Out with the old, in with the new… · Sun Jan 27, 10:15 by Eleri Straker
At Christmas my head of department retired. It may seem selfish, but I was sad to see her go.
Irene, after the departure of head of special needs a couple of years ago (Thank You), was my last connection with the ‘old’ regime.
I’d known Irene for a long time and had worked with her before she was promoted to head of department after Kim’s (Even teachers cry) retirement.
Irene is a fiery haired Northerner who believes in calling a spade a bloody shovel. Blunt and bolshie, she created what I believe is a superb department.
The department is a singular one where every free moment is an impromptu inset session, where every member of the group shares ideas or concerns, be they professional or personal. Irene created this atmosphere of cooperation and trust by paying each member of the department the best compliment any teacher can receive: she trusted us.
Not for her the set schemes of work carved in stone that every one would follow slavishly. No, what she did was decide, with us, what would be taught, and then she would let us get on with it, trusting in our professionalism that we knew what we were doing and that we would get the job done. And that well.
And of course, knowing that the responsibility lay with us, we got on with it. The result of this freedom is a cohesive department that achieves superb results, at all key stages.
Irene was a brilliant man-manager, and the respect and trust she showed us was repaid in spades.
Much as I admired Irene as a professional, I also liked her as a person.
We shared a past. Together we would moan about incompetence in other departments, the attitudes of the younger members of the department and the fact that yr 7 students were a bunch of annoying ankle biters! All good natured of course!
When my confidence was low for some reason or other and I felt that I was in the wrong job, it was Irene who would, after her initial reaction of ”You daft mare,” spend the next hour telling me how indispensable I was. If one of us did what she felt was something unwise, she would tell us what she thought in the privacy of her office, but defend us to the hilt in public.
With the students she acquired a reputation of having a temper that matched her hair, a reputation that was actually deliberately cultivated to create a specific effect and which was in fact, totally undeserved.. A threat to send a pupil to the head of English was enough to turn most stroppy students into meek, acquiescent model pupils and this delighted her. Watching Irene turn a nasty, foul mouthed, vicious student into an eager-to -please puppy was a joy! She was actually never really nasty, she just, as I said earlier, called a spade a bloody shovel. But then, she was also generous with praise. If a student did well, worked hard to achieve or even simply to behave, they would get a pat on the back that was worth more than fulsome admiration from anyone else. And of course praise works with adults too. After an observed lesson, no praise was greater than to have Irene say that she really enjoyed that lesson, that the kids were fully engaged and did I mind if she nicked my idea! Ultimate accolade!
Even as an old hand at this job, it’s always good to be told that you’re good at what you do. She told me that my classes were always different, that she could always tell, when speaking to a student or reading an unknown pupil’s work if they were one of mine as they were always individual and had a distinctive sense of humour, and that she liked it. She told me that she liked the fact that I encouraged my classes to think, that my students would get good grades, not because I slavishly followed rules, but because I got them to argue with me. And it’s something she did too. She liked students to argue, to not accept that teacher was right simply because they’re teachers. She liked bolshie kids who argued with her, as long as they weren’t doing it just to be awkward.
When I walk through the head of department’s office now, it still seems strange not to see that mane of fiery hair. It’s strange not to see the raised eyebrow or hear the feigned long-suffering sigh at a particularly ‘witty’ remark made by one of her troops…
I know things must change.
But I don’t have to like it.
