I think as these things started to take hold I realised that pretty much everything that works with adults works with children works with adults. We are all people after all, aren’t we?

And after a while I formalised all of this into the following two key expectations for the whole staff that I referred to as the core values of our school:

At all times we expect to work in an environment where everyone maintains the highest level of

• Professional Generosity
  • Looking out for each other and looking after each other
  • Always giving the benefit of the doubt
  • Even in the most challenging of circumstances, asking yourself why a child, a colleague or another adult has acted in the way they did before addressing with them what they have said or done

• Professional Maturity
  • Professional self-management
  • Resolving differences in a professional way
  • Doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not doing the right thing because you fear the consequences of doing the wrong thing.

I got my first hint that this was working when a staff member was relaying that a colleague had snapped at them that morning but they hadn’t snapped back. In her words, “Because you don’t know what’s happened outside of school. Maybe their dog just died.”

Back then I had no formalised concept that these key principles were actually the foundation of what we would develop further and become what we now refer to as nurture based and trauma informed practice (albeit an embryonic version). But this was the starting point and I would say that it took maybe three years to really feel like it was becoming embedded with the majority as our school culture. And by embedded I mean ‘second nature’ – things just happening the right way because we have a consensus in our school that it is the right way for them to happen.

But the thing that made it really work is that this approach was for EVERYONE. It was always made clear that what we were building was as much about the wellbeing of the staff team as it was our pupils and their families.

And 19 years on I am confident that we are well on the way to being a very safe and supportive school for all of our staff, children and families. I’m not saying we still haven’t got a way to go even after all this time. But what I can say is that I cannot recall the last time I heard an adult in our school raise their voice to a child. We just don’t deal with things in that way.

So, in summary, as with all change and development, it has taken a while not just to formalise that vision but, more importantly, to embed it wholistically across our school. And it has happened most effectively when the whole staff team has believed in it being the right thing to do.

To achieve this, it is vital that any school improvement needs identified are addressed with the highest possible level of best practice support to allow every member of the team to continually develop their skills in every aspect of their professional duties. And, alongside this, it is also vital to do everything that leaders do everything that they can to secure the wellbeing of our team.

In doing this school leaders must become the role models for what we want to achieve in our schools.

Of course, there are times when you need to have a difficult conversation with a team member and there are times when it is not appropriate for a colleague to stay with the school. But that is a much easier conversation to have if you (and they) know that, although it hasn’t worked out, you have done everything in your power to support them.

The reason for telling you all this is to emphasise that all effective change and development happens slowly. And vitally, as I have already said, nothing happens without leadership. It is leadership that establishes the core ethos, vision and culture of the school. It is leadership that drives the school’s continual development. It is leadership that secures the consensus across the whole team. And the most effective change and development happens when there is a consensus about the Moral Imperative behind it.

But as leaders we must always understand that it isn’t all about you and what you think is the ‘right’ way.

You don’t reach a consensus by sitting around a harmonious table. You need to have the opportunity for many different opinions to be voiced. You need the confidence to take your ideas to the group and ask them where they can see anything wrong with it. You need your team to be able to do the same. There needs to be equity, trust and safety so that there is no such thing as a bad idea, just ideas that can challenge and be challenged. Only when you have had all of those conversations can you truly say that you have a consensus.

More about that next time…