I think it was December 1998 when I took part in a Spice Girls Wannabe spoof for the City of London School staff “talent” show. We’ve just done another version of Wannabe for MCS Giving Day, and watching the original video as I’m about to turn 50 sparked the idea to write this piece. Sex-positive “girl-power” or “ladette” culture was prominent when I was a young teacher. Recalling this now, I can’t help but think of Benny Hill.
When I started teaching this term in 1998, 17 education secretaries ago, David Blunkett was education secretary. Academies didn’t yet exist, though Local Management of Schools had been in place for a decade. The Assisted Places scheme had just been scrapped, and City of London School where I worked at the time set about raising millions for bursaries. This has become a key element of my mission as a head, though it is depressing to see the intensification of attacks on the sector over the decades. MPs who are supportive of parental choice seldom stick their head above the parapet these days.
“It is depressing to see the intensification of attacks on the sector over the decades.”
Education policy feels cyclical. I welcomed Curriculum 2000, and enjoyed the transition from three terminal to four modular A Levels. We have returned to the terminal assessment model, and are going back round the houses regarding the need for apprenticeships after destroying so many of them in favour of degree courses.
O-levels and CSEs were abolished while I was still at school; my cohort was the second year to take GCSEs. Now we wonder whether the current system is fit for purpose, and should we instead return to a multi-strand approach to school qualifications? Oxbridge entrance tests have been both abolished and reinstated.
Today, teaching is more professional and more emotionally intelligent. A profound shift has been a CPD culture based on “what works”: peer-led action research such as that championed by the Education Endowment Foundation, ResearchEd, Teacher Toolkit and the Chartered College of Teaching. Coaching culture makes schools better at listening.
“Today, teaching is more professional and more emotionally intelligent.”
During my first two teaching posts, many colleagues had spent most of their lives in male-only environments. They would inform me that I was only the nth woman to work in the school. One or two would shudder theatrically when women walked past. One school made it clear that maternity leave was frowned upon and returning part time would not be an option for new mothers.
By contrast, MCS has a larger proportion of part-time colleagues than comparable schools. We endeavour to support teachers with young families, but it’s a challenge. Despite the holidays, teaching is not the most child-friendly job because it involves being in school at set times to supervise other people’s children, and the cost of childcare remains high.
It is now far more normal for women to be senior leaders while parenting young children, and this is discussed in a different way from twenty years ago. I had little idea about having a career, let alone about how to build one. WomenEd and HMC’s mentoring of female leaders is great. That said, motherhood is fetishised in a way it wasn’t in the 90s.
“I had little idea about having a career, let alone about how to build one.”
Female senior leaders do not describe themselves as wanting to be “hands on” in the way my male colleagues do, still less do they expect praise for it, because there is still the assumption that looking after children is primarily a woman’s responsibility.
In 1998, Section 28 had been in force for 10 years and still had five to run. In 2023, a thriving LGBTQ+ society at MCS hears the experiences of men who fought to repeal Section 28, many of whom were teenagers when homosexuality was still illegal. I am proud that I now teach in one of the most inclusive nations in the world in this respect.
Safeguarding has been transformed, and children are much safer because they are seen and heard by the institutions which ought to protect them. Schools are also ever more involved in the conversation around teenage sexual experiences, a trend that predates Everyone’s Invited but which was highlighted by the media coverage of the murder of Sarah Everard.
Schools are now seeing pupils wanting to involve them in dealing with routine relationship break-ups and unrequited love as well as making good the shortfall in social services for acute matters. As a head who is very committed to pastoral support, even I have do have to ask how sustainable this now is. With the best will in the world, schools have finite resources.
“Parents now routinely email about ‘urgent’ matters late at night and during Sunday lunch.”
My first mobile phone was a One2One Eriksson brick. In 1998 sending texts was a new skill. Email was accessed on a school desktop, or via a modem intermittently at home. Parents phoned school if there was a problem. Now, they routinely email about “urgent” matters late at night and during Sunday lunch. When I opened an Amazon account in 2000, I had no idea that their “open all hours” delivery culture would come to have such an influence on expectations of my professional availability.
As much as I love Charlotte Tilbury and lifting weights, the bar for being a presentable woman has inched steadily higher. I didn’t wear makeup on a regular basis until my early thirties. Size zero or “heroin chic” is back in fashion — did it really go away? The uber-thin and toned “hard body” look for women is even harder to attain.
I’m grateful to be in a profession which not only expects me to be “mature,” but respects it. That said, my early-career self would be surprised to find that the definition of a biological female has become so contentious. I am always reminding my pupils that rights are not a given, and everyone has to be vigilant in upholding them.
I have always worked in racially and culturally diverse schools, some with religious foundations. The composition of their teaching staff has however remained overwhelmingly white British. I like to think that this will change in the same way that the ratio of women to men in single-sex boys’ schools has. We are drawing potential recruits from a relatively smaller proportion of the population, but I suspect that the stoking of culture wars, the media coverage of teaching as a career and the independent sector in particular isn’t helping us break down the barriers to entry, one of which remains social class.
“I’m grateful to be in a profession which expects me to be ‘mature’ and respects it.”
The bedrock of education is equipping children to make informed choices based on the strong values of an examined life. At school, I do try to explain about the unintended consequences of our choices. What I’m not so good at saying is that the illusion of endless choice can cause considerable anxiety and grief.
We can only make good choices if we have sound knowledge on which to base our decisions, so pupils need expert teachers. The move to skills-based teaching which took place during the early years of my career was a way of coping with a shortage of suitably-qualified graduates, particularly in maths.
It is helpful if you know what you are “for,” in terms of your values and your purpose. I’m definitely a better person for having become a head. I can see why people assume headship is a lonely job — sometimes it is. But being a head has also enabled me to make many new friends and comrades. I cherish my networks.
“I’m definitely a better person for having become a head.”
Increasingly I talk about two things. The first is intergenerational conflict. This isn’t me complaining about the so-called “snowflake generation.” Social media is fuelling a “culture wars” zeitgeist that makes us less able to tolerate and resolve conflict. This is serious because democracy is about just that. Recently we have begun the sixth form lecture series with a talk on why we need to listen to and not cancel people we might disagree with. In 1998 we took this as read.
The other thing I explore is Amartya Sen’s work on how something that seems reasonable for the individual can lead to collective unreason. This includes anything from the individual decision to drive a car, to disruptive pupil behaviour or unreasonable parental demands having destructive consequences for everyone in the school community, themselves included.
Work-life balance can defy the mathematics of calculating the working week. During the pandemic, on paper at least I had an excellent work-life balance: I was able to go for a run in the middle of the day, and very few evening and weekend commitments. Contrast this with a “normal” term time, when I am out three to seven nights a week and work most weekends. But by the end of March 2022, I felt depleted. Headship is a test of stamina — we don’t always know how much we’ve got in the tank. Physical fitness is key: I let this slide in my mid-thirties. Now it’s a priority.
“Expertise is the consolation for ageing.”
Imposter syndrome has played a major role in my life, but you can deploy it to your advantage. It often spurred me to out-work the other people in the room, though this sometimes came at a cost. “Having it all” is a bit of a myth: everything is a trade-off.
It’s also important to try to carry a treasure chest inside you of all you have achieved, survived and know you can do. You can open it in times of difficulty and self-doubt. I particularly love the idea of “failing forward.”
Expertise is the consolation for ageing. On your deathbed you might not regret the emails you didn’t send, but people will remember you well for being kind, competent and reliable.
“If she were to write a column like this in 21 years’ time, I wonder what she would be able to say?”
Family means different things to different people. There is still an assumption that the point of being a woman is to care for other people in an unpaid capacity, and to find fulfilment in work is therefore a bit selfish.
I have now spent half my life in the independent sector. My stepdaughter is five years into her career and getting married in the summer. If she were to write a column like this in 21 years’ time, I wonder what she will be able to say?
Will she report on the tech revolution which has not quite happened yet in schools? BYOD and blended learning are one thing, but I suspect the classroom won’t truly change while handwritten assessment remains the normal way of working for most.
Teaching remains one of the few professions in which technology has added to workload rather than decreasing it. Whatever happens between now and 2044, I hope that she too will be able to reflect on a long, fulfilling and ongoing career, one which will see changes which have been mostly for the better.