Diary of a head A meeting of minds


As the school year comes to an end, Stuart McLeodwonders if the hours he has endured in meetings over the years could have been better spent


A


s we near the end of another long school year, if you are like me you will have attended countless meetings


and perhaps some courses along the way. Over a 30 year career, the time I must have spent attending meetings and courses must be phenomenal. So, where did it all start? In the late seventies we had things called


Teachers’ Centres (TCs). These were local places where you could escape the fumes of the rank hallucinogenic Banda machine and use a real black and white photocopier. The head of Maidenhead TC in those days was a jolly fellow. He introduced me to the joys of an electric stapler and even let me use his books of clipart to photocopy for our school magazines. You could go to the sprawling old house after


work to meet other young teachers for a coffee and gossip about the woes that were about to befall upon the profession like written reports to parents and teachers’ appraisal. It was here that courses were run. All courses then were held after school and my first one was learning the delights of batik for the classroom; after that it was screen-printing, followed by basket weaving. No “preparing for your inspection” courses then because… we didn’t have inspections as we have today. If only we could go back. Of course today things are so much better. Courses and meetings are no longer held in


Victorian edifices, are they? Long gone are the Teachers’ Centres around our way. We now expect our creature comforts. Ours is a large rural county and courses and meetings are invariably held around the place, similar to Sven’s England home games in his early days. The Local Authority has long favoured a particular country hotel. While it may be reasonably easy to reach, thanks to Tarmac roads, it has a most bizarre way of dealing with lunches. You have to queue up and form a snake-like conga with a plate in your hand whilst 14 lackeys serve you a salad. I’m all for job creation but having someone offer me a teaspoonful of basmati is overkill. The hand driers in the gents have all the puff of


an asthmatic geriatric. You see, female readers, it is not good PR for a bloke to hover for too long at the hand driers next to the urinals; nothing is said but furtive glances are given and people suspect. So, it is not uncommon to see colleagues emerge from the loos blowing their digits surreptitiously while desperately hoping they do not have to shake hands with anyone in the next two minutes. During the past year I have been fortunate to


attend two different National College courses. These are swanky affairs. They are always held in hotels that have rooms called “suites” with exploding croissants to devour while you learn the results of your diagnostics and the


ice-breaking bottled sparkling water to pour just at that fateful moment when a colleague reaches full-flow in their life story: “I was 19, my parents were dead and I… psheeew…had nowhere… glug glug glug…to live so I… glug glug glug… took to the streets.” Just imagine these in the hands of year 2 back at school! However, the most incredible meetings and


courses for me have to be those held at schools. We have fortnightly breakfast meetings in each other’s schools. One particular colleague regularly comments upon the European paper mountain called my in-tray. Paranoia has now set in to the extent that the previous night I cram all sundries into my car, driving home like a seller off Flog It! I dread the meetings in the infant schools


in particular. There you are, Neanderthal in a four-year-olds’ chair where your knees raise the tables in a scene from The Exorcist. Forget the reception class’s village shop or doctor’s waiting room; this is a scene from a Japanese sushi bar. We are so near the ground we may as well be sat on the floor cross-legged with our sashimi. After a back operation and years attending the real hospital’s chronic pain unit this is akin to torture. Up until now, I have done performance


management meetings in a church and a stock cupboard; all that remains this year is a tent and the Wendy house! Next September we are promised a meeting in a village hall in Mordor. Happy meetings everyone. sbmcleod@sky.com


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