Many years ago, when a very young school leader, I heard a talk from a distinguished head, who has long since departed this life. His style was famously autocratic, so his audience was somewhat surprised when he embarked on a homily on the importance of listening to one’s colleagues.

“I asked my senior team: ‘Tell me honestly, what do I get wrong?’ As one they replied,” he recounted the tale with glee; ‘You’re not a team player.’

“That was nonsense, of course,” he continued. ” I told them so. I emphatically am a team player.”

So that was all right, then. It’s all too easy for heads to behave like Lewis Carroll’s Bellman in The Hunting of the Snark, who constantly asserts: “What I say three times is true.”

It’s like that when you deal with government spokesmen. I’ve written previously about Robert, the Department for Education’s robotic spokesman. He seems to be in overdrive at present, more bland, repetitive and inflexible than ever.

We might have been hoping that Robert might be re-programmed after a change of education secretary. Recently I heard Justine Greening speak at the annual Summit of that fantastic regional organisation, SCHOOLS NorthEast. She was pleasant, committed, passionate about education: moreover - a rarity among recent education secretaries - she didn’t lecture her audience!

On the contrary, she spoke from the heart, and subsequently gave the impression of listening, even to those inevitable interventions from the floor that prove to be personal statements disguised as questions. She heeded concerns about assessment in primary schools, rightly refused to commit herself at the time, but promised to make a statement a few days later, which she did.

This week, sadly, we seem to have returned to that familiar old territory. Too vehemently this week, the education secretary has asserted that teachers’ annual pay increases must be limited to 1 per cent per year for the next four years.

We’ve heard it all before. Yes, money’s tight, and workforce morale is not all about salary. But pay is something of central importance to even the most committed teacher. Mary Bousted of the ATL union pointed out in the TES this week that, since 2010, teachers have seen their pay eroded by the equivalent of £2,273. A loss of value on that scale should not be glossed over by a government robot - sorry, spokesperson.

Robert the robot remains unshakeable on this, and other very important issues, however. Sixth form colleges describe a funding crisis, for example, with 58 per cent of them cutting extracurricular activities in music, drama and sport and 39 per cent cutting A-level modern language courses. Yet Robert merely responds with bland assertions:

“Every young person should have access to an excellent education and we have protected the base rate of funding for all post-16 students until 2020 to ensure that happens.

“We’ve also ended the unfair discrimination between colleges and school sixth forms and we now ensure funding is based on student numbers rather than discriminating between qualifications.”

Ah, yes: that “base-rate of funding” is protected. So why is the Sixth Form Colleges Association complaining that increased employer costs (pensions and National Insurance) will leave each college on average £189.982 worse off per annum, in addition to paying £385,914 in VAT from which sixth form colleges are not exempt (or refundable), while schools and academies are?

This is all about government responding (or not) to concerns about the nation’s education system. I choose to picture the DfE’s spokesman as a robot: frequently it sounds more like a big kid sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting, “Na, na, na! Can’t hear you!” Whatever the form of its spokesperson, however, government continues in dishonest and reprehensible denial of the crisis facing education.

I knew another head, decades ago, who forbade anyone to raise the issue of stress at a staff meeting. “Start talking about stress,” he stated firmly, “and everyone will claim they’ve got it.” So we didn’t.

That was antediluvian management: but not all too different to where the teaching profession finds itself in the modern world. Education funding and teacher pay are both elephants in the educational room. And government won’t admit to the presence of either.

Dr Bernard Trafford is headteacher of Newcastle upon Tyne Royal Grammar School and a former chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference. The views expressed here are personal. He tweets at @bernardtrafford

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