Blue Skies Day

‘Busy day ahead?’ asks my wife, as I prepare to leave for work. ‘A big one,’ I announce proudly, for I’ve organised a complete day on strategic planning, doing what every good to great school leader is supposed to do. Leave the small problems to resolve themselves. I shall resist the urge to be out and about. Think vision: it’s a big picture day.

In my office the desk is cleared, the diary is appointments free - not a meeting in sight. My role is to reflect, to be a blue skies thinker. Outside my window there is only the Dartmoor sky to distract me.

I need to begin with my vision, explain the mission, articulate my aims, and state our values. Already it sounds like a Barack Obama speech. Then there are the self-evaluation forms to update, the priorities to list for the year ahead, the School Development Plan to write, the Performance Review and Training Schedule documents to include. Fortunately, I’ve already updated the specialist, training school and leading edge plans. Exhausted already I move from green tea to a large pot of coffee. The blue sky out there is turning grey.

Accidently, I press the wrong button on my computer and on the screen appear sixteen different live views of the site, all being digitally recorded. Video surveillance brings the school into my office like never before. As I watch, one of the toilets is visited by a suspicious youth, quickly followed by another. It’s only ten minutes since the start of the period. I can’t resist the urge to challenge, and I soon find myself over in the block, telling them to get back to class, taking their names and warning them that Maths is not to be missed. Remembering the recording, I return to the blue skies base.

Half way through the scribble that might become a priorities list, the phone goes and I’m asked to visit another boys’ toilet by our hardworking caretaker. This is a smart, motorway service level convenience with fittings that could be gold. It cost thousands to upgrade. Now it looks as if it’s been in a Bugsy Malone shoot out. Rolled up pellets of wet tissue stick to every surface, wall and ceiling. It’s definitely not a Jackson Pollock. A hand basin is full of a yellow liquid that tells me the offender either hates us or missed out on his potty training at an early age.
As the dedicated staff, going beyond the call of duty, prepare to clear the mess, I decide to play Inspector Lewis and hunt the culprits, using the new digital system. We go through the video and find the first to exit at around the time the loo was reported vandalised. The screen shot is emailed to the Sixth Form Centre and, within seconds, we have a name and soon confirmation that we have the correct time. It’s an innocent and totally reliable sixth form student. TV detectives never achieve results this quickly.

Speeding through the recordings we find the last students to go in who confirm all was well. Then we have our vandals - three year elevens who spent fifteen minutes in there - the last to come out before our sixth form witness. Now it’s just the interviews - more in sorrow than in anger. ‘Bring them in,’ I say, in my best Lewis voice.

They can’t explain why. Perhaps they really are just potty. Two caretakers have spent an hour restoring the room to normality. So all three toileteers agree to toil - twelve hours’ community service with the cleaners. Judgement passed, they are led away and parents informed.

However, it’s taken most of the afternoon and wrecked my blue skies day. I look again at the scribbled priorities. I cross out personalised learning, curriculum innovation and leading practice networks. Instead, I write in bold my first and only priority: extend security cameras to provide total coverage. It may not be visionary, but forget the blue skies - I’m on a real mission now.