Headphone Land

I hate soap operas. I hate chick flicks. I hate reality shows, D List-celebrities-learn-to- dance/ice skate/cook shows and audience participation shows hosted by a wanna-be psychologist who pretends to want to help but is really looking to exploit the vulnerable with the shiny bait of 15 minutes on TV.

Worse still, I think Hell has a special place reserved for the X Factor and any show that needs me to phone in now to make sure my favourite contestant makes it through to the next round/will sing in next week’s live show/is not sent home tonight.

Make no mistake, dear readers: I love music. Hence when my wife or kids at home turn on any (or all) of the aforementioned shows, on go my headphones. I can blank out the blurry background of the tv in our front room. Simon Cowell can ‘ummm’ and ‘ahhhh’ all he likes. He can flick through the tabloid newspapers to see if his latest manufactured beef with a fellow judge has pushed Afghanistan off the front pages to his heart’s content. The simple act of headphones over my ears and I can listen to what I consider real music, music that says something. Rest assured it won’t be some re-hashed Motown cover sung by some crying Doris from Derbyshire whose grandmother died 20 years ago and ‘just wants to make her proud.’

To me music is art. Art should hold up a mirror to society. It should tell us something we didn’t know about ourselves. It should ask questions of us, even if we cannot answer.

Personally, I love lyrics more than melody or rhythms. Like everyone else, there are catchy, rhythmic songs that if played, I will tap my foot along to or even get up and dance. But for the whole, if it is ME music, it will be because the lyrics are powerful, even poetic.

Bob Dylan, Neil Young: both are good default settings if in need of strong lyrics. Recently there has been a bit of a mini-revival of the folk music scene here in London. It has been artists from this revival that form most of my head-phoned world at the moment. Below, I include clips from a few artists you may or may not have heard before. Enjoy as you see fit. However, be pre-warned that they are not what are universally called toe-tappers. They are challenging in the questions they ask, they hold us a mirror. Click on the links to make up your own mind. 


Keep the Faith,


The Head

I will start with LAURA MARLING. Not so unknown over the past few months following her triumph at the Brit Awards in March. Her voice reminds me of an older Joni Mitchell. Her words give me an insight into that age old question; What are women thinking? She is only 21 years old. I expect big things.

JOHNNY FLYNN is a young British artist who cites Shakespeare as one of his lyrical influences.  I just love the line: Sweep my mess away, leave my body, leave my bones, leave me whole and leave my soul, leave me nothing I don’t need at all, nothing I don’t need.

JOSH T PEARSON: a singer song/writer from Texas. Those who know me well, relax. Let’s just say he is a good thing to come out of Texas. He has spent the past decade living in Paris and Berlin so his stuff is tempered with a European twist. His songs and voice are racked with pain so not an easy listen.

JOSH RITTER is an Idaho hermit who writes in a secluded cabin in the American wilderness. His songs ring of isolation and self-reflection. This one has a slightly more upbeat tempo but the words are still a knife in the heart. 

The Prince

I have met Prince Charles twice. I have slapped Prince Charles once.  It is one of my greatest claims to fame. Well, that and I danced on an Atomic Kitten promotional video. But it has been a royal-themed sort of day; we visited a 1000 year old castle (The Tower of London) today, so I will tell you the Prince Charles story. The story is true but the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

********

Once upon a time, fifteen years ago, in a land not far from here, there lived a young-ish Head Teacher running his very first school. One day the school received a phone call. The Prince was going to visit the village and he would like to meet children from the local school.

Because the Prince was so important, The Queen sent special instructions to the Head Teacher and the school. The list had few rules but one was that no one should touch the Prince unless he first offered his hand in greeting. The Head Teacher read the list to the children and all agreed they would follow The Queen’s wishes.

But a wicked fairy was watching. She hated school. Let’s face it: writing stories about What I Did at Half Term Holiday was useless when you have a magic wand. She was sure she could summon a magic spell to ruin the day.  She checked her Big Book of Fairy Spells and cloaked in invisibility, waved her wand around the Head Teacher’s tongue:

Abra-cadabra, abra-cabor

Whatever his first thought, he can think no more!

The day of the visit arrived and the children excitedly lined up, each with an individual flag to wave in order to welcome The Prince to the village.

The Prince’s special soldiers arrived first. It was their job to protect him. They wore sunglasses and talked to their cuff links.

Finally The Prince arrived. The Head Teacher thought to himself ‘Isn’t The Prince immaculately dressed?’ The Prince smelled good too. The Head Teacher wondered what strange royal cologne he might be wearing. It smelled nothing like his own Head Teacher cologne.

The Prince asked the Head Teacher a few questions about the school. He asked about the children and the wide backgrounds of Faith represented in the group. But the fairy’s spell had taken hold. The Head couldn’t answer because he was thinking about The Prince’s unusual cologne. He wondered where he could purchase such a heavenly elixir.

The Head realised that The Prince was waiting for an answer to his questions. The Head shut his eyes to concentrate but the smell of the regal perfume filled his nose, his ears: it coated his very tongue. The Head answered with jumbled, nervous words which made no sense.

The Prince laughed. He might have thought it charming that The Head was nervous to meet him. Perhaps he was familiar with the evil doings of invisible fairies and knew she had been about her work.

The Prince made a joke about the situation. Suddenly the spell was broken and the Head felt as if he had been aroused from a deep, deep sleep. The Head laughed at the joke. He laughed hard, jaw frozen open, eyes tightly shut.

The Head reached out and slapped The Prince on the back in an inappropriately, over-familiar manner, complimenting his royal personage on a great gag. It was the way one might slap an old friend on the back. Opening his eyes, The Head suddenly remembered The Queen’s simple list of rules that must be obeyed. In his mind, he heard The Queen reading the rule aloud in her own distinctive voice, ‘no one should touch the Prince unless he first offers his hand in greeting.’

Out of the corner of his eye, The Head could see the Prince’s special soldiers move a few steps toward him. They peered emotionless through their dark sunglasses. The Head meant The Prince no harm and wished to communicate such.  He held up his hands and backed away from the scene, nearly tripping over a small child with a flag in hand.

A few years passed and the Head was at another school in another village. The phone rang one day like it had before in the other village. The Prince was asking the children to come and sing at his castle. The Prince and his new wife were hosting a party and wanted to entertain their guests.

This time The Head wanted to make no mistake. He decided when in the castle, he would keep his hands clasped firmly behind his back. He wondered if The Prince remembered their strange encounter, years earlier.

The day arrived and the children rode to the castle. There was vast excitement in the village. Parents took photos, so proud that their child would sing for the future King.

Once at the castle, the children and The Head were taken to a small room and told to wait for The Prince and his new wife. They royal couple arrived and The Head thought to himself, ‘Blimey, hasn’t The Prince aged from the last time I met him?!’ The Prince chatted with The Head but if the royal memory did recall the slap on the back, if the special soldiers had a file on the incident somewhere, he didn't let on.

No one knows why the evil little fairy didn’t cast a spell that second time. Maybe she took pity on the Head. Maybe she took pity on The Prince and didn’t want him knocked off his feet with the over-zealous swipe of The Head’s bear-like hand. No one knows. It is a mystery. Even the name of The Prince’s cologne can’t be found on Google.

But one thing is certain: they all lived happily ever after (so far).

THE END

Keep the Faith,

The Head 

London Calling: The Fire Escape

I’m huddling from a cold Spring rain on the fire escape; smoking my 22^nd cigarette of the day. Thus far I have resisted the urge to break into a dance scene from West Side Story. Even my slightest movement on the steel stairs makes the inter-connected structure rumble all the way up to the top of our seven storey building. My perch is 20 feet above the courtyard at the back of our flat. I am in the heart of London’s Theatreland. The view is London in microcosm.

The only safe path is up or down. Even at 49 and with creeping arthritis I can easily jump over the hand rail and onto the flat roof of the ground floor building below. To navigate further requires the balance of a Great Wallenda. Narrow ledges run off of the roof at perpendicular directions; only our two cats have ever negotiated them. I often spot at least one of them sprawled much further along the ledges connected to buildings facing the next street. They lick their paws in the weak English sun, unblinking and staring down into the courtyard below. They are little lions, surveying the savannah from a great rock, waiting for the wildebeests to pass.

Everywhere is brick; brick and grey steel fencing and barbed wire. The bricks are a 20^th century timeline of this space. Orange bricks defining the newer flats built in my lifetime. Paler bricks turned dark with the passage of time and London’s poor air adorns the buildings of great Edwardian redevelopment.

A large crack in the wall runs at waist height to my left. It is this view’s war medal. During the Blitz, a V2 rocket exploded about 150 meters to the southeast. It left a crater and reverberated throughout these inner-connected buildings. The crater is now a major traffic island but the crack remains, a monument to resistance.

Our building sprawls the patch once claimed by a maze of narrow Victorian alleyways and bawdy theatres. The area was cleared in the late 19^th century as our neighbourhood was deemed to be decadent.  The labyrinth of whore houses, pubs and poor housing was replaced with a small school and the tall, narrow structure I call home today.

It is the school where I gained my first teaching post back in 1986. It is the school my children attended. It is the school where I met my wife. The school playground’s green, cushioned surface is the only relief from the sea of brick. It is our family’s cradle. It is the place where our life together originated.

The green spongy playground covering is in juxtaposition to what lays beneath. Twenty years ago, as the surface was being prepared, builders uncover a Saxon burial ground. Archaeologists form the Museum of London excavated for a year carefully removing dozens of ancient Londoners who first claimed this site more than 1500 years ago. Every Londoner since has added their layer on top.

 I still have a sign signalling our flat’s former use as a library. We live in the building shouldering up to the school. Initially these rooms housed the offices of local government officials, tasked with bringing electricity to this part of the city. Later it became a library. My wife attended the school as a young girl and clearly remembers sitting on the floor in what is now our bedroom, listening to stories.

The library closed and the building was redeveloped into its current 6 flats, each occupying an entire floor. Twenty years ago our home was a transvestite brothel. We moved in 15 winters ago and spent the first week discovering artefacts such as size 22 corsets tucked in cupboards. There were mirrors everywhere; to this day we pay a nod to the place’s lascivious past by keeping solid walls of mirrors in situ. Now it is just home. Our two youngest daughters were born in the bedroom next to where my wife sat as cross-legged 6 year old listening to tales of happy every after.

I finish my cigarette and flick it into a breeze. It circles in the strange drafts and currents; on the winds trapped in this brick canyon. An aria from Madam Butterfly echoes off the surrounding walls from the restaurant downstairs. She is abandoned, but a thousand ears hear her.

The fag ash settles on the white stone courtyard, burning its way through the dusty layer of Edward VII, through Victoria’s, through Knut's.

I imagine an overlooked Saxon skeleton, flesh picked clean in the London clay, empty skull filling with the smell of tobacco. It smiles as it realises far above London goes on and on and on. This was his home. I am just the custodian, keeping it warm for generations undreamed of. 

Keep the Faith,

The Head

Jeel Al Amal

Exactly three years ago this week, I stumbled off of an El-Al flight in Tel Aviv to begin a fortnight’s tour of Palestine and Israel. It was something I had planned to do for ages but had always put off; citing family and/or work commitments. A group of friends go every two or three years, and in 2008 one seasoned veteran was most insistent that he would be making his final tour and if I wanted to experience the trip with him; it was now-or-never-time.

The itinerary was simple but would keep us busy for the entire two weeks. We planned to pay our respects at the obligatory religious sites:  the Sea of Galilee, the River Jordan, Calvary, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Judean desert, Lazarus’ Tomb, Masada and more. Tales of those visits are for another day, another blog.

The focal point for the trip, and today’s entry, stems from the tail-end of our trip. As the group had done on all their previous visits, we would also spend a few days at the Jeel Al Amal Home for Boys and neighbouring Lazarus Home for Girls. Both are orphanages in Bethany on the hotly contested West Bank in Palestine, a short drive north-east of Jerusalem.

Our group of friends was diverse, from a range of backgrounds and skill-bases. It needed be. The orphanages are run on a shoe-string and rely heavily on supporters such as ourselves passing through and helping with the full spectrum of challenges that arise from trying to house, clothe, feed, educate and nurture 330 children from as far as the Gaza Strip. We had people with backgrounds in business, plumbing, art, construction, accountancy and of course education.

I tend to travel lightly when going abroad but I had been forewarned by my fellow travellers to take the maximum baggage allowance. My suitcases were filled with children’s medicines, children’s clothes and the most basic of educational resources such as pens and pencils. One bulky bag contained solely footballs, of course.

To understand the physical setting for the orphanages, one must be aware of the political landscape of this part of the world. Palestine exists in pockets, rather than long swathes of land. The Israelis have for the most part, built large 30 foot walls around Palestinian strong-holds. Israelis are allowed to move freely in and out of these walled enclosures, Palestinians are not. The people are imprisoned. The walls are officially there to uphold Israeli security. The reality is that Palestinians cannot access the basics beyond the resources available inside. Inside there are few trees, they have been cut down to provide wood. There is little infra-structure, little of the luxuries we might label as necessities such as medical care. As a result, the number of blind residents insides the wall is striking and heart breaking in equal measures.

Driving up to the Palestinian controlled area in which the orphanage is situated, we ran the gauntlet of an Israeli army check point. The contents of our collective baggage allowance, full of childhood and institutional necessities, buried deep in the bowels of our mini bus. Luckily the army search was cursory. If our stash had been detected it would have been confiscated.

The two orphanage buildings, one for girls and one for boys stood at the top of a barren, rocky lane. There was little vegetation in the surrounding, stony fields. Hundreds of colourful plastic shopping bags littered the roadside; the only thing contrasting the pale, sun-baked stone.

Immediately dozens of children’s’ faces peered through the fence. They waved. They smiled. They jumped. They danced.

What happened in the coming hours and days, dear readers, passes through my memory in waves on a daily basis.

Upon departing our transport, we were met by crowds of children cuddling us and wanting to hold our hand. They led us to the orphanage’s founder and matriarch Mother Alice; a Palestinian Christian who opened the institution in 1972. Mother Alice was old and frail. However, she was one of those few people we may be lucky enough to meet in our lifetime; who has an aura of saintliness. She had recently undergone surgery which had been performed by a former resident of the orphanage. She explained that may of her children have gone on to be doctors, lawyers, architects.

She thanked us profusely for our gifts. We had refrained from going into town and sampling the Israeli taverns and restaurants during our trip around the country so we could save every bit of spending money we had brought to give to the orphanage. Veterans of previous trips had pre-warned me that frugality on the earlier part of the trip would be for a far greater good if we could leave as many shekels and dollars as we could at Jeel Al Amal. They were right 10,000 times over.

A quick tour of the buildings followed, the plumbers in our group plumbed, the accountants accounted.  But the children were desperate for us to come and play. I opened my big bag of footballs and soon had many friends. Sport transcends language, cultural and political divides once again!

I don’t cry easily, if at all. I might shed a tear at a funeral; never at a soppy film though, never because my football team has lost and the television cameras are poised on me. But what happened next made me weep, dear readers. Weep.

A young boy pushed through the crowd. He was dressed in a black shirt and told me in very broken English that he loved football. I looked up from the bag at the boy. He was about the same age, with the same facial features, as my son back in England. It startled me. He begged me to play football with him. He told me his name was Fadi. He must have thought it strange that this jovial fat man, laughing and handing out footballs had suddenly gone quiet as he grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the playground. But I was transfixed by his face. It was so like my son’s; familiar and comforting. It made me think of home and how lucky we are.

I spent the next several hours playing football under the hot Middle Eastern sun. I must have exchanged 1000 high-fives. I must have celebrated 100 goals in an overly enthusiastic fashion. 

The seasoned veteran, who had been most insistent that I undertake his final tour with him walked onto the playground with the orphanage’s school staff. They wished to talk about their curriculum. I pointed out Fadi to my travelling partner who also knows my own son well. I remember the tears coming down my sunburnt face as we both marvelled at the likeness.

The sights, the sounds, the memories of Jeel Al Amal  resurface in my mind every day. Fadi must be 16 years old by now and ready to strike out into the world like my own son. Mother Alice died soon after our visit but I am pleased to report that her daughter and son have taken up the task of running the orphanages. At the end of today’s blog, you can click on a short You Tube film that focuses on the Lazarus building. It is made by some American church and I post it for the visual impact rather than the narrative. 

Jeel Al Amal translates as Generation of Hope. Thankfully, no Israeli soldier can ever build a wall high enough to imprison hope. Wherever you are tonight, Fadi, I wish you that hope in bags bigger than the one I used to bring you the footballs. I wish you love and peace and the realisation that there is a world outside the walls that does care. 

Keep The Faith,

The Head

Half Term Holiday

You’d be hard pressed to find a teacher at 11pm this evening who is not either drunk or asleep (perhaps both). Tonight marks the start of the Half Term Holiday. It is a great British institution; scourge of parents and blessed saint of education workers. For the sake of readers outside this Sceptred Isle- Half Term is a week off observed three times a year, in the middle of each of the three schooling terms/semesters.

Hold on. There are several misnomers in that previous statement.

First, Half Term is a week off for the children, NOT the staff. The teachers and staff will continue working, mostly preparing lessons and resources and getting to the paperwork that has piled up in the preceding weeks. But we can get to that paperwork without little Johnny standing at our shoulders, blowing his obligatory snot-bubbles as he tells you about his pet cat for the fifteenth time. We can write our lesson notes without casting a constant watch on the playground door; making certain little Wayne’s mum hasn’t turned up drunk again and is threatening to beat up Mackenzie's mum because “she dissed me new TOWIE tattoo. She did, ya know. Me mate told me she did in Tesco. And this school does nuffink to stop it. Nuffink...”

Even us Head Teachers can reduce the height of the in-tray without a timid tap on our doors and an even more timid voice calling through “Thought you would want to know one of the dinner ladies is crying in the staffroom because the her third-cousin-twice-removed has died in Outer Mongolia and you won’t give her 2 months paid leave of absence to attend the funeral.” (I usually reply along the lines of ‘Crying doesn’t work on me. It is a weapon people use. And besides, some local government, twinkie-skinned, pus-socket is demanding this evaluative report on the amount of pressure 8 year olds put on their pencil and its correlation with future back pain. It is marked URGENT. Look! URGENT! And it is the third flippin’ time they’ve asked for it’)!

Secondly, Half Term Holiday doesn’t come at the half-way point of the term. Terms can be 16, 18, 12, 11, 14 sometimes even 13 weeks long. Today’s drunken (and perhaps sleepy) celebrations are taking place only four weeks since the Easter break and subsequent additional national holiday to celebrate the Royal Wedding. The second half of the term will be 8 weeks long. This might not seem too much of an issue but units of work tend to run over half terms of study. Therefore, SOMETHING has to be crammed into the 4 week block. Subsequently the curriculum has to be administered at a double-quick pace. This leads to all sorts of bizarre lesson combinations such as ‘Today class, we will be learning how King Henry VIII could have used improper fractions to determine if your bean seed will grow on a wet paper towel, without soil, in an arid eco-system but from the perspective of someone who celebrates the Hindu faith. We will be writing a poem about it. And making a collage.’

The reason for this short, four week, half term of study should be obvious to everyone. It is Whitsun for goodness’ sake! Summer term half term holidays have to coincide with Whitsun. It is a day which originated from the Pagans and was later hijacked by Christianity to mark the Pentecost. Not many self-professed Christians can define Whitsun’s meaning. Its meaning is even more lost in a school like mine, attended and staffed by Muslims at a ratio of around 9:1. I consider myself a Christian but I can confirm that I won’t be doing anything special to mark Whitsun. Forgive me, if you were expecting a Hallmark card wishing you A Joyous Whitsun, From Across the Miles. It...uh...probably...uh... got lost in the post.

This leads me to the third misnomer: Half Term Holidays were never intended to be holidays. Holidays implies celebration. It implies special food, parties, perhaps a cake. Half Term Holiday originated with the initial structuring of the English schooling system and the powers-that-be of the day wanting to encourage the masses to attend. Granted, a main aim of the early formalised schooling format was to teach young people to read/write just enough so they could serve as servants to the English nobility. However, the people of time were mostly peasant farmers: serfs who needed their children to be working the land, seeding, tending and harvesting meagre crops just to keep the family from starving. Reading and writing skills were low down the job description.  So the elite came up with the bright idea of a week off three times a year (in October for harvest, in February for planting, in May for tending- oh and to mark Whitsun of course). The peasants were appeased.

I won’t be spending much time tending crops during the coming week away from school. I will try to get out on our fire escape and water the basil I planted in February. That is, if our two cats haven’t made the tub I planted into an impromptu litter box (and before you say ANYTHING, Little Johnny, it is the first time I mentioned our cats, now go blow your nose; Kleenex is your friend). Likewise, I doubt many of the pupils at my school will be spending much time toiling in the fields during the next seven days.

But the original formula of the school year being based around the agricultural year remains embedded. This will be the last of the three Half Term Holidays of the school year. Come the end of July, the school will close for 6 weeks, again an ancient link to our farming past and a chance to really get to grips with those crops in the field.

In a way, I find all this comforting. English culture is, in my opinion, refreshingly tolerate, liberal and progressive but it always has one foot firmly rooted in the past. It is a strange and eccentric balance, but it works.

The coming week’s blogs are most likely to more reflective of my other life; as a father, husband, friend and general human being rather than that of a Head Teacher. Fair warning if you read solely because you are interested in the business of managing dysfunctional schools. I would encourage you to take a few moments to enjoy the blog I read myself The Jersey Wife. The writing is crisp, humorous and peppered with perception from someone very different, yet startling similar to myself.

As for me I am off to water the basil and perhaps peruse Jersey Wife’s blog for a Whitsun cake recipe.

Have a good Half Term Holiday.

Keep the Faith,

The Head

The Leap of Faith

I’m somewhat of an adrenalin junkie. Somewhat. An adrenalin junkie within reason, a circumspect adrenalin junkie, if you will.  

We are on this earth for a short time and I choose to march under the carpe diem banner. When I can, that is. And did I say, within reason?

Skydiving doesn’t appeal, but scuba diving does. Roller coasters? I will be the first one to get in the queue with you, someone else can wait by the exit with the bags.

I am one of those people who needs an electric current running through my blood on a daily basis. I like to stay up late and sleep even later. As a result, 18-24 cups of strong coffee, plus an equivalent number of strong English cigarettes are needed each day to keep the buzzing river washing through my brain and through my veins. I work hard. I play hard. To me that is life being lived.

 Regular readers (bless you for sparing me a few minutes of your day) will know that my school was visited by the local inspectorate earlier this week. They snapped on rubber gloves and gave the place the most intimate and thorough of examinations. As they washed their hands at the end of the day and looked over the shoulder as I sat on the edge of my chair waiting for their diagnosis. “It’s better but not good enough,” was their judgement.

On the way home that evening I felt beaten. I went to bed earlier than usual, recharged and awoke on Wednesday ready to do battle. Two of my work colleagues plus me have all been recently described, in independent and unrelated circumstances, as combative. I consider that description a badge of honour. People working in failing schools have to be combative. We have to fight. We have to prove ourselves on a daily basis.

Today I received a second visit form the local government inspectorate this week. That is unusual, but not unheard of. I brewed a fresh pot of Lavazza Espresso Number 7 and strapped on the boxing gloves as the inspector snapped on the rubber gloves.

For brevity’s sake, dear readers, 2 hours later it has been explained to me that the local government inspectorate had collectively had a mind shift and now considered my school to be at least satisfactory and no longer failing. The caffeine rushed through my nervous system; the roller coaster that had dipped so low was now being cranked towards the top of the pinnacle.

Do not assume my task is complete. I still have the national government inspectorate to convince in a few weeks time and that will be a far tougher challenge. But for today I held my hands over my head as the safety bar pressed against my midriff and fixed my eyes ahead on the crest of the hill.

After lunch I drove to visit our 10 year olds who are currently on a one week school journey in the Essex countryside. They are staying at one of those familiar adventure camps where abseiling, archery, caving etc are introduced to inner city children.

 As I drove into the centre, the group were easily spotted as they had donned bright blue, red and purple harnesses and orange protective head gear. They stood like Druids at the base of a mighty 40 ft pole driven deep into the Essex dirt. Short steel branches jutted out of the pole at two foot intervals all the way up to a small platform at the top. The pupils murmured to me this was called the Leap of Faith. The premise was to climb to the top of the pole and once on the platform to undertake a bungee-like jump whilst holding a safety line.

I spent the next hour encouraging the children to take on the challenge. Some embraced it and scampered up the pole like monkeys up a banana tree. Others went quiet. Some wrote postcards of farewell home. Many suddenly wanted their mothers despite being street-toughen urchins of the East End. I have witnessed the scenario many times down the years; the toughest, most confident of children will often baulk in such circumstances and slink off to the bunk area to mingle with the smell of 30 children living in close quarters; a smell instantly identifiable as that school journey smell. But the most timid and quiet frequently rise to the challenge. They are the ones who time and time again, year in and year out grow wings that they cannot muster in their familiar classrooms.

As the activity came to a close, the instructor called down to me from the top of the pole, challenging me to undertake my own Leap of Faith. I thought back to Wednesday morning, how after being beaten the day before, I got dressed, went back into work and continued the fight. I nearly called back up that the simple act of returning to school following the week’s inital inspector visit had been my Leap of Faith for the week, but the chorus of DO IT! DO IT!  from the 30 children soon served up the hard lesson that leaders need to lead by example. Before I could say ‘Is that the time?  I must be getting back to London before rush hour,’ I was strapped like a gimp in the most unflattering of harnesses and staring straight up the 40 foot pole.

I grasped the metal branch-like protrusions; once again grateful for my all-purpose Dr Martens shoes (remember dear readers, EQUALLY at home on the football pitch or the budget meeting). Hand over hand I climbed pulling my obese frame up the pole in un-natural, jerking motions.

Finally I stood atop the platform and looked down. Why is it heights ALWAYS look higher when in-situ? It didn’t look this bad from the ground! The instructor joked with me that the children were watching. He need not have said it, I could feel every eye of the staff and children burning on my quivering mass as I hugged the pole like a stripper hoping for a £5 tip.

He told me to walk to the edge of the platform with just the tips of my size 11 Dr Martens hanging over the edge. He told me to take a deep breath and to step into the void, the harness would slow my fall, no doubt, no doubt at all.

But there is doubt. The apparatus is made for children. The pin is unbuckled and can clearly be seen to some audience in a movie theatre watching this scene play out on a screen in some cinema in an alternative dimension.

I stepped forward just as the instructor said, “You will fall like a sack of shit.”

My memory of the next split seconds is of the sun bursting through the tree tops and tree tops becoming trunks as I rushed vertically downwards. My next memory is of lying on my back, bark chips and soft sand clinging to the side of my face. And cheering. Children cheering.

I looked up to the platform and said to myself, “You were Wednesday morning.” I brushed the chipped bark from my shoulder and looked over at the 30 sets of eyes, now wide and excited. “This is today.”

Keep the Faith,

The Head

The Four

A quick calculation with a blunt pencil on the border of the evening newspaper reveals that I have worked with approximately 5800 children thus far in my career. Four of them are burned in my heart for eternity. They are burned into my heart, not my brain, not my soul- my heart.

Schools should be inclusive places. Many will pin up a banner near the entrance saying ALL ARE WELCOME. Everyone should be welcome. We probably all agree that schools should embrace children from all races, all religions, all creeds. Those who are different are also welcome. One passes down the corridor of any school and sees the child with glasses, with braces, with cochlear implants. All seems normal.

But then we have the child with Downs, with Cerebral Palsy, with Angelman Syndrome. Now some schools balk. The inclusion banner that spans the main entrance is suddenly rolled up, stored in a cupboard. Those schools will still tell you that ALL ARE WELCOME. What they mean is that they welcome everyone who fits the mould; the narrow brand of an education that allows them to churn out 30 or 60 or 90 identical protégés each year. Children that read and write beyond national standards; children that play a musical instrument, read the new Harry Potter book on the same evening it is released and are stressed that their homework won’t be finished before their yoga lesson begins.

Pass down the corridor of these schools and one won’t see the Angelman child. Access has been denied, usually through that old Health and Safety chestnut: What if there was a fire, how would we be able to keep him safe? It is for his own good, this school is not best suited to his needs. The other school, down the road, he would be happier there. What they mean is that the child will never achieve the national expectations in reading and writing, no matter how hard any teacher tries and therefore could cost the school 2,3 even 4% off its overall exam results.

Inclusion applies to everyone. Every one. It means all are welcome, regardless of need. And if the school can’t meet the child’s needs because of the physical space, then the physical space needs to be transformed.

Ten years ago I was starting my second headship in a high flying but dysfunctional school. The school was top 5 in the exam league tables but was seriously outdated in its practice. Seriously outdated. My brief was to eradicate its deeply rooted and antiquated ethos and drag the school (kick and screaming if necessary) into the new Millennium.  

The school had a 300 year old history and was housed in a building considered to be of huge importance to English Heritage as it was the oldest purpose-built school in London. Charles Dickens had rented rooms there to read his stories aloud to Victorian devotees. The place oozed history.

Two grated, wrought iron staircases framed the building to the east and west. The ground floor was base to for the younger children. At the age of 7, classes moved upstairs to mingle with the high oaken eaves and beams.  

Soon after arrival, I admitted a child who used a wheelchair for mobility. Questions were asked, first in stuffy, secret conversations but later more overtly; how would this child be able to access the school once she reached 7 years old? The question masked what was in my opinion, their real concern; how will this child pass her exams and keep the school in the elite?

As the girl approached the age when the class would graduate to the upper floor, the same people began to ask how she would negotiate the great, historic staircase. It did present a puzzle. Adapting the staircase with a chair lift was not an option. English Heritage would not permit such a staircase to be modified. Only an American would consider desecrating a set of steps ascended by Dickens, by Queen Elizabeth (yes Her Majesty had visited the school and yes the open grates had been temporarily carpeted so that no commoner could gaze up the royal skirt).

The conundrum taught me a lesson I still apply to my work today; inclusion can always happen, there is always a way to make it work. I took the decision to move the class to the ground floor, to allow the 7 year old girl continued access. The Queen and Dickens staircase remained, but so did the child at the school.

But I know, even in my commitment to accommodating all-comers, that there are limitations. 

My rule of thumb is simple. Education is a human right, but one person’s rights end where the next person’s rights begin.

To illustrate: I have a right to smoke the 25 Benson& Hedges cigarettes that I enjoy daily. I can smoke any time, any place in my home. However, if I were to light a fag in a lift, in an elevator, my right to smoke would infringe on my fellow passenger’s right to clear air. Therein my rights end and the rights of next person’s begin.

 

Inclusion also means being open to children with severe behavioural issues. These needs can be the most trying for schools. Such children will not only demand a disproportionate amount of the teacher’s time but also the school’s resources and energy. A different curriculum frequently needs to be generated; extra meetings before and after school with parents to make certain common messages and strategies apply at home and school. For the most part, it works. It takes patience, perseverance, tolerance, but it mostly works.

But alas, dear readers, I would be deceiving you if I claimed there were no causalities. There are some children, despite our best intentions, despite months of trying various strategies, different approaches; we simply cannot reach. Children who are so damaged, so distressed for whatever reason that they cannot function in a mainstream school.

It is in this cold realisation that the Head Teacher faces the hardest decision. When a child is not responding, not engaging in the slightest, when the child is causing damage to his peers, the very adults that are committing to helping him, the questions surface: Is including this child excluding others from their education? Are the rights of this child to a mainstream education crossing over and preventing others from exercising their right to an education?

During my previous 14 years as a Head, I have, on occasion, been forced to ask myself these questions. In the past I have answered yes only three times. Last week marked the fourth. Permanently excluding a child from a school built on inclusion is surrender. It a white flag hoisted over the ramparts declaring, for the good of the many, I surrender this one child. It is defeat and defeat sits uneasy on the heart.

So the four children I have surrendered down the years are burned into my heart. They were and will always remain The Un-reachables. They are the four I had to leave in the blazing building in order to save the other 5796. I cannot remember all the names of the 5796. But I know the names of The Four and even now I scrawl them on the margin of the evening newspaper with a blunt pencil.   

The Plate of Biscuits

It has been said that ‘those who can do, those who can’t teach.’

Equally it could be true that those who can run schools do, those who can’t, inspect them.’

My school is deemed to be failing by the government. Not just this government but the government before it as well.  Yes, our failure strides two political administrations. I arrived here 20 months ago and was handed a one sentence instruction manual. It read MAKE THIS SCHOOL SUCCESSFUL.

Make no mistake: the school was ailing. I use the past tense as things have mightily improved over the past year and a half, to the point where I would put our school up against any other in our area judged to be satisfactory. But my word does not account for much. As a result, every week at least one local government inspector visits and places our provision under his metaphoric microscope. Today marked the periodic milestone when 2 local inspectors descend on my glass office. They spend the next 8 hours pinning teachers, pupils, lunch ladies, the school mascot and myself to those glass panes as if on a king-size prepared slide. They turn their microscopes to 400x, scratch their chins and mumble, ‘Hmmmm.’

 I know both inspectors fairly well and they have visited the school regularly over the past 18 months. Every inspector has a nickname. Today we were to be visited by Bobby Dazzler (an aging amateur dramatist with a velvet baritone voice and the perfect diction of the thespian lovies that crowd the bars of Shaftesbury Avenue after final curtain) and The Cauliflower (picture your Sunday School teacher with Margaret Thatcher’s blown-back hair style). In the spirit of hospitality I prepared for their arrival by buying two packs of chocolate biscuits from the local Tesco Metro.

This would be a good point to confess that I have no catering or homemaking skills. If you want something made to look inviting or appealing, I am not your man. My idea of a posh spread is eating peanut butter, straight from the jar and off of a pencil whilst bent over the sink.

Armed with two packets of luxury chocolate biscuits (none of your Happy Shopper rubbish, I was out to make an impression) I got out the best school plate. It was the one that the lunch ladies usually save in the back for when someone very important like The Queen visits the school. Ok, The Queen never visits but if she did, we get the same plate out of the cupboard. It is a pristine, dishwasher safe institutional green number that has never been in contact with baked beans or Friday’s fish and chips.

Bringing it to my office, the lunch ladies held it out at arm’s length in front of them; much like the crown is carried into Westminster Abbey during a coronation. They walked slowly, solemnly, eyes fixed straight ahead. The teachers stopped their lessons as the procession passed. Pupils pressed their noses against the glass of the door, anxious to catch just a single glimpse of the famous PLATE. “See, I told you it wasn’t just an urban myth, it does exist,” teachers whispered to their charges. “Remember this moment. This is history; you will tell your grandchildren you saw it with your own eyes.”

OK, so I made that bit up, but you get the idea.

My job, on days such as these, involves presenting the school in an uneasy balance to the inspectorate. An honest evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses is required. But make no mistake; I will also make certain they see the place in the most favourable light possible. Like the pushiest of all stage mothers, I will spit in my hand and smooth down the forelocks of my child, my school; regardless of its dubious talents.

I opened the biscuits and started to lay them out on the plate. Half were thick, round and chunky, covered in a disproportionate amount of milk chocolate. The reminder were elongated and elegant; almost Continental. Assembling the selection on the plate, I envisaged a great pyramid of confectionary, like that most likely served up at the recent Royal Wedding. The reality staring at me back from the prized platen was more wagon wheel. It looked rough and uneven. I convinced myself that the finger-like European offerings were unbalanced to the eye. This was quickly addressed by scoffing one.

Turning the bottom chunky chocolate layer at dainty 20 degree angles to each other, my eye caught sight that one of the biscuits had been malformed, its chocolate coating stripped away at the edge. I considered devouring it as well, as such anomalies cannot be allowed to exist, but this would have upset the delicate pattern (well delicate in my mind’s eye) that had been arranged.

I am not ashamed to say, dear readers, the moment called for cool collective thinking. This I summoned innately. Glancing about to ensure I was not being watched, I quickly substituted the freakish cookie to the bottom of the pyramid. I thought I heard the sudden sucking of air from a class of 7 year olds down the corridor as they whined in a single, sing-songy voice “Oooooo, I’m tell-ing.”

The day dragged as both Bobby Dazzler and The Cauliflower scratched the veneer of the school to find the blemishes beneath. It was one of those days when the ticking of the clock forms an eternal soundtrack. It was one of those days when the sun is a great dog, not wishing to be on a leash, and therefore sits as it is stubbornly towed across the sky.

One by one the inspectors ate the biscuits. One by one, the cosmetic layers I had plastered over the school’s persistent cracks were stripped away. My eye constantly was drawn to the plate of chucky chocs and elongated fingers.  The hidden oddity, devoid of sweet coating remained a secret known only to me.

One by one, the inspectorate uncovered the weaknesses of the school I had intentionally or unintentionally failed to mention. They prepared their microscope slides, scratched their chins and said, “It’s getting better but it is not there yet.” The stage mother in me smoothed her child’s hair again with a saliva-sodden palm and pushed him back in the spotlight pleading, “But you haven’t heard him sing The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow yet!”

Around 5pm, the lamp on the microscope was switched off and the inspectors departed having spent their final hour with me pointing out that my child still couldn’t sing. Bobby Dazzler crooned in his rich baritone “It’s getting better but it is not there yet.” I watched them disappear through the front gates and slipped the secret biscuit from under the remaining pyramid as if playing a one man game of Jenga. In my mind I thumbed the one sentence instruction manual for failing schools. But the MAKE THIS SCHOOL SUCCESSFUL text had a chocolate fingerprint on it.

Keep the Faith,

The Head

The Rose Bush

For the first time, I am actually writing this blog from my school office. It is very late in the afternoon and the children have all departed. Several of the staff are still pottering about, putting the finishing touches to the day’s work. I still have an evening meeting to attend at a neighbouring school so I am consoling myself that my day is at least 75% finished.

My current school stands at the end of a crowded side street in the poorest area of London. You will be hard pressed to find to find three neighbouring buildings that pre-date World War II. The Blitz left this neighbourhood, and the next one to the south, and the next one, all the way down to the London docks: completely obliterated. It was the days before smart bombs and the WWII vintage explosives fell indiscriminately, destroying one side of the street but not the other; the neighbour’s house but not your own. Rows of Victorian houses; two rooms downstairs, two rooms up, suddenly halt and yield to a vast empty space. These are the places where one can deduce a Nazi bomb fell 70 years ago. 

The bomb sites remained for decades. When the debris was finally cleared for the great social housing projects of the 1960s and 70s, strings of cramped, poorly constructed houses sprung up between here and the River Thames two miles away. The housing was meant to have been temporary, a quick fix solution. Yet they continue to provide shelter for immigrant London; despite the rotting window frames and crumbling brickwork. The sound of Cockney English within replaced down the years by Bengali, Urdu, Bosnian, Lithuanian, Pashto.

The school itself resembles a medical centre. In fact I have nicknamed it The Dentists’ Office. It is not uncommon for local folk, new to the neighbourhood to turn up at our door requesting to register with the doctor. The few remaining older souls remember this site as the local coal yard and talk of the stream that ran through what is now our Sports Hall.

Drug abuse is rife. Each morning I walk the alleyways around the site, the rat-runs that serve as the children’s path to school; collecting discarded syringes in a big medical box. Side-stepping dog mess, beer cans, abandoned mattresses and cigarette ends.

My office is a glass box; horrendous for privacy but it affords me a great view of the main gates and acts as a deterrent for any colleagues wishing to sneak off early. The gates are a frontier. They are our border with the rest of the world. Inside them are order and ambition, safety and the promise of a better life through education. Outside, education means little. Outside the individual is judged by who has the most tint on their car windows, who has the most bling, whose trousers ride the lowest.

I tell the children and parents that the city streets stop at the school gates. Inside the gates our rules apply. Our aim is to create a refuge, a haven. We try to bring order to the lives of children who in some cases have swapped the killing fields of Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan for a pseudo-gangsta culture of the East End.

On the whole, it works from Monday to Friday. The gates electronically close once the children are in and the school day begins with its familiar timetabling, dependable meals on the table, reliable adults to nurture young minds. These children thrive on the regimentation.

But the weekends are different. With the site abandoned, the gates are breached. Faceless intruders storm this castle, climbing onto the roof, kicking in windows, destroying playground equipment. Like the jungle reclaiming ancient ruins, the nightmarish Blitz reappears to stake its claim to this plot.

I am one who looks for messages in everyday things. I look for the poetry that the world tries to communicate to us. Outside my office window, my entire left field of vision is filled with a giant rose bush. Its thorns stab at my window, tapping out warnings.  Yet, atop each gnarled branch grows a large and fragrant flower, its deep red colours in contrast to the gates’ industrial green.  If I hold my head at certain angle I can view the entire world through the leaves and buds. I can imagine that my jungle is reclaiming the streets outside the gates.

Keep the Faith,

The Head 

The Apocalypse

According to some apocalyptic doom-monger in America, the world ends tonight at 11pm GMT.

So not to compound any impending tragedy, I am currently eating the last doughnut in the box of raspberry-filled my wife bought yesterday. It would be unforgiveable to leave this earth with doughnuts still in the house. In fact, I would consider it to be an affront to God.

You’ll forgive me, beloved readers, if I sound rather flippant. But we, as a society, have been here many times, even in my lifetime. It is getting near the point where I am considering ditching the day job and selling Apocalypse insurance. *cue late night advert with soft piano music and montage of 2.4 nuclear family in slow motion...VOICEOVER: You would do anything for them. But what have you done to protect yourself, your loved ones and property against the end of the world?* The sun rises another day and I’m quids in. The world ends and who is around to collect? Win/win.

  I remember talk of the year 1984 being skipped in the calendar in order not to tempt our fate toward that of George Orwell’s hellish vision.  Who can forget the Millennium Bug and those who spent midnight at the cusp of a new century, watching for airplanes dropping from the sky? Only a fortnight ago an estimated 20% of Rome emptied the city as a major earthquake had been forecasted. A quick internet search will show the pattern stretches back nearly 700 years. Every generation, it seems, sees itself as the epitome of degradation and therefore fully deserving of God’s ultimate wrath.

Our youngest daughter has been genuinely spooked by the talk of today being the human race’s last. She is a rookie to this Armageddon stuff. It hasn’t stopped me looking out the window every 20 minutes, scanning the London skyline, claiming to have spotted a comet heading straight at planet earth.

I am a firm believer that fear is a tool the powerful use to make us malleable. Karl Marx called religion ‘the opiate of the people.’ In modern society, I think fear of some undefined attack on our person or property has replaced our fear of God. Those in charge tell us there is a Boogeyman under the bed and if we empower them, they will keep us safe. It is nothing more than the same trick travelling hustlers and snake oil salesmen would use against indigenous peoples; armed with knowledge of a pending solar eclipse they would demand concessions from the tribes in return for returning the Sun to the sky.

Londoners, on the whole, don’t let fear dictate their actions. The older generation lived through the Blitz. My generation lived through the IRA bombings. Even the younger one remember the 7/7 bombings. I don’t wish to belittle any of these. They are all tragedies. However, I clearly remember the day after 7/7 and people queued, as any normal day, waiting for the bus to come.

There have been many emails, FaceBook pages etc. circulating today asking what will be the song you listen to at the end of the world, what will be your final meal? This presents an interesting question in that I feel we all should live our lives as if today was our last one on Earth. For me, it means spending time with my family; living, loving, singing, dancing, laughing and just being. One of my favourite novelist, John Irving, wrote of not being afraid to die, but of being afraid of not living. It is a bit of mantra of mine.

So if it is our final day on earth, I feel privileged to have shared the ride with you, my beloved friends. But please, turn off the computer now and go hug the loved ones in your immediate vicinity. Talk to them. Laugh with them. Be with them. Live.

And the next time the media perpetuate the message that madmen are hell-bent on stealing your property, your way of life, of causing you physical harm in the name of politics or religion; resist the message. 

Remember instead that those people on the other side of the world, who speak differently, dress differently, worship an alien god, are more than likely not plotting to blow you up in your sleep. They too are looking to those they love; to talk to them, laugh with them. We are more alike than different.

If today’s blog does not appease your sense of dread, so be it. Who knows, maybe you are right? Stockpile your water and shotguns; board up the windows and huddle in a dark corner if it makes you feel better. If it is the end I choose to go out singing and laughing, as it would be the joys of life I want as the final thoughts that flash through my earthy mind. Even if we all live to see Sunday, the next forecast of the apocalypse is just around the corner. The Mayan calendar expires in December. 

Keep the Faith,

The Head

Cup Final Night

Friday night marks the chance to downshift and make the Kafkaesque change into my more important role as a father and husband.

On second thought, it is probably not that much of a metamorphosis. There is an instinctive part of my work that makes me model my relationship with my pupils as that of a father and his children. Certainly, I am keenly aware that I am the sole adult male figure in the life of many children. I don’t take that responsibility lightly but those thoughts are for another day, another blog.

It is the weekend and the weekend belongs to family.

Tonight, as I have done at least twice a week for the past 12 years, my only son and I will load up our 7-seater car with studded boots, rain proof jackets, water bottles, power snacks and head to North London. It is football night. On the way we will pick up other players and their fathers: ‘Big Al’, ‘One Eye Dave’ and ‘Princess Pete’. The car will rumble with the sound of banter and good-natured teasing. We will joke about Big Al’s wife’s cooking, One Eye’s age and Princess Pete’s inability to sit on both arse cheeks because he attended a posh school as a teenager. There may be a comment or two about my driving and certainly huge cheers when I finally manoeuvre the 7-seater into a parking space after three attempts.

Between us we have spent 6 hours a week, stretching far back into the last century,  watching our sons grow up together on the sporting field.

When the boys were younger, their boisterous chatter would fill the car. As they have become older the sounds have been replaced by the dads’ own banter and the boys have resulted to putting on their IPod earphones and staring silently out of the window. Males. We don’t have to say a word to bond, isn’t that right boys? Boys?

Tonight is the Cup Final. The Super Bowl of youth football. The boys have played several teams in a knock-out format to get to this point. It is as important to the dads as it is to our sons. Yet there is an added poignancy to the game as it will mark the penultimate time we will make this journey together. The boys are on the eve of leaving school and entering the world of work or college. Soon youth football will be no more. It will become a memory of their childhood, a lintel that underpins their sense of teamwork, fairness, work ethic in the wider world.

So tonight I find myself with a range of emotions; excitement, nostalgia, dread, thankfulness. Since his 5^th birthday I have been able to instil a love and deep respect of sport in my son. I will be thinking of the first time I taught him to kick a ball. I will recall consoling him after bitter defeat; of dancing across the pitch with him after epic victories.

It will be a rite of passage. I will pass my son onto society, having done what I can to help build his character. I shall sit at home on Friday night hereafter, waiting for the day years from now when my son, God willing, has a son of his own. And as soon as that future grandchild can walk, I will teach him to kick a ball.  

Good luck tonight boys. Enjoy the match. I will.

Keep the Faith

The Head

The Yellow Shirt

The radio station I listen to on the way to work ran one of those quirky stories at the end of the news today. I have been hearing the same story making the rounds over the past few days.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-315480/Filthy-Brits-wear-dirty-clothes-work.html

I brushed the cigarette ash from the front of my shirt and thought about what we wear to work. Teachers are not particularly well respected for their dress sense. Ask any young person. I can still remember the flood cuffs on the bottom of my geometry teacher’s trousers even though I remember little of the Pythagoras’ Theorem. I can remember my history teacher’s sports shoes; two decades out of date in 1980, but now thirty years later, strangely back in vogue.

Most schools have a dress code for staff; even if the dress code is WEAR WHATEVER THE HELL YOU LIKE. I have worked in schools where I wouldn’t dream of rolling up in the morning without a tie around my neck. Turn up with the same tie at another school and the staff gossip train would immediately conclude that the Head is interviewing for a new job.

And then there is the personal dress code. My current school is a messy gig; snot and spittle, blood and urine are plentiful. Therefore many staff opt for jeans. But I know of one colleague who comes in everyday dressed like Joan Collins in Dynasty.

My own personal taste is for shirt and tie, black trousers with a school jacket to show corporate solidarity. In the warmer months, a short-sleeved version takes over, but never short sleeves with a tie. Never. It reminds me of Michael Douglas’ character in the film Falling Down .

http://happyinhooverville.squarespace.com/storage/20070302fallingdown.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1276010387297

I heard it said that some women dress for men, some dress for women. I dress for the tasks of the day. My default setting on school clothes, I listed earlier. If inspectors are due in, I brush down one of the 4 suits I own. It is like an unofficial uniform.

I dread those days three times a year when we all ‘dress down’ at work for charity. Pupils don’t have to wear school uniform and teachers wear their ‘weekend clothes.’ Everyone suddenly looks alien and strangely, older. I can spend hours the evening before flicking through my wardrobe trying to find something that says FUN...BUT NOT TOO MUCH FUN.

Today, as was warm, I opted for my favourite short-sleeved yellow Ralph Laurent shirt. MY favourite. To everyone else it seems to generate one of two reactions: either a ‘Oh, don’t you look....bright... today’ OR ‘For God’s sake pass the sunglasses, my corneas are burning.’

When I do wear ties I like to choose one that has a story behind it: where I purchased it, a novelty character on it, maybe even one that plays a song when you press a switch. I pretend it amuses the children. The reality is it makes a good last minute assembly prop if needed.

Recently I have developed a habit of wearing socks that match my shirt so today, I sported a similarly jaundiced pair. I am a father of five so I have one of the most extensive collections of Fathers Day socks in the country. People buy me novelty socks, I even recently received a pair with Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge’s picture on each side. But I have BIG ankles. Kate’s face looked like she had been turned to plastic and held under a magnifying glass on a Spanish beach when I finally stretched them up to my calves.

The one thing that remains constant in my work attire, whether winter or summer, school jacket or suit, is my trusted choice in footwear; Dr Marten’s Air Wair black shoes. I live in them. They are sturdy, black and equally at home on the playground football pitch or budget meeting. They are industrial, honest and hard wearing. Plus they prove the premise that a man’s shoes say alot about him!

Summer is short here in London so I like giving my favourite yellow RL shirt an airing whenever possible. However, to test the theory that even if it is clean, others form an instant judgement of what we are wearing, I put a photo of myself up on Facebook wearing the not-so-little yellow number. From the comments, it seems I looked like a melon, The Sun, custard, a sunflower, a canary, Little Miss Sunshine...everything it seems but the cheery soul with a sense of humour I think the shirt portrays. 

But then I looked down, perhaps the coffee spilled down the front was taking away from the look. Never mind, this is Britain. And as the article says; only the Spanish and Americans have a more laxed view of clothes hygiene. 

Keep the Faith,

The Head

The Bird Catcher

Generally, people don’t aspire to be teachers. It is a career that most of us drift into, much like banking I imagine. Or perhaps career begging.

A teaching career frequently evolves at the sound of that metaphoric alarm bell that suddenly rings in one’s head during the third year of undergraduate school blaring, “Make your mind up time!”  My own experience was that I entered university fully intent on a career in political science. But that was 1980 and the beginning of the Reagan administration. This fundamental shift in the American psyche, which saw a blurring of the lines of Christianity and right wing politics, corresponded with my own epiphanic embrace of the political left. An immediate re-think was required.

Being a show-off, a theatrical career seemed attractive but the fact that I can’t remember much of 1982 attests to the fact that the mandatory party scene was not, perhaps, the right grounding for making a living.  Well that and the fact that my acting skills are probably only slightly better than those of Keanu Reeves. Yes, I was THAT bad.

So when the alarm bell rang and I realised I was closer to undergraduate school graduation than high school graduation, I decided that I would enter the teaching profession. Teaching, I thought, would allow me to use all my talents and skills whilst quenching my need to appease my liberal social conscience. I threw myself into the career whole-hog and to this day, have not regretted the decision.

After 11 years as a class teacher I secured my first posting as Head Teacher of a small school in North West London. Suddenly all my skills, half talents and ability to blag became not only desirable but a basic necessity of the job. Instantly I had to become an expert in the intricacies of infant toilet bowls, leaking roofs, jammed photocopiers and negotiating bulk-buy deals with school book salespersons.

A great attraction of the job, aside from the social improvement factor, is the fact that one never knows, each morning, what the day has in store. It is never boring. Stressful, maddening, frustrating, euphoric; but never boring.

Today is a good example. I arrived at 7.20am and within 90 seconds I was dealing with a leaking toilet in the Nursery. I should add that I somehow can fix things at work but the skill does not transfer itself to my own house.

By 10am, a nervous group of staff rushed towards me as I returned from monitoring Maths books in the upper school. A bird had flown in through an open window and was trapped in the staffroom.  The staffroom is the sacred heart of a school. A refuge. It is holy ground that is seldom without at least a few souls in attendance paying their devotion to the great gods that maintain all schools; coffee, cigarettes and sugary food.

But with a wild animal on the loose in London, the staffroom door was firmly closed, almost barricaded to stop the best from entering the rest of the building. The staff looked at me in expectation. They seemed to know that catching stray birds in the staffroom is a role that is traditionally covered in Head Teacher training. I pulled my job description from the file cabinet and pencilled in “BIRD CATCHER.” Turning the door handle slowly I glanced back with a forbidding expression that silently read, “I might not make it back.”

Once inside I slammed the door behind me, for by this time I was bordering on joining in the hysteria. For some reason Tippi Hendren raced through my mind. I expected one of the two dozen or so vicious, dive bombing crows that live atop the school’s dome. There in the corner perched on a copy of 1000 Art Ideas for Teachers it stared me down; a four inch European Sparrow.

Chuckling to myself I grabbed a wastepaper bin and a tea towel and began to chase the tiny bird around the staffroom. Everytime I got close enough to throw the towel over the bird, it would flutter away with a tweet and a look of distain. The pattern repeated itself as it flew to the coffee mugs by the sink, back to the magazines, under the resource tray and back to the coffee mugs.

Summoning my skills, I tried to reason with the bird, explaining that I meant it no harm but simply wished to direct it towards the window and its rightful place in God’s great kingdom. This lasted about 20 minutes and I began to entertain the idea of maximising my resources and going home to get our cat who would have relished the chase and ultimate capture. 20 more minutes passed; then an hour. With one last flap of my arms the sparrow bolted for the tea spoon drawer and disappeared down the back and underneath the sink unit. I had it trapped.

Knowing it had to be behind the plinth, I waited. That’s right little birdy, I am on a stake out and sooner or later you will have to come out for food, or water or whatever birds need. (The basic needs of bird beyond food and water are not a skill that has presented itself as imperative thus far in my career).

Twenty more minutes passed. By now the school caretaker had joined me along with some of the heartier school staff including the Choir Leader and Receptionist. Four public servants armed with buckets, tea towels, even a metre stick to catch the sparrow when it finally emerged. But there was other work waiting and our patience was growing thin. Well, mine was. An executive decision was needed.

The caretaker re-entered the room with his tool box and began to dismantle the sink unit. It soon became obvious this is not a task that had been undertaken in the school building’s 17 year history. Another 30 minutes passed. Almost casually, no, mockingly; the sparrow poked its head from under the plinth and flew straight into the magazine rack. It paused for a minute and for one last time stared at me like Edgar Allan Poe’s raven and flew out the window.

The steadfast staff all exchanged pats on the back as if celebrating a goal in the Cup Final. But the euphoria didn’t last, we certainly didn’t have time to enjoy our new found bird-catching skills. A voice was calling from the main office. The photocopier was jammed again and the Nursery toilet was leaking.