As Barker College celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2015, it can reflect on its heritage while looking positively towards its bright future. The school has developed a culture that encourages strong personal relationships and puts the students at its heart. WhichSchool? speaks to Head of School, Phillip Heath.
How does Barker College differ from other schools?
This is my third headship and each school is different and uniquely so. Although I have generally avoided making comparisons and have been delighted in the schools as they are, the immediate points of difference that spring to mind about Barker are its co-educational school model and the strong sense of history, culture and belonging that comes from its long narrative.
How do you provide leadership to teachers?
As the head, your job is essentially to support learning in the school and celebrate good culture that lends to learning, growth and nurture. My work essentially is to model, identify and celebrate outstanding practice among the teachers. Some of that is in the technical work that goes with the role, acknowledging and rewarding in terms of employment, but pre-eminently its about cultural and symbolic leadership that celebrates good practice and feedback. It is about affirming, encouraging and commending great teaching publicly and individually. Teachers are commonly intrinsically motivated to love getting good feedback.
What role do you play in the achievements of your students?
It’s that lovely phrase of cultural and symbolic leadership. What the head does is to celebrate by word and deed in what they say, where they go and what the head is interested in; and to celebrate the good things that a school is doing. That means to keep turning up, and to stay aware of and engaged in the life of the school and the life of the students. When they are performing, when they are victorious or the best in any part of the work they are doing, when they are achieving and excelling their own standards, the head should be there to see it.
I spend a lot of time writing cards, letters and commendations; turning up to concerts, drama performances, debates, sporting events and classes when invited; and genuinely praising students to the skies for the things they are achieving.
I know that my job in the main is to support and encourage teaching staff. The more they feel connected to the school’s vision, mission and purpose, the better they will affirm the life of the student. Everything is about the student – every small detail.
What do you consider to be today’s most important elements of education?
The most important elements of education are the technical and hard skills of literacy and numeracy to equip students so that they know how to know and they know how to understand and discern an overwhelming volume of information that’s now available. They need to be encouraged to think what might be loosely labelled ‘executive functioning’ – that is to say they need to be able to discern good self-management and good self-direction. We know that the more they are encouraged to do that and to think that way, the better they’ll perform. We need to be creators of the future, not consumers of the future. And you learn that habit of mind at school. You wonder, then create and deliver. The wondering is the knowledge part, the creating is the innovation part and the delivery is the practical, executive functioning part that causes change. It’s not good enough to run a school unless it is seriously interested in contributing to the global future – and our vision should be nothing less than that.
What advice would you give parents when they are selecting a school?
About 80 per cent or more of what schools do is the same. The best advice is to find that portion of the life of the school that represents the other 20 per cent that is a good fit for your child, your family and the way your family thinks and likes to work. Core to that 20 per cent is the way in which relationships are cultivated in the school. So in looking for a school, search out the relationships and the hidden things that go well beyond prospectuses, tours, pretty classrooms and impressive facilities and that speak into the 20 per cent that is a fit with your family, culture and the life of the student. Move away from the commodities of the school and into the relationships that come from the heart of the school. Ask questions like, will this school know my child? Will my child thrive? Will they be inspired? If the answer to those questions is no or possibly not, then maybe look elsewhere. Most schools will meet most students’ academic needs most of the time, so that remaining 20 per cent is the key.
Does Barker College have a parents and friends association? How much of a role does it play at the school?
We have a plethora of parent support groups for differing activities and we also have the Barker College Mothers Association (BCMA) which is an adjunct to those support groups. Parents are proactive in volunteerism but also in participation in the cultural and community life of the school, and at times in giving me advice on decision-making and priorities.
As Barker College celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2015, is anything special planned to mark this milestone?
We do want to mark the occasion, so we are going to build a new pavilion and upgrade some physical facilities.
It is also the 40th anniversary of the admission of the first girls into the school, so we are going to host a joint occasion to celebrate both milestones.
We will also be establishing a museum in 2015, which is pretty exciting. We have an extensive archival collection that’s largely hidden. I think it’s important that we bring it out and celebrate our history by putting it on display. It will enable us to curate exhibitions from time to time too.
What has changed through the school’s 125-year history and what has remained the same?
What’s remained the same is that the heart of the school is relationships and the efficacy of relationships between students, families and the school, and between teachers and students. The core business of the school, as much as it ever was, is to nurture young lives and emerging adults. That hasn’t changed, and I dare say it won’t. Having said that, now what a school does and the way in which we do it is becoming almost unrecognisably different. For example, we no longer need to just hold up a picture book of the Sistine Chapel, we can do a virtual tour, and even do a virtual tour on a handheld device. These days, the smartest thing in the classroom is not the teacher, it’s sitting in their pocket. A really good school will not flee from these changes but embrace them, and harness the power of expanding technology and the changing way in which our classrooms are now designed. They will harness these changes to enhance the core things that haven’t changed – relationships, and the freedom and the efficacy of the teacher to continue to be inspiring. In some ways, a school feels the same as it always has, in other ways it is so vastly different that it is overwhelming.
How important is tradition at Barker College?
Tradition reminds us that we form part of a bigger story. It mustn’t overwhelm us but enables us to have a due sense of place in the community and the contribution we can make to it, provided that the tradition is a positive one, and in this case, it is. There are markers that represent one generation, reflect back to a previous time and then look forward to the next time. There are a lot of things around the school facility that remind us of the contribution Barker students have made to both wars and to their services since then. We commemorate the names of the fallen twice a year and we hold ceremonies. Tradition has a crucial place at Barker, but we like to talk about heritage rather than tradition. To the credit of the school, we haven’t been held back by tradition. We aren’t in a gilded cage. We aren’t limited by our heritage or tradition. We use it to strengthen us. We’re going forward. The most dangerous sentence in any school is, “But we’ve always done it.” We recognise that we honour the past but can do that in very different ways – our uniform doesn’t need to stay the same, but the colours do. The crest doesn’t need to stay the same, but the motto does. The vision of the school doesn’t need to stay the same, but the mission and purpose should stay the same. Each generation should be free to reinvent an expression of tradition and culture.
In what ways do you think schools and schooling methods have changed since you were growing up?
School is much more interactive now. You were once rewarded at school by sitting down, shutting up and doing what the school demanded of you. And the more you did that, the more rewarded you were with good marks or high offers. Nowadays, I want students to interact, I want their voice to be heard. It is so different now. Then there is also technology and its effect on schools, which is a given. We now expect so much more from schools and schools can do so much more. For example, when I was growing up, going on the Tasmania tour was the most exciting thing in the world, but I wasn’t picked to take part. Nowadays, the world is available to students. There are numerous overseas trips for our students. In 2015, we will take 110 students to Gallipoli for the Anzac commemoration and they’ll be providing music, including for the Centenary Ball in Istanbul. These sorts of opportunities were unheard of once upon a time.
Was there a teacher that influenced you to become involved in education?
Although I was a school captain, I didn’t particularly enjoy school or feel strongly connected to school or my peers. It was probably not until university that a serious thought about entering education in a vocational career sense came to mind. It was when I moved into university and then into my first teaching post that I began to feel genuinely inspired by what great leaders and great teachers could achieve in the lives of others – and there were several that inspired me. One was the head in my first appointment, Roderick West, from Trinity Grammar in Sydney, who had a powerful impact on me. My university lecturer and supervisor of two Honours Thesis, Stuart Piggin, had a similar impact.
How has being principal changed you on a personal level?
I think as a person, I’ve always been pretty present to seek out something that was a stirring contribution to the world in which I was moving. Being a principal made that possible inside a community. I have grown in confidence about what I can do and how important it is to actually do those things. When I first got into this work, I had no self-confidence about that. In a humble sort of way it has changed me. I feel that I actually can make a contribution I never thought I could before. I always wanted to but was consumed with a great deal of doubt about how I could do that. The change has come from being able to translate a desire to influence the world around me into a practical contribution that can be made inside a school.
What sorts of co-curricular activities does Barker College offer and how important are these in the student’s schooling experience?
There is a plethora of co-curricular activities – almost too many to mention. One of the advantages of a large school is that it can offer a large academic, co-curricular and pastoral program. There are a lot of students with a vast array of gifts and they should be exposed to, even coerced to, experience as many things as possible during the schooling years. As well as all of the traditional things we have a rich and vibrant outdoor education and service learning program, a wide range of sports, music, drama, dance, entrepreneurship – all manner of things. And that list will grow in the next few years as we consider how we diversify and prepare ourselves for an emerging future. There are some 30 or more activities running roughly daily. Most days, there are events, concerts or performances that go well into the evening. The school is a very busy place and one of the things we need to monitor is that students don’t over-indulge themselves and become depleted from being far too engaged. However, that is a much better problem to have than the opposite.
How do you encourage students to learn morals?
I think you need to be very explicit about that, by clarifying in language, especially the language of values, what constitutes a good moral world view, based of course on belief, which as a Christian school we do, but make the belief component subject to a student’s own search, their own journey. The morality, respect and values are something you should require as part of belonging in a community. We want the school’s values to be lived. It’s not about crime and punishment, it is more about celebrating and affirming. We need to realise that students will stumble and fall, so forgiveness needs to be right there with them, even if we don’t speak about it as openly. We need to pick them up and get on with it. Another thing is to be honest, if the school as a whole as opposed to the individual has stumbled in an area, then we should call it for what it is. We need to be honest with ourselves.
What traits do you need to be an effective principal?
You have to have the intellectual capacity to digest a growing level of detail, which falls into the category of higher skills. You need to be a good educator and be competent in the classroom. You must be motivated by a deep yearning to see the lives of others grow around you – the story is not about you, it is about your students and staff. And you need to have a passion and commitment to spend a fair portion of your soul pursuing that vision.
What do you enjoy doing in your downtime?
Family is everything for me. We love to listen to music and go to the theatre. I like a good long run and I love to read for pleasure – not just read educational articles. As my children get older, I love hearing their growth and the things that they’re interested in. One of the hardest things about the work is that work and life are so conjoined it is hard to find that downtime.
What words would you use to describe your management style?
I like to be collaborative and I set high expectations of myself and of others around me. I affirm those things and operate out of relationships and I’m pretty insistent that those relationships be built around mutual regard, integrity and respect. I like to relate to the students and visit them in their space, because if I relate to them, I know they exist. Only then do I have the right to speak into our culture and maybe say things that are challenging. The world isn’t going to listen to you until you’ve listened to everybody else and taken an interest in them.
