In previous blogs, I’ve looked at the context of my visit, the importance of overcommunication, the behaviour for learning policy of the school and the engagement of the staff and parents with the school Principal Sam Strickland is working towards creating. This blog will summarise my thoughts.
Summary
If you do not already do so, I would strongly advise you to follow Sam Strickland on Twitter (@Strickomaster) and to read the blogs he has written to get an idea of the kind of teacher and principal he is. After spending a few hours with him during my visit, he is exactly as principled, focused and driven as his posts make him seem!
When Sam applied for the job, The Duston School was still rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted but only five days into his time as principal the school had received its first monitoring visit. As mentioned in the first blog that I wrote about my visit to TDS, the core values of the school are respect, aspiration and resilience and the principal embodies all three of these in his early days at the school, but particularly resilience. The monitoring visit was seen as an opportunity for external eyes to help triangulate what actions needed to be taken to turn the school around rather than another obstacle to be overcome.
While some staff may have initially been reticent about what the principal was (or wasn’t!) doing, after a full year under Sam Strickland there are no longer any doubters, at demonstrated by the exceptionally low staff turnover rate. He has demonstrated time and time again that he will stick to what he says he will do, even if that means having to exclude students who refuse to meet the expectations of the school and will continue to do so when it is needed. Too many schools proudly boast of not excluding students while simultaneously having appalling behaviour around the school, precisely because there is no ultimate sanction that students know poor behaviour will receive.
I haven’t even mentioned the common sense approaches to curriculum and data that TDS are using, reducing GCSE subjects from 11 to 9 to allow greater depth in those subjects while ensuring breadth is in key stage 3; a greater focus on knowledge rather than skills; and linked to this, a standardised approach to key stage 3 assessment that does away with rather meaningless and woolly skills descriptors that simply aren’t precise enough to generate any useful data.
Ultimately, when visiting any school the two questions everyone asks themselves are would I like to teach at this school and would I send my children to this school. The answer to both is a resounding yes (if we could get in!).
However, don’t take my word for it, contact The Duston School or Sam Strickland directly on @Strickomaster and arrange a visit for yourself.
Thank you to Sam, the staff that gave up their time to share their part of The Duston School journey and also to you, the reader, for making it to the end of this series of blogs!
Unto the Breach 