recruiting sergeant through their love for the subject so that students want to pursue it even when they have the choice not to. Being a good teacher is first and foremost about forming relationships with young people and helping them to overcome obstacles to their learning.
On top of having vertical expertise, a good teacher will be able to think laterally and draw in other subjects, current affairs, and cultural capital. What does my subject say about the modern world and how does the world impact my subject? You might bring the Black Lives Matter movement into a history lesson, or deconstruct today’s patriarchal systems alongside a Brontë novel. I’d say the biggest barrier that prevents amazing teaching is being in a system where assessment and examination have become ridiculously prioritized, which prevents teachers from having the artistry to imbue a passion in the young person. That’s something that needs to change.
Technology in education
I remember around twenty years ago I was going to countless IT-in-education conferences. Typically they were run by some non digital natives who were telling people it was a brave new world. It looked really good, but the problem was that they didn’t approach technology the same way young people do. The first thing we have to realize is that digital natives will be paving the way for how we handle technology in education. The second thing I’ve often said is that if the Brontë sisters visited us in 2020 they would recognize a school within two minutes because it still looks the same, so we need to be realistic about the conservative nature of schools. Technology can be very helpful, but it will never be a replacement for fantastic teachers. Technology should be there to complement and enhance the teacher-student relationship, not pretend to take it over.
That being said, having just been through COVID we can all see that technology is capable of enhancing what we do. At my school we do a lot of work around care guidance and support; in the past we’d invite parents in and talk to them about our programmes, but that has translated nicely into a webinar that’s now accessible to more parents. Teacher’s IT skills have also gone up exponentially in the last few months.
For young people, information technology can be very powerful. My son did computer science at university. So much can be drawn out of the subject, but students first need to learn what it means to study and to dedicate themselves to something, which is why school in its traditional sense is so important. Once that formation is there, accessing these resources and content online is really exciting, but the idea of exponentially increasing tech in school is a myth. Our use of technology must be well harnessed, bespoke, affordable, and widely dispersed; otherwise it will create great inequalities. It has to be underpinned by a sense of what it means to be a learner and how to critically evaluate and reflect on what you’re doing, which is what school is there to teach you. It has to genuinely add value rather than just looking nice, then I believe it can be powerful.
The future of education
In the UK we’ve got to get real about high-quality vocational and technical education, which we have done badly as a country since about 1850. Unlike other countries, such as Germany, there isn’t prestige associated with technical vocations. There should be. We also need to personalize the education experience for young people far more than we do at the moment. There is much more we can do to create a bespoke experience for each young person. If they love art for example, why shouldn’t they be doing more of it? Give them four hours instead of two; then they’ll approach their maths and english with a better mindset because they will have spent more time doing what they love. We need to be giving them a roadmap through their education. Some schools have managed to squeeze the life and creativity out of their students in the interest of hitting good results. As an educator you want to be a travel agent for students, to give them journeys that will keep them interested and passionate. Finally, if you lose students’ trust in the ability of education to emancipate, then you will lose it for generations. There needs to be trust. There’s a role for technology in the future but also for ambitious school leadership and new thinking at the national level about what we regard the purpose of education to be.
