By Desmond Deehan, Headteacher, North Halifax Grammar School
“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes” The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
As school leaders we like to think we are in control; a safe hand at the tiller steering the ship, a wise farmer tending to our crops. All the metaphors for school leadership persuade us that there is order; patterns to follow and interpret. If we just follow these steps we can succeed, all laid out in this best-selling book available online or at the end of that conference. But those of us that are in for long enough know the truth. It’s chaos!
I took on my first headship 14 years ago. I have been a CEO and back to headship again in that time and I know one thing for certain. Things go wrong with alarming frequency. It is in this experience that the truth of leadership lies. It is what we do “when the storm comes”.
The storm
I became a headteacher in 2010, full of ideas, vision and enthusiasm. Ready to make my mark, which I did quite successfully for eight years. I featured prominently in a three-part BBC documentary Grammar Schools: Who will Get In? which led to increasing public speaking engagements, writing and also to the formation of a Multi Academy Trust, with myself as CEO. Then came Covid-19. Then came Ofsted. The failing school I took on “failed again, failed better” to misquote Samuel Beckett. Storm after storm hit with relentless fury. Not surprising really; we were in the education equivalent of Tornado Alley. Secretaries of Education and – to be fair – Prime Ministers seemed to have the lifespan of a First World War pilot. Black Lives Matters and Me Too had added to an increasing mistrust of institutions, born out of the Covid-19 experience. Or perhaps it had always been there, dormant and waiting to be woken.
Schools and their leaders were under attack from all sides, and from above and below. How surprised were we really when the tragic news of Ruth Perry broke? How many of us had nearly been there? She was one of us. Her experience was ours.
Stories
Most of the time our stories remain hidden from view. We must convey an image that all is in order, “nothing to see here”. But when the door closes on our office, when we are alone, very alone, then the story is real. It might be something, that with hindsight is amusing or simply frustrating. The all too familiar parental complaint or maverick teacher. Occasionally it is something more that has the potential to escalate at an alarming speed. They all matter because they are our reality as leaders.
As school leaders we navigate through chaos on an annual – sometimes daily – basis. Accepting the normality of this, removing the veil is the first step in an authentic understanding of the role. We might not be able to avert the storm, but we can be prepared for it, we can navigate it. There is a way.
I think as school leaders we need to share our stories of the storm. To ease the burden by sharing, to learn lessons from each other. I invite fellow school leaders, primary and secondary, to share their stories, so that we can together create the only leadership text we truly need. The story of how we lead through the chaos.
To share your stories with Desmond, get in touch by emailing us at hello@ssatuk.co.uk and we’ll pass them on.
About the author
Desmond Deehan is an experienced Headteacher and former CEO. He is currently Headteacher at North Halifax Grammar School in Yorkshire and has previously been Headteacher of an all-girls Grammar in Bexley South London for 12 years, combining this with the formation and leadership of a Multi Academy Trust from 2018.
Desmond has served as an Ofsted Inspector and been a public speaker on educational issues both nationally and internationally, featuring in 3-part BBC 2 documentary on Grammar Schools as well as on national and international radio and the national press.
Desmond is particularly proud to have received praise from the author Sathnam Sanghera, in his best-selling book Empireland, for his work on decolonising the curriculum and recognition from the author of Don’t Touch My Hair, Emma Dabiri, for his stance on discriminatory hair rules.
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