I write this article standing at a bit of a career crossroads. I’ve been teaching now since 2005; having cut my teeth in a pretty tough school in special measures, I’ve had the good fortune to spend the past 10 years in an outstanding selective school. I truly love my job to bits - I get to work with a cracking team of teachers in the faculty I run, not to mention a wider staff of amazing individuals, and part of me wonders if I won’t stay there forever.

So why the crossroads? Well, because I’m approaching that career point where the temptation of senior leadership is one I’m increasingly considering. I’ve caught myself more than once scanning the Tes job ads to check out what’s available. But, looking at ads, I’ve found myself immediately ruling out schools that look - for want of a better phrase - “too challenging”.

I’m not alone in this. Many others in my position in the profession whom I have spoken to say the same. This really shouldn’t be the case. So many teachers, including myself, are progressives - social justice-driven souls who genuinely want to improve things for children growing up in disadvantage. But, honestly, I’m very unlikely to take the risk of taking a job in one of Amanda Spielman’s newly-termed “stuck schools”. My reasons are below, as are a few broad thoughts on how to make such roles more attractive.

1) The short-term culture

We live in an era where a need for “immediate impact” and an obsession about results prove a toxic mix. I’ve spoken to several people who have taken leadership roles in a school requiring improvement. All of them tell me that their dreams of long-term planning for real embedded change went to pot within weeks as the pressure was applied on them to turn around the current years’ results.

All conventional wisdom tells us that meaningful change in schools - like all other institutions - takes a long time. The idea that you can make lasting improvements in three years is one I am deeply sceptical about and working under that pressure will inevitably incentivise a focus on short-term fixes. For me, the only way to fix this is setting much longer-term goals and incentivising a focus on “slow-burner” initiatives - judging leadership groups on 10-year plans for a school seems much more likely to prove successful.

The objections to this hardly need stating, most powerfully of all the moral issue of what happens to student’s life chances in the meantime if you take this long to turn a school around. I’d counter though by suggesting that the scales are currently heavily tipped in favour of a focus on firefighting, and what we need to do is look to rebalance things a little. This has to come from the top. Perhaps Ofsted’s revamped focus on curriculum quality will be the antidote we need. We will have to wait and see.

2) The recruitment crisis

Recruitment is tricky for everyone as the pool of excellent teachers seems to be ever-shrinking, and our most challenging schools appear to be feeling the pinch far worst than most. I know several people who work on leadership teams in very challenging schools, and all of them tell me that dealing with the fallout from this occupies most of their time.

Clearly, large numbers of supply teachers are not only hugely expensive but also a major obstacle to building school ethos and consistent standards. But, according to some, it’s worse than that - several people have told me stories about appointing teachers whom they knew were very weak and even a cause for concern simply because, according to one such person, they had “no choice but to put a warm body in front of a class”.

Expecting school improvement in these circumstances is not only unrealistic but ridiculous. The government is keen to stress the numbers of teachers in jobs, but if challenging schools can’t access the best ones, their leaders are being set up to fail. I’m hardly the first to point this out, but until it’s sorted by government I’ve no intention of putting my own head on that particular block.

3) I’m not prepared to sacrifice my health

Once upon a time, there was a belief that staff at underperforming schools simply weren’t working hard enough. Admittedly it’s a few years since I worked in one, but I know many people who work in schools deemed as “requires improvement” and I’d strongly suggest that the opposite is true. The people I know who have taken jobs at all levels in such schools strike me as massively overworked and overburdened.

Talking to many, this seems to have become an entrenched culture - when things aren’t turning around as quickly as you like just pile more work on to the staff and that will do the trick. I disagree fundamentally with this “look at us jumping” premise and I’d worry that coming into a school in these circumstances as an assistant head would be a bad fit. I’d want to strip lots of tasks away from staff and focus intently on a few fundamentals.

Despite the current rhetoric around wellbeing, I think that my approach still goes against the grain. People I know who have taken leadership roles in such schools talk to me about 12-14 hour days being the norm, in some cases almost revelling in the idea that the harder they work the better the example set. This to me is a sure route to burnout. When heads of challenging schools start being praised by Ofsted and the government for doing less and doing it better, this might break this culture but that seems to me very unlikely to happen. 

4) There’s little chance for me to dip my toes in the water

Like most people, I’m no stranger to self-doubt. Truthfully, one of my worries about taking a leadership role in a challenging school is whether I could really “cut it”. I fervently hope that most people who step up feel this way - those who lack self-doubt strike me as deeply arrogant. I feel pretty sure I can lead in a school like my own, largely because my workplace has been supportive in giving middle leaders good opportunities to dip our toes into the water working on whole-school initiatives. This is great, but it does make much of my experience somewhat insular.

Teaching has made progress in recent years on creating schemes for sharing expertise across schools, but I think we are still taking baby steps here as a profession. With financial pressures being what they are, the prospect of schools regularly releasing middle leaders to gain deep and meaningful experience of very different schools feels a remote destination. Funding would clearly help, but what would also help is making whole towns and cities collectively accountable for student outcomes. Too often schools see neighbours as competitors, and all the incentives encourage people to keep their best people “in-house”. A change like this would incentivise the genuine and regular sharing of best practice, and a commitment to developing leaders to serve a whole community, not just one school.
 

In short, I’m unlikely to put myself forward to help to rebuild one of our tragically “stuck” schools because I think the system is rigged against them. A culture of short-termism, quick-fix initiatives all delivered on a shoestring without access to the best teachers is almost bound to fail. I’m hugely in awe of those brave souls who step up to this challenge, and even more in awe of those who succeed under such conditions. But I’ve met too many amazing teachers whose passion and idealism have literally ended in tears and resignation to take this risk as things stand - and I think many others feel the same.

Tom Finn-Kelcey is head of social sciences at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Faversham, Kent. He tweets as @TFinnKelcey