At the secondary school I attended in the 1980s, the headmaster was rarely seen. He would emerge to deliver an occasional assembly before retreating to his office, a mysterious place we could only picture by piecing together the fragments of rumours spread by the unruly boys who had been called there. Mr Norris would never appear in the dining hall at break, nor on the front gate in the morning, let alone in lessons. He was a hibernating head as far as we were concerned. If he and the school were familiar to each other, it was because the school would come to him.
Perhaps my headmaster was an exception. His apparent reclusiveness may have had more to do with his personality than with the times we were in. But it was a time when what went on in schools was less visible; less known. The scrutiny of Ofsted was yet to be brought to bear, league tables were not invented, and the expectation that parents would actively choose which school to send their child to was absent. It was a darker time, not in the sense that things were worse than they are now, but in that there was little light shone into the corners of the school.
As Mr Norris was mostly myth to us as students, I wonder how fully he grasped the reality of the school he oversaw. What did he imagine went on there? If he indeed left his office as little as we believed, he would be almost entirely dependent on the reports of others to piece together this reality. This was a time before the paper trail of quality assurance and the colourful spreadsheet. Information flowed verbally, through stories and testimony, or via the occasional ’round robin’ memo. But then as now, without direct observation we construct reality through others’ interpretations, through data points, and through codified records.
For anyone in a school, we can only imagine what goes on beyond our own experience. I wrote about this ‘imagined school’ here. The idea is important for school leaders; it is fundamental in my view to understanding leadership effectiveness. This is because school leaders make decisions about the imagined school – the model of the school they hold in their head – not about the real school. The imagined school is the only one they know. The further this imagined school is from reality, the less likely these decisions will be wise.
Our mental models of reality serve a function in protecting us from the confusing ambiguities and the complex reality of the world we inhabit. They provide us with false certainty. School leaders think they know their schools better than they do. This is an inevitable consequence of how we make sense of complexity and uncertainty. If true, it follows that it is in our interest to close the gap between school leaders’ imagined school and reality; to ensure that those making significant decisions truly know the school they are acting upon.
What evidence do we have of this gap?
In June 2023, the National Behaviour Survey results were published by the Department for Education in England. This groundbreaking report provides us for the first time with insights into how school leaders, teachers and pupils perceive their school’s culture and standards of behaviour to be.
What the report reveals is the extent of the gap between how different groups of people within schools perceive what goes on. Where is this gap greatest?
92% of senior leaders surveyed state their school is ‘calm and orderly’ either every day or most days. 70% of teachers and 55% of pupils agree.
98% of senior leaders and 88% of teachers believe their school to be a safe environment. 75% of pupils report feeling safe on all or most days.
90% of senior leaders state that behaviour is good or very good. 64% of teachers and 47% of pupils see things the same way.
Are school rules applied fairly most or all of the time? 96% of school leaders believe so, compared to 82% of teachers and 64% of pupils.
Are pupils regularly reminded by school leaders about behaviour rules? 79% of senior leaders say they are, compared to 60% of teachers and 67% of pupils.
It is tempting to conclude that some school leaders are seeing their schools through rose-tinted spectacles. However, let’s set aside the question of whose perception is ‘right’. The important thing is that these perceptions differ. Why?
Firstly, because what we act on depends on how we see things. If so many school leaders believe their school is calmer and safer than teachers and pupils believe it to be, the latter groups will no doubt become frustrated that this is not identified as a priority. Senior leaders will be branded as out of touch.
Secondly, because the urgency with which we act depends on how significant we think the problem is. More than half of pupils think behaviour is unsatisfactory, but only 10% of senior leaders think the same. If senior leaders perceived behaviour as students do, surely they would double their efforts. What will pupils think of adults who let this pass?
Thirdly, because doing something is important, but so too is being seen to do something. A fair application of the rules is one thing, but if many pupils do not perceive fairness then respect for the rules and the people who apply them will degrade.
Why do these divergent views exist? There are a number of clues in the report. Only 68% of schools claim to seek feedback from pupils when reviewing the behaviour policy, suggesting that pupils’ voice is not always heard. Furthermore, only 24% of pupils believe that pupils’ feedback is sought in this process, with 49% saying it isn’t. Seeking out pupils’ perceptions and listening to their experiences is an obvious action schools can take to ensure their actions are informed.
There also appear to be a culture in some schools of teachers not feeling confident that they can ask senior leaders for support with difficult classes. 23% of teachers disagree or strongly disagree that senior leaders foster a culture where it is okay to do so. If teachers are not asking for support when they need it, it is no surprise that school leaders are partially oblivious to these problems.
Both of the above examples suggest that in some cases, school leaders simply don’t know what teachers and pupils think about behaviour. They are not testing their assumptions. Given the human tendency to believe we understand things more than we do, if we do not actively seek out information that challenges our assumptions then we will remain in a state of ignorance. School leaders will act on the school they imagine, not the one others are living in.
I suspect that these gaps in perception would be replicated across other domains too, were we to gather the relevant data: the quality of teaching, the sense of belonging, participation in extracurricular activities, and so on. There is not one school but many schools. There is not one standard, but multiple standards. Where we imagine homogeneity, there is inconceivable diversity.
But we should not judge ourselves, or anyone else, too harshly. Our rationality is bounded by our perception of the world and what appears to be a sensible course of action to us will inevitably appear misguided to someone else. When confronted with evidence that we see the world differently to others, we should take the opportunity to ask why. For school leaders, it is safest to assume that we only catch glimpses of the reality of our schools. I suspect we are more informed than our predecessors but there are greater expectations of us too. Mind the gap.
Matthew Evans 