Blackpool Rock
Blackpool Rock
Disclaimer
‘Blackpool Rock’ is a work of fiction and satire. The characters, organisations, institutions, policies, events, and dialogues portrayed in this story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, schools, trusts, employers, educational institutions, policies, practices, or real events is entirely coincidental and unintended. No character is intended to represent any specific individual, and no organisation is intended to represent any real institution.
This story is based on the author’s observations during her teaching career but it is ntended as a satirical commentary on organisational culture, not a realistic portrayal of an actual school, The characters are intended to be broad archetypes: the pompous principal, the ambitious young careerust, the cynical veteran, the subject specialist, the union rep and the complaint colleague.. They are educational stereotype, not portraits of real people.
Part One: The Principal
‘We must always keep the thought that it’s all about the children’s life-chances at the front of our minds,’ he said pompously. The Principal was a short man in his early forties. His slightly greying head wobbled ostentatiously on his narrow shoulders as he stood before the assembled staff on the first day of term.
He looked over the sea of faces as he gave them the obligatory start-of-term lecture. Over to the right was the Maths dept: the new Head of Dept was leaning forwards attentively. He was soaking up every word, determined to prove himself in his new post. On the front row was a plump woman with bleach-blond hair. Pleasant-faced and smiley, she too, was an easy convert. Whatever she thought, she’d toe the party line and nod along. If he said that the best way to learn was to dress the children in swimming trunks and make them do somersaults during registration, she’d agree - and say she was sure she’d heard it somewhere before. There was an older woman in a brightly-coloured top at the back. She looked sceptically at him but he knew that she was just a time-server. In her early 60s, she was just waiting for the right moment to secure her pension. She might see right through him - but she was no real trouble at all. She’d keep her mouth shut and just sit tight.
In the mid-centre sat Jerry. Hmm! More of a problem. He was the union rep. A mouthy bastard who nit-picked over every bit of unpaid labour. Didn’t he know that teaching was not a job, but a vocation? They were supposed to put in unpaid hours; it was all about the children’s life-chances after all. But … the staff needed to think that their views counted and giving Jerry an hour of his time once a month was a small price to pay to secure general compliance. School trips needed organising and the budget wouldn’t run to paid revision classes.
Over there, near the wastepaper basket, sat Tim. Ah! The protégé. Tim was only in his second year but it wouldn’t be long before he would be ensconced on SLT. He had the right stuff in him: a proper little toady, but bags of energy and a shiny-eyed expression. Tim would start the applause in the appropriate pauses. His hand would shoot into the air during questions and he could be relied on to serve a softball which really just required a self-congratulatory validation. It could be batted back across the net with a flourish which made an empty banality look like a stunning backhand volley. Now, that’s the kind of person SLT needed.
Not like that balding and grizzled Assistant Principal propping up the corner over there. True: Neil had probably been a Tim in an earlier life. But, somehow, inertia had got a grip and his career had stalled. Now in his early 50s, the glee-eyed expression had been replaced by a dull cynicism. He was a solid performer in the classroom … but utterly uninterested. He did his duty but, unless he was on the rota for late night detentions, he left the premises at 3.30 on the dot. There was no point in asking Neil to run next year’s skiing trip during the Easter holidays. He’d give a flat refusal and there was no way to morally blackmail him into it; he’d abandoned any hope of further promotion years ago. No: Tim would probably do it, though.
And … who cared if Tim’s experience was small and his short record unremarkable. He knew all the right things to say and better to have a few photos of half a dozen kids in woolly hats, smiling on the slopes and eating apres-ski pizza than worry about a few grades here and there. Susie, the Head of Science, could be blamed for Tim’s inadequacies, anyway - and social media preferred pretty pictures to hard stats.
Susie was a worrier. Clever, experienced and unambitious, Susie wanted the children to succeed in the sciences. A chemist herself, she worried that she had not got a graduate physicist to teach the A Level Physics course and develop the physics side of the curriculum. The Principal’s lip curled. He’d appointed Tim, a biologist, instead of the physicist Susie had wanted because Tim’s performance on the day of the interview had showed what outstanding potential he had. Susie had ranted about subject expertise and how that mattered for the students. But the Principal knew better. Susie was one of those stick-in-the-mud middle leaders who was obsessed by their exam outcomes and could never see the bigger picture. It took visionary leaders - like himself - to see that ski trips and Duke of Edinburgh schemes and House systems - and people who would do extra duties on rainy November days - were more important than subject experts. Lesson packages could be bought in. Anyone could teach physics as long as the resources were good enough: it was all about ‘delivery’.
Tim had been appointed. Susie continued to moan about the lack of a physicist in the department. But the Principal, looking across his staff, knew that he’d made the right choice as Tim started the clapping. The Head of Maths joined in. The bleach-blond head nodded. The brightly-coloured woman smiled knowingly. Jerry, the union rep pursed his lips and folded his arms. And Neil’s face remained impassive.
Part Two: Neil
‘And how do you intend to ensure that these students achieve their target grade?’ Neil asked Susie.
He already knew the answer she would give. He’d been asking Susie this question three times a year for the last 15 years. How many variations on a theme could anyone give to the same question asked so many times? So, Neil didn’t really bother listening to Susie’s answers; there was no point. He tapped irritably on his keyboard.
In his mind, Neil could see slabs of coloured sugar candy. They were being carefully arranged to form a pattern: white and purple. It was a strange irregular pattern and Neil could not quite work it out. Eventually, the pattern was wrapped in a tube of pinkish candy. The whole thing was like a fat piece of pink piping about 18 inches in diameter. Neil suddenly jerked and shook himself …
At some stage, Susie would raise that thorny issue of physics. It was obvious from the mock results that the students were weakest on the Physics paper. Of course they were, no-one in the department really understood physics. They were awash with biologists and a few chemists but too many of the youngsters didn’t even have that credibility. That terrified looking newbie, for instance, had a third class degree in Environmental Science. What the fuck did she know about physics, even at GCSE level, let alone A Level? But - there was no point in pursuing that route. Barely anyone with a degree in physics would come into teaching these days. Neil thought about his own degree in French. Hell: if he were graduating today, he wouldn’t come near teaching, either. There were far better livings to be made outside the classroom than in it. And you could have a life, too. His lip curled: the general public thought teaching was all short days and long holidays. How wrong they were!
‘Here it comes,’ he thought as he saw Susie’s lips distantly form the word ‘physics.’ Neil sighed. It was a big heavy sigh which began in his belly and moved through him like a low-frequency wave. He exhaled. It didn’t matter that Susie was right: the Principal didn’t think it mattered. He’d bought a verified physics package from a reputable source. Now it was Susie’s job to make sure it worked. And it was Neil’s job to put her under pressure about how she was going to make it work - even if they both knew that it wouldn’t work. Neil had a pro-forma to fill in.
Susie passed her timetable of booster classes over to Neil. ‘Good - at least it’s something we can say we’re doing,’ he thought, although why anyone believed that ‘more’ of the same thing would make any difference was beyond him. After 4 1/2 years in which the children had had some 5-6 hours of Science lessons per week, it made no logical sense whatsoever to think that half a dozen more would make much difference. Neil did a bit of mental arithmetic: that was around 1000 lessons. A few booster classes were nothing more than a drop in the ocean. The real problem was that the children needed a teacher who genuinely understood the subject and that couldn’t be cured by more time with the assortment of well-meaning non-experts which made up the Science Department. But the Principal would be pleased: all these teachers working overtime for no pay. It proved that they were putting the students first and taking his thrice-yearly lecture about life-chances seriously. Dedication: that was it. Commitment.
‘Why have you got that NQT - I mean ECT - doing three evenings a week?’
‘She volunteered. And you know none of the older staff will do it.’
‘You’re doing a couple?’
‘Yes. I’ve got no choice, really. I can’t ask others to do it and then not do it myself, can I?’
A pained expression subtly crossed Susie’s face. Neil spotted it. It meant that after five hours straight in the classroom, Susie was committing herself to an extra hour two nights a week for the next five months. She’d go home more than usually exhausted - and it would be her own children, as well as her long-suffering husband, who would pay the price. Although she’d never told him, Neil knew that this would put a strain on her marriage. Susie’s husband was not a teacher. He didn’t understand this expectation that his wife work extra hours for no extra pay. If he worked overtime, he got paid for it. Neil knew that it had caused rows before.
‘What about Tim?’ said Neil. ‘Why isn’t he on the rota?’
Susie pressed her lips together. Her eyes met Neil’s. ‘Do you want the truth?’
Neil was not sure that he did. He could rather guess the reason but he felt obliged to let Susie have her say. ‘Go on …’
‘He’ll do more harm than good. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’ll get complaints if I let him do it. And - the physics grades might actually go down. Would you want your child taught physics by Tim?’
Neil sighed again. The honest answer was ‘no’. If his son were facing a GCSE Physics paper and Tim were his teacher, Neil would have paid for a private tutor. It was all about life-chances.
Part Three: Susie
Susie looked at the woman in the brightly-coloured top. The woman looked back. They both turned and looked at Tim.
Tim was teaching.
At least that was what he called it. It was very strange. He was saying the right things. He had the right resources. His lesson was peppered with all the right techniques. But, somehow, the children sat there looking bemused. It was as if his words came out of his mouth and just dropped onto the floor. They didn’t seem to be reaching the children at all. One girl was brushing her hair and covertly looking into a mirror hidden beneath the desk. Another was texting on her phone. And two boys in the back row were quietly playing ‘noughts and crosses’ on a scrap of paper.
‘So - what can I do with him?’ asked Susie? She’d asked her experienced colleague to come and see the problem for herself. ‘The Principal thinks he’s the “bee’s knees”.’
‘I know. I’ve heard him raving.’
‘But I daren’t give him a class that matters.’
Neither of them needed to explain: top sets had to pass. Parents of top set children expected top grades. Parents of top set children expected their children to have the option of doing Science A Levels. There’d be hell to pay if they couldn’t. It was all about life-chances. As for the poor souls in Set 6 …. it was better not to discuss them.
‘You’d better find a way of hiding him. Lots of KS3, bottom sets and BTEC. And if there’s anything ‘out of subject’ give him that.’
‘I’m going to struggle to do that. Neil came to see me yesterday. He’s complaining that he never gets any decent classes. And the Principal wants him front and centre. He says that he’s sure he can teach the A Level Physics course.’
‘Oh my goodness! No!’
‘I’m told that he just needs to be given the chance to show us all what he can do.’ Susie rolled her eyes.
The shoulders in the brightly-coloured top shrugged. Her lip curled. ‘The Principal wants to be able to promote him. He’s got to be seen to be pulling his weight in the classroom - and that means premium classes.’
Part Four: Tim
The Principal looked shrewdly at Neil. ‘I’m asking Tim to join SLT as an ‘associate’ member. It’ll be good for us to get some new blood into the team and it’ll give Tim an opportunity to get some developmental experience.’
Neil’s face was expressionless. The pink candy tube swung before his eyes, like a pendulum. It stretched and elongated. ‘What are you going to ask him to do?’
‘Teaching and learning’ said the Principal, with a touch of impatience in his voice.
Surely that was obvious. Tim was a brilliant teacher. He’d given an absolutely fantastic presentation to the SLT last week. Tim had demonstrated how it was possible to meet the needs of children with a wide variety of learning difficulties simply by structuring the lesson according to DARVO principles: Devise, Adapt, Revisit, Vary, Optimise. It was mind-blowing! Tim’s energy had echoed round the room. The Principal had been bowled over by it and had, almost instantly, decided that this new acronym would be the school’s strategic approach to improving classroom practice for the next planning cycle. He had, in the same instant, decided that Tim was THE man for the job.
‘You’ll have to open the post up to other applicants.’ said Neil. Jerry won’t like it if you just appoint Tim without a fair and transparent process.’
The Principal grunted. Fuck Jerry! There’d BE a fair and transparent process - and then Tim would get the job. He’d put the Head of Maths and Mrs nodding-blond on the panel, along with himself and Neil. That’d give him whatever outcome he wanted - and whatever Jerry thought, there’d be nothing he could do about it. He could go and jump off a cliff!
Neil watched these thoughts float through the Principal’s mind. Yes - Tim would get the job. No-one would be surprised about it and the Principal would announce that his performance on the day had been absolutely outstanding and that he was going to be a real asset to the senior team. He was, without doubt, the best person for the job. The appointment process never failed to sort the sheep from the goats. After all, these were the processes through which he’d risen to be Principal. You should always trust the process.
Neil imagined the expression on Susie’s face. He saw her lip curl at being told that her curriculum must now be re-shaped to fit the new DARVO model. He heard her mechanically telling him in their next data meeting that the students would now be able to achieve their targets because her teachers were going to adopt DARVO as directed by the new school policy. He saw himself silently typing it all into his pro-forma.
Of course, there was still that small problem of no physics specialist …
But Tim said that DARVO would overcome that hurdle. And the Principal enthusiastically agreed. The Head of Maths had already conscientiously added DARVO to all his departmental slides. Mrs bleach-blond could be overheard saying that she’d once read about DARVO in the TES - and it was just fabulous. Neil thought of his own son and thanked God that he’d already left school.
The candy pendulum continued to swing. It was mesmerising. What had begun as thick slabs of coloured sugar had stretched into a narrow agile strand. Neil absently wondered how far it could stretch before it finally just snapped. The oddly positioned purple blocks revealed themselves to be tiny letters. They made a word run through the whole pipe: ‘life-chances’.
Part Five: Blackpool Rock
Tim stood in front of the whole staff. He could barely believe it. He’d only been teaching for two years and here he was, giving a presentation to the likes of Susie, and that older woman he didn’t really know in the brightly-coloured top sitting on the back row, on the subject of DARVO.
Tim talked in fluent buzzwords for the next 30 mins. It flowed over the audience like a mist. The Principal smiled a self-satisfied smile: ‘This’, he thought, ‘was real leadership. It was really all about the life-chances of the children. And Tim was exactly the man to ensure that his own leadership skills were noticed in the right circles. He’d be an Executive Head in no time.’ The Head of Maths leaned forwards eagerly. The blond woman at the front beamed and nodded vigorously. Susie stared, almost disbelievingly. The brightly-coloured woman raised her eyebrows. Her lip curled; how many Tims had she seen in her time?
She glanced obliquely at Neil: he had been a Tim once. His dark brown eyes had gleamed with pride and religious fervour as he’d given his first whole-staff presentation as a member of SLT. What was it? That’s right: HEY U! High-Expectations for You: Unlock your Potential. She recalled that speech: ‘It was all about the ‘life-chances of the children’, Neil had boomed, almost hopping with excitement. The then Principal had clapped with approval. A different Head of Maths had leaned forwards, anxious to catch every one of Neil’s profound words and a very young woman with bleach-blond hair had whispered to her neighbour that ‘HEY U!’ was exactly like what she’d learned on her PGCE course. It was motivational and all her classes had been properly fired up by it.
Neil’s smile had been broad. His dark hair carefully combed. He had happily waved a candy cane towards his audience, using it to illustrate his argument that teaching wasn’t so much a job as a vocation. ‘We must do everything we can to ensure that these children have the best life-chances,’ he’d said. ‘As the letters run through this stick of Blackpool rock, so our commitment and our values run through our lives and work.’ That same year he’d pioneered the first ever booster class programme - and taken a Y9 trip to France.
A greyer balding Neil now stood impassively propping up the corner as Tim overflowed with a righteous zeal. He looked over to where Susie was sitting surrounded by her department. There was not one physicist to be seen. The latest data set continued to show that the students were lagging behind in physics and that this was likely to drag overall Science grades down. The A Level Physics projections were dire. Poor Oliver was just one more 18 year old unlikely to be going to university to study engineering next September. Neither the booster classes nor DARVO had narrowed the gap but that hadn’t stopped Tim from citing his A Level Physics class as an example of DARVO in practice. Neil yawned.
As Tim’s voice faded, it was the Principal who led the applause. He was so very pleased with his new appointment: Tim was the voice of the future. One day, he, too, would be a Principal: there was no doubt about that. Tim was the ally he needed: in a year or two he’d replace that has-been, Neil. Neil would be quietly shoved to one side to spend his remaining years grinding out mediocre GCSE grades in French and Tim would become the ‘go-to’ guy on all things teaching and learning.
Neil’s fingers squirmed in his jacket pocket. They’d found an old candy cane lodged in the seam. He pulled it out. It was slimy and sticky and covered in blue fluff. This made it appear kind of mouldy. In places the pink coating had worn away and the half-exposed letters protruded unevenly and were rough to the touch. They appeared to be distorted by the exposure. Instead of being viewed from a sharp. clean-cut end, they appeared erratically and longitudinally. Neil squinted. This lettering had once illustrated the importance of ‘life-chances.’
As he listened to the distant sound of clapping and saw a blond head bobbing about somewhere over yonder, it looked to Neil awfully as if ‘chances’ had somehow curdled into ‘charade.’
Neil suddenly felt his phone vibrate. There was a text: ‘HEY U!’ He glanced round to find the woman in the brightly-coloured top giving him a covert wink. Neil’s emotionless face cracked. Lines creased up around his eyes. His lip uncurled and, somewhere behind the habitually blank facade, there lurked the shadow of a smile.