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Improvements

Angus MacRury

Thursday 31 August 2006

This year I have decided to change the tact of my blog and report on my thoughts about the job I do and how it is changing.

This session so far I have been a porter, a janitor, a cleaner, a plumbers assistant, a joiner, a clerk of works, an architect, a teacher in P1-7, a headteacher, a social worker, a home visitor and the 2nd week of term has not even finished. How many other roles will I undertake by the end of the session? The job of a Headteacher in a small school job is so interesting and again I have to stress I love the unpredicability of it.

We have had toilet refurbishments taking place at the school. Unfortunately they are not completed as yet. The children are a wee bit disappointed that they toilets are not ready but they will appreciete them more once they are.

ELC has invested a great deal of money in the past 2 years and the school is looking really good.

Comments

Room for Improvement

Alan Blackie

Monday 04 September 2006

I found the comments about the various role that a Head Teacher undertakes to be interesting - but not surprising.
A leader does undertake a wide range of tasks and responsibilites and This is particularly so in a smaller school - as it is in a smaller education authority.

In relation to the property issues - I am visiting the school today to pick up on these and also to discuss the school's HMIe report which will be published tomorrow.

We have no knowledge of the Glasgow payments to schools and there is no allocation of funds to East Lothian for this;
Don Ledingham is checking this out. Perhaps comments like this should not be on a blog unless they are verified first of all.

Varied roles, Maintenance and Special Case

Don

Saturday 02 September 2006

Varied Roles

One of the greatest challenges facing the Headteacher of small school is undoubtedly the huge number of apparently disparate roles they have to fulfil in the course of single day. Yet even as the Headteacher of a secondary school I was constantly amazed by the range of things I had to do, e.g. I used to help the cleaners clean graffitti off the toilet walls at the end of the day and on the same day make a home visit to a school refuser, go "down the street" at lunch time to check on pupil behaviour then clean the staffroom fridge But the most unusual thing I've ever had to do was in one of my previous schools where a deputation of cleaners arrived at my door complaining that a pupil had deposited "something" on the toilet floor and that it wasn't their job to pick it up. I gained hero status when I went with a shovel, followed by all the cleaners, to the toilet, picked up the offending object and flushed it away.

Now SQH had not properly prepared me for this experience and I suppose I could have refused saying that it wasn't my job. However, I've always tried to see how even seemingly menial tasks are connected to the business of creating an environment which people belong and can take a pride. I suppose it's something to with being an example to others - if I'm not prepared to do it who else will? I reckon this is one of the keys to successful leadership.

Nevertheless, back to the point of being the Headteacher of small school - it is more difficult because of the lack of anybody else to delegate responsibility - which I suppose takes us back to something you have mentioned before - are small schools viable? Well I think they are and we just have to accept that they do provide different challenges and rewards from a larger school.

Maintenance

I'll follow this up

Special Case

East Lothian gets no money for taking students. Glasgow might be a special case - I'll check this out.

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