This week Blackhorse Primary School turned 20.

Well… almost… the current ‘new’ building turned 20 – the school itself existed on another site since 1958.

And to celebrate this milestone, we held a special day of celebration with children displaying their work focused on the school’s history, and with my good friend (and the Deputy at the time of opening in 2005), Phil Winterburn, leading assembly describing the first few days at the new school.

The story which captured the children’s imagination during this assembly was of the empty concrete playground, beyond which, the (still to be completed) playing field was a sea of mud and builders’ rubble.

To keep the children off this quagmire, Phil took a piece of chalk and drew a thin white line the length of the edge of the playground, instructing the children that they must never step over this line.

Some peered over it.

Others walked along it.

But nobody crossed this line.*

The line itself had no power. It held no physical properties which would stop a child hopping over it and heading out into the sludge.

But that line had power.

Because the children believed in it.

And this made me reflect on where schools are positioned in society twenty years later…

I have been a headteacher for 18 years. Through the financial crash of 2008 and the 14 years of austerity which followed… through Brexit… through the pandemic of 2020… through the myriad of dramas, big and small, which have washed over our communities for nearly two decades.

And standing here, I have the perspective only afforded to one who has seen up close how our society has coped and responded to the changing world around us.

Don’t get me wrong, I am no nihilist. British society is better than at almost any point in history: Richer, less racist, less misogynistic, less homophobic and more accepting of difference than at any point in the last 100 years. But, like all societal norms, our harmony, tolerance of others and acceptance of institutions is not something which is static; nor can be taken for granted. It is instead carried on the prevailing tides of opinion and perception.

And standing here, I see a society which is more divided, and ill at ease with itself, than at any point in my, now nearly thirty-year, career.

A society which has ‘had enough of experts’…

A society where ‘my truth’ and ‘the truth’ hold equal value…

And so, as the lone agents of society which meet with the nation’s families every day, I am increasingly of the opinion that it falls to us – teachers and school leaders – to be the thin white line guiding our communities at a time of generation-defining societal shift.

Whether you asked to be or not, you are a community leader.

Whilst you may have come into school leadership purely to progress teaching and learning, it is important to understand that leading our communities is, and always was, part of our job description.

I am old enough to remember a time, probably last expressed pre-2008, where our nation’s leaders would step up to the plate and would say and do unpopular things because they believed them right for society. Moreover, they would say these things with conviction – and repeatedly.

I am old enough to remember a time where our Local Authorities, bouyed by an abundance of preventative services, were able to meaningfully engage early on in the lives of young people and their families, providing advice and support at the point where it was most needed.

I am old enough to remember that these services were valued and trusted by those that used them.

But to paraphrase a film quote “Now we are here – nobody else – just us“.

Articulate a hopeful future

We cannot look around and wait for somebody ‘in authority’ to take the lead in writing the narrative for the school community which we serve. Our school communities are a microcasm of society more generally. Without a compelling narrative provided through the school’s vision, the community will fill in the blanks itself – particularly during times of uncertainty.

We must be beacons of irrepressible positivity and hope. We must be constant cheer leaders for the school community, and indeed society, which we know we can become. We must use our influence to build a better future for our children and their families by expressing an unwavering belief that we can be stronger. More resilient. More compassionate. Better.

That tomorrow will be better than today, which, in turn, was better than yesterday.

Be more kind.

The world is an uncertain place right now. The cost-of-living crisis has resulted in families feeling squeezed and worried. International leaders say and do things which civilised citizens wouldn’t.

And, as the only agency of the state which families visit every day, it is schools that sometimes feel the brunt of this worry.

But our response should always be kindness. No matter the situation. No matter the context. No matter how reasonable or unreasonable the demand – we should always seek to behave kindly.

We should always seek to behave within the values we promote. As public-facing institutions this is the price we pay for the unconditional positive regard which we hold our families in (another absolute).

So, even when disagreements arise (and they will), be kind.

‘If you don’t stand up for something, you’ll fall for anything’. Be clear about what you believe.

When I was first a teacher in the mid 90’s, and even as a new Headteacher in the noughties, the government of the day was very good at sending out big packs of resources explaining what the ‘party line’ was on any given issue. The, then all powerful, LAs acted as political commissars, refining and distilling the message for the local context.

But, for right or wrong, those days of a clear central message to parrot are long gone. Individual autonomy within the school system has brought about many benefits, but it has also resulted in the need for schools and school leaders to be very clear about what they actually believe.

Because within an individualistic society, such as the UK, everyone has an opinion on how education should be organised. This is most pronounced in the sphere of SEND, where a broken system has given way to confused and desperate parents seeking some sense of control, often resulting in conflict with ‘authority’ (which often means schools).

So now, more than ever, we need to reflect deeply on our beliefs. We need to distill these for ourselves and make them fit the communities which we serve.

This, in itself, creates a tension between ethics and popularism. As we have seen play out on the national and international political stage, popularism (literally – saying what is popular), isn’t always right…

And what is right isn’t always popular.

But if we are to be that thin white line drawn on the playground, we must be willing reflect upon… and then to hold… and then to argue for, beliefs which may not immediately be popular within the communities we serve.

Listen… and learn.

This year, in the annual parents’ survey at Blackhorse, support for the leadership team fell from 97% to 94%. And whilst these are still the polling figures usually reserved for dictators with dodgy electoral processes (75% ‘strongly’ supporting the SLT), they still warrant further investigation.

Again, to be clear, school leaders should not aim to be purely populists, ‘giving the people what they want’ – whether or not it is what the children need. But we must be humble servants . We must set about understanding even small and subtle changes like this, searching our actions and motives to see whether we could and should adapt aspects of our work to better reflect the needs of our communities.

So we must face negative feedback and critisism head on, and with an open mind. Even if we eventually conclude that we need to absorb some temporary unpopularity because we believe that a course of action is for the good of the children, we must do this having tried to understand all perspectives.

Communicate, and then over-communicate the message.

During Covid we learned that messages need to be relayed again, and again, and again, before they are understood, accepted and internalised. We learned that regular, unvarnished, and honest communication with our communities built trust during the most difficult of times.

But is this a habit which we have carried over into this ‘post-crisis’ world? Or have we reverted back to the more formal, more guarded, communication approaches which hold the audience at a greater distance?

Reflecting upon our own communication strategies, I feel that we have reverted back to more traditional, ‘at distance’ approaches. And whilst we have tried to use some tools of modern communication, such as reels on Instagram (which get far more attention than a piece in the newsletter), I still feel that we can learn much from the authentic and gritty communication which we forged in the Covid crisis.

If we want our parental communities to trust us and follow us, sometimes to destinations of which they are personally uncertain, then we must bring our full authentic selves to any communications, not being afraid to (as Brene Brown puts it) leave the armour off.

Sometimes you must hold the line.

Finally, sometimes we must be that thin white line drawn in chalk on the playground.

Respectfully, carefully… but bravely – we must sometimes hold a line which we believe to be true to our values and our mission – even if that means disagreeing with a section of our community.

In our sphere, opinions are never in short supply from almost every quarter. In the last decade these have become super-charged by an ever-outraged digital community.

There will be those who argue that the line drawn in chalk itself is an afront to their liberty… their truth. Indeed, tonight on the news, I have watched the ‘leader of the free world’ do just this.

But complex societies, living in close quarters, need certainties and boundaries in order to function. Indeed, the four cardinal virtues of antiquity are as relevant to a cohesive society today (whether it be a school or a nation) as they were a millennia ago. And whilst the internet siren may whisper otherwise, it befalls to us, the leaders of our school communities, to defend these principles.

Because without them we will be lost.

* Not all white lines hold.

After miming the playground full of children ‘walking the tightrope’, ‘protruding one leg over the edge’ and running to the edge of the thin white line, Phil’s assembly reached its punchline.

One child, a child with additional needs, walked straight across the thin white line and off into the muddy quagmire, requiring the new Deputy, in his new Burtons suit and shiny black brogues, to give chase…

The children found this anarchic defiance thrilling.

Not everyone sees the thin white line the same as we do. And that’s okay.

But I would argue that the line should still have been drawn, even if an individual chose to cross it.

I will leave the argument for where the thin white line, in terms of inclusion, should be drawn. That is a story for another day.

But wherever you choose to draw your line, know what you believe; listen to your community; communicate well; be kind; and always… always seek to uphold our societies virtue.

Because that is our job.