As you can see from my employment history I have a wealth of experience in Education. Whilst my experience has been in one school I have worked for four, very different, Head teachers and have supported the school through significant change.

I started as a newly qualified teacher of French and PE in January 1985 and by March 1985; I was promoted to Head of Department. I held nearly every post of responsibility in the school, Head of Year, PSHCE Co-ordinator, KS2 Co-ordinator in school and also as LA representative when KS2 was first initiated, Designated lead for Child Protection and Safeguarding (I was part of Eileen Munroe’s research group when she was reviewing Child Protection and Safeguarding) Deputy Head teacher with responsibility for Behaviour and Attendance ( we received Beacon status for Behaviour and Attendance at this time) and then in May 2011 I was thrown in to Headship when the previous Head teacher left without notice.

I was an innovative teacher and leader and have always been ahead of the times in my attitude to teaching and learning. I had three main goals; to be the best teacher I could be, to make sure that every child in my care was provided with opportunities to achieve their very best be it academic, artistic or social and to know that everybody under my care pupil, staff, parent, visitor was treated with respect and kindness. When pupils left Ashton it was important to me, to know that whatever their personal history, teachers at Ashton genuinely cared about each and every one of them.

As a teacher I attained outstanding teacher recognition in all except one of our 5 OFSTED inspections – in the other one I had a 10 minute observation and received a Good but my lesson was highlighted in the report as an exemplary lesson!I am passionate about leaning for living. As a French teacher, rather than relying on books, it was important to me to bring French to life. When studying meals and food, we imagined we were TV chefs and both prepared and recorded the preparation of a chosen meal, when talking about holidays we created oral postcards – pupils brought the post card to life whilst telling the audience what they “have done” past tense, aerobics in French, trying to sing the French alphabet to a popular Christmas Carol or a popular tune. Children will only want to learn if they are enjoying what they are doing and are motivated in their attempts. One of my year 8 pupils gained a GCSE in French at A*.

As a PE teacher, sport is a significant part of my life and again my belief is that every child can enjoy sport if it is taught in the right way. I ran a volleyball club throughout my time at Ashton and am proud to say have sent pupils on who have played for England’s U21 Volleyball squad. I have also taught English in Year 8, R.E to year 6 and have covered and supported many lessons in between.

As a Head teacher I was always fully involved in all extra-curricular activities, Gym and Dance displays, Drama productions, Music concerts and performances as well as the many events put on by our PTA. I have organised and supported many school trips to France, Skiing, Outdoor pursuit’s activities, Dell Farm, and many others. I believe that being involved in activities, such as the above, makes a huge difference to your relationships with children and their parents – it is an opportunity to build up that trust and respect that is so important in helping a child to achieve their full personal potential back at school.

As a leader I was driven to enable my staff to be the best they could be. I pride myself in recognising key skills and being able to place teachers in positions where those skills can be put to best use. I would never ask any member of staff to do anything that I was not also prepared to do. This included preparation of lessons, differentiation, marking, providing a stimulating environment, wanting the best from every child no matter what their ability or background. I have high personal standards and I believe my staff respected those standards and did their utmost to support my vision for the school.

Where teachers were not quite so engaged or enthusiastic I did my utmost to support, to guide and to motivate and most importantly to explain why it matters and the difference it can make. Some teachers believe the current workload is ridiculous and I don’t disagree but my answer is always that it is up to us, as a team, to support each other, to do our part and to lessen that burden; if we are not enjoying our teaching then this will affect our pupils.

Listening to pupils was the key element in my leadership focus and not just listening but “hearing” what they are saying. Pupil voice is so powerful and a personal passion of mine. For many years I co-lead a group called UNITED – this was a Pupil Voice group with a focus on IT, (U Need IT in Education) my pupils spoke at several National conferences as well as organising an amazing event at Woburn Safari park bringing approximately 21 schools together in a joint project. Pupils know what they want and sometimes they just need some guidance in how to make these things possible and in some cases realistic – like me, many children want to run before they can walk!

I have always been keen and eager to forge links with local schools across all key stages. I was part of a transfer and transition group that organised and facilitated many projects across the different school phases in an attempt to improve the realisation that we, as a community, are responsible for the education of all of our pupils and that schools should not work independently of each other.

Similarly, I fully realised the importance of working closely with parents and established a highly effective parent’s forum

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where issues were decided by the parent body and discussed openly with senior leaders and staff with particular interests in those issues. As a consequence valuable changes were made to both curriculum and procedures.

Our staff turnover at Ashton was very small but as a newly appointed Head I was very aware that significant changes had to be made. These changes were instigated though strategic School Development Planning, rigorous self-evaluation and focused Performance Management strategies. I also initiated the introduction of the Classroom Monitor software which had a significant impact on our ability to manipulate data and to easily track individual data precisely and efficiently. This has been particularly beneficial when tracking PP pupils and the SEN groups in all their extremes. The key to success was involving staff fully in our whole school vision and then working as a team. The first two objectives in everybody’s performance management were exactly the same with a focus on raising standards and tightening up on key issues that make a difference to teaching and learning. The effect of this was individual staff as well as departments supported each other to make sure that everybody would meet their targets. Change happened. Our following OFSTED and recent HMI inspection noted that the school was making significant progress in all of the identified areas. Ashton was back on track!

I am also known in the local authority for my work with vulnerable pupils. Over the years I have become more and more aware of the impact of a child’s social background on their ability to access learning or even to adjust to the conforms of an educational establishment. Ten years ago I was writing to everybody I could think of, about my concerns over the increase in mental health issues in young children – why has it taken until now for the government to take notice? I know that offering an alternative education makes a huge difference to these children. This is one area I worked very hard on over the past few years. I, personally set about finding grants and pockets of money to support my beliefs in this area. In the last four years I raised over £55000 pounds. This was a key element in changes that took place at Ashton. I bought in a Behaviour Manager, our own School Counsellor (a tremendous asset) as well as setting up programs such as the tennis programme, our DJ academy, our cookery club, the Go-Kart Challenge and a real focus on lunchtime activities and the staff to support them. Many of these activities we were using as a means of encouraging pupils to strive to improve a personal challenge that was preventing them from learning be it; behaviour, attendance, homework or self-esteem. The tennis programme was my first experiment and the impact was extra-ordinary! One pupil’s attendance leapt from 33% to 100% in a half-term. I had only intended to employ the two tennis coaches for a half-term; they stayed for 3 and half years!I seriously believe that state schools have to do something to better meet the needs of these children. Society has changed and we are not going to get back the idealistic family unit – if it ever existed – if we can’t offer any hope or any possibility of a way out of their social background then what does their future hold? If we are not prepared to accept and support who will?

I was a good leader. I have the capacity to motivate and to encourage both pupils and staff. I relished in the fact that I could learn as much from a pupil or an LSA as I could from a fully trained, highly qualified member of staff and learning never stops. I worked very hard and worked until a job was done.

Our school has recently been going through the most horrendous of challenges as the local authorities initiated changes from a three system back to two tiers this left our parents and our pupils in a state of confusion and angst. I was responsible for the writing and presenting of many a public speech in order to try and find a purposeful way forward. At the same time I had to motivate staff to continue to do a good job. I think it is remarkable that it is only in the last few months that staff began to truly realise that after 115 years Ashton Middle School was coming to an end, however, we still had staff offering to fill the gaps even if just for a few months and the parents were still sending their pupils. We must have been doing something right.

I am not frightened of change and one of the skills that has been most useful to me in my time is my ability to see “the big picture” and to anticipate potential areas for development and always with the pupils as the central focus. I was also an active part of the Governing body for 25 years and I was responsible for writing the majority of the current policies and procedural documents.

Lesley Phillips

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