Chapter+9

 In 1993 John Cain became Head Teacher of Woodhatch School, a secondary with 400 pupils and a poor reputation in the local and wider community. He found on arrival at the school that this perception of the school was unjust as the majority of the pupils were well behaved.  Early on he set out to convince parents and governors that the school could deliver higher standards and identified increasing the school role as of paramount importance in achieving this goal. Initially to provide security and achieve survival the school he was forced to take in excluded pupils from other schools and a large than normally cohort of pupils with additional support needs.  Cain stated that he wanted to be a HT of a school where he could increase the role, raise standards and have pupils behaving well in good facilities. This was the broad vision that he would share with staff through conversations and the normal programme of meetings. He intentionally did not hold the big vision meeting as he thought that he would simply open himself and the school up for criticism should they not achieve their goals.  Only once the school had experienced success in improving numbers and support from the LEA in increasing the school role did the HT feel confident enough to issue a vision statement to his SMT and whole school staff for consultation. He thought about working groups to establish the vision but changed his mind as he believed that it had to be something that was important to him. He also did not want to seek opinion from staff and then not use the views if he did not agree with them.  External forces drove the next phase of the vision as the LEA wanted to secure further success by developing the building once more and increasing the role to 1000 pupils.  Cain reflects on his five years experience of change and improvement at Woodhatch School and suggests that:  ‘The centralisation of education has meant we are all now playing to a common set of rules and standards. Quite simply whatever the government puts up as having to be achieved becomes the vision for the future’. (p.103)   <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif""> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif""> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif""> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif""> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Questions: <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">
 * __<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Living Headship: Chapter Nine __**
 * 1) <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Role culture working in a survival situation The organisation was also task directed and not necessarily focused on the child.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Triggers for change: New Head Teacher, negative community perception, dropping role. How leader built on these: Initial increase numbers (excluded pupils to begin with)
 * 3) <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">One to one conversations with staff, personal tours for parents, fulltime decorator for the school to improve appearance, glossy booklets, setting pupils in year 7,
 * 4) <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Pupils noticed the improvements to the school’s appearance and attainment increased to above the national average. Parents were happy to send their pupils to the school.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"">Increase in numbers, exam results, expansion of the school building, parent opinion, agreement from staff on the vision statement and then meeting the goals set out in the vision statement.