Thanks to a spectacular cold front and the inability of Basingstoke council to properly grit their roads, the keynote speech I'd planned to deliver at Southern Rocks 2019 never got to be aired. And now the event's been put off for the rest of this year, it never will. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that.
Here is my attempt to reimagine that frosty February morning. On this weekend, the gritters were out in full force and, as the snow plough chugged wilfully by, I climbed up the steps with clicker in hand...
Hi! Well this is mildly terrifying [nervous giggle]. Giving a speech like this is definitely out of my comfort zone. I'm going to have to imagine I'm giving an overlong assembly - one that is being delivered to some slightly overgrown teenagers [stifles another nervous giggle].
When I agreed to speak today, no one told me that this wasn't in fact a 'key note', but an 'energiser'. Well, sorry, but at this point in the term, I'm not sure I have any 'energy' for myself, let alone the energy to 'energise' you lot.
[Reveals picture of a studious owl on a perch labelled 'At the start of the year' and a second picture of a frazzled owl labelled 'At the end of the year'.]
I know you'll have all seen this meme before, but whoever made it got one thing wrong. Teachers don't just look like this second owl at the end of the year, but at the end of each term.
In fact, at the end of each half term.
In fact, pretty much at the end of each day.
Because teaching is bloody hard work, isn't it? According to the latest DfE research, secondary school teachers work for 53 hours a week, Primary and middle leaders for 55 hours a week, senior leaders a pretty ridiculous 60 hours each week, and Secondary school senior leaders - like me poor, old frazzled me - a whopping 62 hours on average every single week in term time.
And it's not like those hours are spent dossing.
No, we're on-call every minute of every day. We're attempting to educate children who, for a whole plethora of reasons, don't always want to be educated.
We're dealing with young people in crisis because our NHS and support services are criminally underfunded. We're managing our own every-shrinking budgets, making desperate decisions about what can be cut back still further, whilst simultaneously being held accountable by the press and the government for pretty much all of society's ills.
[Reveals stats about teacher mental health and the percentage of teachers thinking of leaving the profession]
Is it any wonder then that we've found ourselves in this state? In fact, why the hell are any of us even teachers at all? And not just any teachers, but teachers sitting at an education conference on a Saturday?!
And yet... we are. You are. And as the world continues to turn on its axis, people continue to teach.
In fact, some of us come from whole families of teachers!
[Reveals family tree through her paternal line: grandad Sam, grandma Alice, mum Roz, dad Peter, and sister Alison are all labelled 'Teacher']
What on earth is going on in families like mine...?
Well, like the good, research-informed practitioner I aspire to be, I decided to investigate. What will now follow I like to think of as part family history, part action research...
And it all starts with my slightly dotty grandma called Alice...
[Reveals photo of an elderly woman with grey, bobbed hair. On her head is a slightly lopsided mortar board (the type worn at a graduation ceremony).]
My gran was the sort of old woman who doesn't fully understand the concept of 'being a vegetarian'. If you are vegetarian, you'll know what I mean... That's right, the kind who serves you 'vegetarian' soup with the pieces of chicken mostly scooped out.
She was also the kind of woman who would post you envelopes packed full of assorted newspaper clippings 'because she thought you'd like them'. Here [gestures to photo] she's just nicked my mortar board at my Masters degree graduation ceremony.
Growing up, she'd always seemed old, a bit mad, and - quiet honestly - a bit like Yoda. You know what I mean: brilliantly wrinkly, and hairy, and a tendency to speak as if every word conveyed a really deep meaning - even if you weren't quite sure what that meaning was.
I had always known my gran was, like me, a teacher. A Headteacher, in fact, as she frequently reminded me.
On telling her that I'd been appointed as Head of English at the age of 26 - something I'd thought was an impressive accomplishment - she gleefully replied that she was running a school single-handedly at the age of 21.
[Reveals a black and white photo of a much younger Alice. She is standing against a brick wall, wearing a checked blouse buttoned up to the neck. Her arms are behind her back and she is beaming.]
When Alice became a Headteacher it was the start of the second World War. Her boyfriend, my future grandpa, had left her at home to become a tank engineer. Determined not to marry in case she became a war widow, she instead had to find a new role for herself beyond wife and mother.
For Alice, the working class daughter of a coal miner, this meant the space and time to continue with her education and to step into shoes that might otherwise have been filled by a man. After teacher training college she quickly found herself promoted to the leadership of a tiny two-form village Primary school.
When the war ended, Alice and Sam finally married. Alice resigned her post, and three children swiftly followed.
What Alice was left with was the role of educator and professional stamped indelibly onto her own sense of self. It remained a valued part of the way she saw herself. Her identity.
When I look back now, I see her gentle teasing of me when I was promoted for what it was: a deep and justified pride in her own achievements.
The newspaper clippings too I now recognise as symbols of her continued interest in the politically charged world of education. They were nearly always stories about changes to government policy, reviews of new educational books, or celebratory stories of school trips or charity work.
From Alice - as a woman especially - I've learned to celebrate my status as an educated professional and the knowledge, status, and freedom that affords me.
Dammit, I've learned to own the fact I go to conferences on a Saturday because I value my own professional development! [A couple of audience members cheer and there is embarrassed laughter]
Which leads me to the man Alice married: Sam.
[Reveals black and white photo of Sam on a motorbike, smiling]
In my mind, Sam looked on teaching the same way he looked on going off to war.
No, not in the way you might think if you've just attempted to teach Year 9. On a Friday. Lesson 5. On a windy day. [Pauses for dramatic effect]
No, Sam looked on teaching in the same way he looked on being in the armed forces because he saw it as a way to serve his community.
[Reveals black and white postcard of an imposing red brick Victorian hospital building]
Sam was the Headteacher at the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital in Heswall on the Wirral. There he led a small team of staff who educated children with chronic illnesses, disabilities, as well as those staying in hospital for short stints after operations.
Whilst there he also set up a charity which provided free computers - then a cutting edge technology - for children with disabilities to improve accessibility to education when they returned home from hospital. For this work, many years after he had retired, he received an OBE from the Queen.
Not at all big shoes to fill, thanks grandad.
To be clear, when I say my grandad saw teaching as 'service', I don't mean that he saw himself as some kind of martyr. He really enjoyed teaching and he wasn't a particularly religious man: I don't think he saw himself as being called by some higher being to be a teacher.
What he did have was as strong sense of purpose. For him there was a clear sense that his work was doing something worthwhile - something that was for the good of others - and that was somehow, inherently 'right'.
Like Sam, I don't think I will ever see teaching as 'just a job'. No, to me it really is a vocation. It feels 'right'.
The final line in the first ever blog I wrote was 'A life in teaching is a life well-lived' and I stand by that statement. If we can be proud that in infinite little ways every day we make the worlds of others slightly bigger and brighter then it perhaps will no longer be so confusing why whole families choose to teach.
And whole families, in my case is the correct phrase because Sam and Alice gave birth to Peter. Yep, another bloody Headteacher.
[Reveals photos of a hippyish looking man with long hair, thick glasses, and a beard.]
To be continued.
Here is my attempt to reimagine that frosty February morning. On this weekend, the gritters were out in full force and, as the snow plough chugged wilfully by, I climbed up the steps with clicker in hand...
Hi! Well this is mildly terrifying [nervous giggle]. Giving a speech like this is definitely out of my comfort zone. I'm going to have to imagine I'm giving an overlong assembly - one that is being delivered to some slightly overgrown teenagers [stifles another nervous giggle].
When I agreed to speak today, no one told me that this wasn't in fact a 'key note', but an 'energiser'. Well, sorry, but at this point in the term, I'm not sure I have any 'energy' for myself, let alone the energy to 'energise' you lot.
[Reveals picture of a studious owl on a perch labelled 'At the start of the year' and a second picture of a frazzled owl labelled 'At the end of the year'.]
I know you'll have all seen this meme before, but whoever made it got one thing wrong. Teachers don't just look like this second owl at the end of the year, but at the end of each term.
In fact, at the end of each half term.
In fact, pretty much at the end of each day.
Because teaching is bloody hard work, isn't it? According to the latest DfE research, secondary school teachers work for 53 hours a week, Primary and middle leaders for 55 hours a week, senior leaders a pretty ridiculous 60 hours each week, and Secondary school senior leaders - like me poor, old frazzled me - a whopping 62 hours on average every single week in term time.
And it's not like those hours are spent dossing.
No, we're on-call every minute of every day. We're attempting to educate children who, for a whole plethora of reasons, don't always want to be educated.
We're dealing with young people in crisis because our NHS and support services are criminally underfunded. We're managing our own every-shrinking budgets, making desperate decisions about what can be cut back still further, whilst simultaneously being held accountable by the press and the government for pretty much all of society's ills.
[Reveals stats about teacher mental health and the percentage of teachers thinking of leaving the profession]
Is it any wonder then that we've found ourselves in this state? In fact, why the hell are any of us even teachers at all? And not just any teachers, but teachers sitting at an education conference on a Saturday?!
And yet... we are. You are. And as the world continues to turn on its axis, people continue to teach.
In fact, some of us come from whole families of teachers!
[Reveals family tree through her paternal line: grandad Sam, grandma Alice, mum Roz, dad Peter, and sister Alison are all labelled 'Teacher']
What on earth is going on in families like mine...?
Well, like the good, research-informed practitioner I aspire to be, I decided to investigate. What will now follow I like to think of as part family history, part action research...
And it all starts with my slightly dotty grandma called Alice...
[Reveals photo of an elderly woman with grey, bobbed hair. On her head is a slightly lopsided mortar board (the type worn at a graduation ceremony).]
My gran was the sort of old woman who doesn't fully understand the concept of 'being a vegetarian'. If you are vegetarian, you'll know what I mean... That's right, the kind who serves you 'vegetarian' soup with the pieces of chicken mostly scooped out.
She was also the kind of woman who would post you envelopes packed full of assorted newspaper clippings 'because she thought you'd like them'. Here [gestures to photo] she's just nicked my mortar board at my Masters degree graduation ceremony.
Growing up, she'd always seemed old, a bit mad, and - quiet honestly - a bit like Yoda. You know what I mean: brilliantly wrinkly, and hairy, and a tendency to speak as if every word conveyed a really deep meaning - even if you weren't quite sure what that meaning was.
I had always known my gran was, like me, a teacher. A Headteacher, in fact, as she frequently reminded me.
On telling her that I'd been appointed as Head of English at the age of 26 - something I'd thought was an impressive accomplishment - she gleefully replied that she was running a school single-handedly at the age of 21.
[Reveals a black and white photo of a much younger Alice. She is standing against a brick wall, wearing a checked blouse buttoned up to the neck. Her arms are behind her back and she is beaming.]
When Alice became a Headteacher it was the start of the second World War. Her boyfriend, my future grandpa, had left her at home to become a tank engineer. Determined not to marry in case she became a war widow, she instead had to find a new role for herself beyond wife and mother.
For Alice, the working class daughter of a coal miner, this meant the space and time to continue with her education and to step into shoes that might otherwise have been filled by a man. After teacher training college she quickly found herself promoted to the leadership of a tiny two-form village Primary school.
When the war ended, Alice and Sam finally married. Alice resigned her post, and three children swiftly followed.
What Alice was left with was the role of educator and professional stamped indelibly onto her own sense of self. It remained a valued part of the way she saw herself. Her identity.
When I look back now, I see her gentle teasing of me when I was promoted for what it was: a deep and justified pride in her own achievements.
The newspaper clippings too I now recognise as symbols of her continued interest in the politically charged world of education. They were nearly always stories about changes to government policy, reviews of new educational books, or celebratory stories of school trips or charity work.
From Alice - as a woman especially - I've learned to celebrate my status as an educated professional and the knowledge, status, and freedom that affords me.
Dammit, I've learned to own the fact I go to conferences on a Saturday because I value my own professional development! [A couple of audience members cheer and there is embarrassed laughter]
Which leads me to the man Alice married: Sam.
[Reveals black and white photo of Sam on a motorbike, smiling]
In my mind, Sam looked on teaching the same way he looked on going off to war.
No, not in the way you might think if you've just attempted to teach Year 9. On a Friday. Lesson 5. On a windy day. [Pauses for dramatic effect]
No, Sam looked on teaching in the same way he looked on being in the armed forces because he saw it as a way to serve his community.
[Reveals black and white postcard of an imposing red brick Victorian hospital building]
Sam was the Headteacher at the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital in Heswall on the Wirral. There he led a small team of staff who educated children with chronic illnesses, disabilities, as well as those staying in hospital for short stints after operations.
Whilst there he also set up a charity which provided free computers - then a cutting edge technology - for children with disabilities to improve accessibility to education when they returned home from hospital. For this work, many years after he had retired, he received an OBE from the Queen.
Not at all big shoes to fill, thanks grandad.
To be clear, when I say my grandad saw teaching as 'service', I don't mean that he saw himself as some kind of martyr. He really enjoyed teaching and he wasn't a particularly religious man: I don't think he saw himself as being called by some higher being to be a teacher.
What he did have was as strong sense of purpose. For him there was a clear sense that his work was doing something worthwhile - something that was for the good of others - and that was somehow, inherently 'right'.
Like Sam, I don't think I will ever see teaching as 'just a job'. No, to me it really is a vocation. It feels 'right'.
The final line in the first ever blog I wrote was 'A life in teaching is a life well-lived' and I stand by that statement. If we can be proud that in infinite little ways every day we make the worlds of others slightly bigger and brighter then it perhaps will no longer be so confusing why whole families choose to teach.
And whole families, in my case is the correct phrase because Sam and Alice gave birth to Peter. Yep, another bloody Headteacher.
[Reveals photos of a hippyish looking man with long hair, thick glasses, and a beard.]
To be continued.
Enjoyed this, Caroline! Look forward to part two - will you tag me in when you post it so I don't miss it? Thanks.
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