schools in focus INTERVIEW
29
When a school goes from being a ‘crisis school’ to winning an Outstanding Progress Award from Business Education, it’s evident something – or someone – has had a major impact. CARRIE SERVICE speaks to DAVID SEDDON, principal at Baxter College, about what he did
D
avid Seddon didn’t always want to be a teacher. In fact, his foray into teaching began when a short career as a professional footballer went “belly up”, as he puts it. His own PE teacher, with whom he
was still in contact, regularly going back to his old school to coach football, supported him to embark on a career as a PE teacher himself. After qualifying, he then went on to become head of PE and when the school he was teaching at became a private school, decided that the independent sector wasn’t for him and took on a role with the local authorities as recreation offi cer for Wolverhampton, and then community director for Walsall. He then went back into a number of schools working as a headteacher, eventually taking on his current post at what was then known as Harry Cheshire High School in Kidderminster, Worcestershire – a failing school in special measures.
A BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS
Although Harry Cheshire High had a reputation for being a school with very low academic achievement (only 13% of students were getting fi ve A to Cs ten years ago), Seddon maintains that the school never felt hostile to him. “There was a sort of naivety about the place, but I never felt any animosity,” he refl ects. “There was a willingness, but a general ignorance, I guess, of how to make it better. I think they needed a catalyst to start things off and they needed good people there. Fifty per cent of the teaching staff were supply teachers – it couldn’t attract good teachers so consequently that had a knock-on eff ect on the kids.” This created a catch-22 where the more discerning students would leave and therefore so would the better teachers. Seddon’s arrival at the school was the result of an action plan launched by the governors 11 years ago to turn the school around and rebrand it. Baxter College, as it was now known, was to employ a completely new senior leadership team and build up a good staff basis from there. “They hired a private company to help them choose a new head and start a blueprint – and that’s when I came in, exactly 10 years ago at Easter,” he says.
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
Seddon believes that a major game-changer for the college was moving away from the national curriculum and adapting their off ering to better suit the pupil demographic. “We found subjects that children engage with but also succeed at,” he
explains. “We’re not an academic school – although we have got some academic kids – we’ve also got some people who are really good with their hands. And it was about fi nding something for those kids rather than everybody doing a language or three sciences. So, we’ve tried to allow kids a variety and to choose things that they’ve got a chance of succeeding in. We’re a proper comprehensive school. We have several pupils who are good enough to get into Oxbridge if they wanted and others that are really good with their hands.” Seddon is keen to stress Baxter College’s emphasis on producing well-rounded hard-working individuals, rather than getting caught up in the
What’s the use of having sixteen GCSEs grade A* if you can’t work in teams, if you’re dishonest, or if nobody likes you?
league table race. “It’s the personal qualities that we really concentrate on. What’s the use of having 16 GCSEs grade A* if you can’t work in teams, if you’re dishonest, or if nobody likes you? They are things that employers want – punctuality, reliability, integrity – and that’s what we try and stress. Yes, we’ve improved other things as well as, but not to the concentration that we’re an exam factory and the only thing that matter is exams. Because it’s not.” Although the grades at Baxter have vastly improved over the past ten years, Seddon sees this as more of a by-product of producing happier students, rather than the other way around. “If you’re fulfi lled in what you’re doing you’re more likely to get good results as a consequence,” he says.
CHANGING ATTITUDES
It’s taken time for the school to build on this ethos and for the public to realise that grades are not the only indicator of success – something that has needed guts to implement in an education system consumed by exams. “It takes a bit of bottle when you’re in that position, because all that’s in the papers is league tables,” says Seddon. This leap in faith has paid off however – something that is evidenced in the rise in pupil numbers, jumping from a dwindling 400 ten years ago, to 1,010 pupils today.
The school became an academy in September, a decision that was largely based on the hope of gaining more fi nancial independence, further supporting the school’s autonomous ethos. In an additional step towards exorcising the ghosts of the past, what was previously labelled a ‘pupil referral unit’ at the school will, from this September, be run as a separate free school, giving it complete autonomy from the local authority and – Seddon hopes – fi nally shed the Harry Cheshire ‘crisis school’ label for good.
www.edexec.co.uk / april 2013
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