At many schools, if you get a head of English and a head of maths together in one room, things can go very badly very quickly. A lack of communication, a corrosive sense of competition and opposing approaches to leadership result in, at best, a dysfunctional relationship and, at worst, no relationship at all. They’re the two core subjects fighting for time, resource, a student’s undivided attention - it’s inevitable. Except it’s not. Over the past 12 months, the pair of us (a head of English and a head of maths) have found a way to navigate the stormy seas between two subjects that are seen by many as diametrically opposed.

Common concerns

It all started with the odd direct message on Twitter and the occasional visit to one another’s office at breaktime, where we began to realise that the day-to-day events that were causing us both headaches were often the same. With a common line manager (the headteacher), we then began to share our line-management meeting prep and quickly found that we both benefited from each other’s good practice.

Our relationship didn’t stem from a top-down diktat. Instead, it’s been organically grown, peer to peer. We understand fundamentally that what we do is difficult, so why not work together to share some of the burden and the action plans?

What we do is difficult, so why not share the burden?

What has cemented our working relationship - and led to a very real friendship - is a shared sense of the purpose and value of education. We both have a desire to foster a growth mindset approach to learning and a greater understanding of what it means to learn. Neither of these goals is strictly within our remits as heads of faculty. Yet, through mutual encouragement, we have stood up in front of every year group, dressed in lab coats, to explain the biological and psychological effects that learning has on the brain. We’re both well aware that if we had approached anyone else with many of our ideas, the reply would have been the familiar: “What are you on?” Instead, in each other, we’ve found someone whose reply is: “Let’s make it happen.”

Of course, we’re not completely averse to healthy competition, such as laboriously logging student attendance at additional sessions to see who has had the most “visitors”. But, crucially, we’ve never allowed this to become “macho” or for one faculty’s success to be at the expense of the other.

Each department’s Twitter account shares the other’s notices and celebrates the other’s successes. Even our school’s walls show physical signs of our unity through a “Literacy in maths” display, as well as one for “Of mice and maths”.

The impact of our teamwork is perhaps best highlighted through our summer results. In one year, we’ve had an 8 per cent increase in the basic key stage 4 English and maths measure. Additionally, the proportion of students making expected progress in GCSE English language has increased by 13 per cent and in GCSE maths by 10 per cent.

In future, we’re keen to develop closer working relationships with all heads of faculty in our school community.

Caroline Spalding is head of English at Tupton Hall School in Chesterfield and tweets as @MrsSpalding. Graham Walton is head of maths at Tupton Hall School and tweets as @mr_g_walton