wurk»education {Your career. Your say.}

Wow, where do you start with this one? Let’s take a tongue in cheek approach first.
The Headteacher/Principal, male or female, has reached the top of the in-school education profession.

He or she is at the very peak of their professional development having attained this highly skilled and lofty position through their diligent hard work, application, ability and – some would say – being in the right place at the right time.
The modern Headteacher/Principal is, in many cases, not allowed to be interested in education, children or school. Their interests must focus primarily on finance, followed by finance, followed by budgetary control and building maintenance.
They like to tell people to bring them solutions, not problems - but question why people bring them solutions to problems that they haven’t previously been told about. Quite often they get very upset when someone brings them a possible solution to a problem they don’t know about. Very, very upset because they often feel they need to know everything. Sometimes though, they don’t want to know anything – their point being that if they know something then they will have to do something about it! It may, they argue, be best not to know certain things!
The bigger the school then the more distant the Headteacher/Principal will be. Some do not know the name of any child in school (except for the names of Governors children – they know these names, they know their SAT levels, their middle names, their birthdays and their shoe size and make a point of saying good morning to them each day).
Some Headteachers/Principals do not know the names of many or any of those who work in the same school as they do, instead they rely on Deputy Headteachers or Assistant Headteachers or Bursars or School Secretaries to keep them up to speed on who is who, while they concentrate on balancing budgets, talking to people who have access to money, talking to people who have money, talking to people who know about money and talking to people who know how to access money – particularly Lottery money!
Some Headteachers/Principals think that people in school work for them! Many staff resent the fact that they are introduced to others by their Headteacher/Principal as “This is Mr ——- who works for me!” when clearly they work for a particular school or institution or even an LEA in the UK. Very few people work for other people, they work for organisations and/or for themselves!!
Headteachers/Principals do work hard though. Often they arrive at school very early in the morning and leave very late at night. This allows them not only to work long hours but also to tell people they work long hours. It also enables them to say (honestly) that no one else in this school works as hard as they do.
Despite working such long hours, Heads/Principals don’t make that much of a difference to things that happen in the classroom – they do though complain about a lot of things that happen in classrooms!
Heads/Principals never lead by example. Often they lead by forced change, frequently by fear and often they lead because they have the piece of paper from either the Government or from Ofsted that tells them what is going to happen next. No other teachers have this piece of paper or this information because they are too busy being in the classroom.

More on “The Headteacher” soon – but what about your Headteacher/Principal? Does he/she fit this part of the profile?