Reaching the Hard to Reach

Sometimes I wonder if we have any students who are not part of a target group- just normal, ordinary, and getting on with their education. For everyone now seems to have a classification of some kind: accelerated, under-performing, high-performing, borderline, above target, below target, highly parked, challenging, gifted and talented (yes it’s not just Mozart), special needs, at risk, wobbly C, gradewatch- and now ‘hard to reach’.

Our latest brain teaser is how to define this last group and then how to make sure they are high achievers. Labels matter but whilst ‘G and T’ (gifted and talented) still has me thinking of crushed ice and lemon, the ‘hard to reach’ category reminds me of boggy parts of Dartmoor.

Like the moors it can be dangerous territory. Imagine a phone call to Mrs Smith: ‘Excuse me but I’m calling because we think you’re child is hard to reach and you certainly are.’ That could risk a court appearance. ‘Mind your own business,’ is the politest of replies. ‘My husband will be round there in ten minutes to sort you out,’ more likely. So how do you tell people what they don’t want to hear?

We know what these students look like in the abstract, even if we’re not sure who they are. Invisible, mysteriously shadowy and likely to underachieve, according to the universities, they are from families which don’t make education a priority. For these children, the research tells us, it’s better to change your family than your school if you want to get the best start in life. If I suggest that to Mrs Smith, the police will be in my office before I can say ‘educational research.’

But this week has been one long hard to reach trial- and not just families. Where oh where, for example are our missing table tops? This is the new outdoor eating facility- looking smart, spacious and attractive, we desperately need it during the production for lunches when the hall is out of use. It was due for completion in September but it’s still not ready. It seems they haven’t ordered enough. Someone couldn’t count. And of course it will be the fault of a school somewhere which didn’t teach the builders Mathematics- it always is.

I’m working with heads across the country on various projects and they’re the hardest to reach of all. The security system around many of them would keep them safe in Bagdad. Try to get through to one in a school and you’ll be directed to almost every member of staff before they’ll connect you. Now I keep that kind of distance for those nuisances from Mori and other polling organisations. I’ll usually talk to anyone else if I can help.

After several days of unreturned phone calls and emails, one eventually rings me sheepishly to explain that he has been ‘on the road.’ By Friday afternoon, we are trying hard to get replies from heads in two schools but to no avail. Do they all close early on Fridays or is it just their armed guards who go off duty when their security systems shut down?

Yet email has the power to bring me into instant contact with colleagues from anywhere in the world. Recently I’ve had daily contact with colleagues in South America and can return messages at the press of a button. No more sticking stamps on envelopes and waiting six weeks. Here’s instant reach and it does so much for my impatient streak. If the hour glass on my computer screen goes into over-drive, as it did this week, that’s another tick in a hard to reach column, while I curse the technology I love.

I want to reach everyone and know they’ve got the message whether it’s the builders, other schools, parents or students. Because there really is no excuse for being out of reach- not in the twenty first century when education is the priority and communication is easy. So if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just risk that phone call to Mrs Smith.

Inspirational - and Cautionary - Tales: Gerald Haigh

If you’re looking for policy advice, views on system re-configuration (I didn’t make it up) or academic research, this is not for you. Forget those yawn-inducing guides, remedies and reports we see so much of. Here is a true gem, the real thing: a distillation of wisdom and revelations that will bring Gerald Haigh into your school as a fun-driven, humane presence.

A former primary head, leadership adviser and popular TES columnist, he has a fund of stories you will remember, re-tell and apply. And he brings in quotes and references, from tales of lion tamers and ‘f-laws’ to time machines and chewing gum fences, to illuminate his many stories.

You don’t have to skim through long chapters seeking the buried treasure. The insights spill from every page, every paragraph. The chapter headings read like memos to yourself: ‘Just tell them what to do’, ’Things to do’ or ‘Make sure the message is clear’. Each is around newspaper column length. Many readers will recognise the pieces from the leadership pages of the TES and be glad to be re-united with old friends. The collection offers easy-to-dip-into reads we could give to any of our colleagues and watch the smiles.

For example, I loved the tale, in a piece on the art of delegation, of the executive who, anticipating a long power point, switched off the projector and said, ‘Let’s just talk about this.’ Wow - how many opportunities I’ve missed when I should have done just that! But you have to know where the actual switch is, warns Haig, or you could lose the impact.

Advice on ‘Managing the impossible staff member’ who just happens to be the ‘caretaker from hell’ will make everyone smile and cry out, ‘Yes!’ when they hear the solution. It won’t work in all cases but it will be a catalyst at least: you, ‘Put the dog on the porch’, leave written instructions, avoid arguments and are cold and distant. It’s a great tactic to use on the colleague who wants to manipulate you.

There are stories on topics as wide-ranging as performance-related pay and what really motivates teachers, through to embarrassing moments and team-building. His values inspire. Cynicism is crushed by his natural assertion that the term ‘teacher’: ‘is a lifetime badge of honour.’

He often sums up what we know but haven’t quite expressed: that the best measure of your own leadership is to judge how strong the other leaders are in your school: that the hallmark of the excellent leader is the uncanny ability to be everywhere at once. All will recognise walking around the corner into a crucial discussion just when it matters.

Instead of writing ‘to do’ lists, write into your diary the actual times when you will perform the tasks: that’s so simple but effective. Gerald Haigh credits his source for this advice as, ‘someone who understands real people’, the very quality that makes this little book such a compulsive read.

Inspiration – and Cautionary – Tales for Would-be School Leaders by Gerald Haigh (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group)