by Daisy Holbrook 20

What is remarkable to me?

I don’t think any single trait makes someone remarkable. Rather, their experiences, resilience and learning do and that all comes from Character Education. I have not been asked for my A-level results since leaving Berkhamsted, but I have needed all the skills it taught me every day at university, and I am still learning. Berkhamsted doesn’t produce one type of person, students aren’t all maths geniuses or sports scholars, there isn’t one mould that students must fit into to succeed.

What it does produce are well-rounded, determined individuals who have been able to make the most remarkable memories, friendships and develop life skills from their time at school. Thanks to the fantastic opportunities presented to them they are as prepared as possible to move onto the next stage of their lives. To me, this is what it means to be remarkable and the Character Education approach at Berkhamsted is the best way to help do this.

BIO Daisy Holbrook finished Berkhamsted School in 2021 after 15 years and is currently studying at St John’s College, Cambridge.

Leadership at Berkhamsted and ‘the Advantage it Offers’

Leadership is a skill that all parents may reasonably hope their children will be able to achieve if they want to. Few parents would hope for their child to be lacking in independence, initiative or resilience. For some families, leadership may be an expectation or hope for their children. The local demography of Berkhamsted suggests that a large proportion of families will have a heritage of leadership, with parents or grandparents they might wish to emulate.

Leadership is both simple and complex. It may relate to having responsibility for a large number of people as in a company CEO, or for none, as in a newspaper columnist; it may require predominantly interactive skills as a developer of the capabilities of other people, or it may require inspirational insight in pushing the boundaries of human knowledge alone in a laboratory.

This article explores my thoughts on why I see leadership as important, why all schools should see leadership development as a core skill, and how we are approaching this at Berkhamsted.

Why I believe leadership should be a formal part of school life?

I joined Berkhamsted Schools Group in September 2012 having spent twenty-four years in the Royal Marines. When I started at Berkhamsted I believed I understood the art of leadership. I had been taught to lead, I led and taught leadership. I had worked within the MOD, FCO, UN and NATO in a variety of strategic, diplomatic and military advisory roles and led in operational environments such as Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. I taught diplomacy and strategic leadership at the UK Defence Academy as a Director and I believed I knew my stuff! I was wrong.

Moving into education I quickly identified that I did not know as much as I thought and I needed to adapt to my new surroundings. I took a keen interest to read widely about education, to review my thinking on areas such as emotional intelligence and my approach to empathy. I had spent plenty of time working in international settings working with diverse groups and recognised the strengths of it as well as the challenges. What I did not consider was how much time I had spent working with colleagues who were like me and this meant ‘Group think’ tendencies. Teachers are different, with different needs, views and ideas. I understood that ‘different isn’t wrong, it’s just different’ but I needed a rethink. I noted that teachers generally had more empathy and specifically the culture at Berkhamsted has a strong empathy thread, which supports both colleagues and pupils. I remember Andy Ford on his first day as Vice Principal saying to all staff during his first INSET day that at Berkhamsted “It’s okay to say you are not okay”. During my early years, my journey of self-discovery allowed me to think more about leadership and how to lead and continues to this day. The more I learn, the more I appreciate how much more there is to learn about leading and I feel more humbled by it.

I started in Outdoor Education, which is excellent for developing pupils in so many ways beyond the classroom. My aim was to help pupils to develop self-confidence through controlled exposure to risk and to link classroom theory, where possible, to the outdoors. Using techniques such as blank recall testing on navigation or weather fronts in a relaxed way on a mountain would reinforce learning in the classroom. A key strand of Outdoor Education is delivering expeditions for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Approximately four hundred and fifty pupils are involved in the scheme at Berkhamsted in any given year and each pupil must take part in two, a practice and a final. I am sure you can imagine this means a lot

of expeditions, but it also provides a great opportunity to see a large cross section of pupils across Years 9 – 13. Every expedition group is required to deliver a presentation on their expedition. Watching pupils present each week, I was struck by a lack of leadership and noted how nervous many were. Some students were excellent, mostly those who regularly participated in activities such music and drama. However, the majority lacked confidence. This was the moment that I knew I wanted to introduce leadership development at Berkhamsted.

In September 2019 we started the program with Year 10 pupils. I knew I needed a vision and the support of the school community. My desire was, and still is, to provide knowledge and to encourage pupils to search out leadership opportunities to put theory into practice. Leadership cannot be developed through theory alone: creating experiential opportunities is key and I strongly believe that leadership skills can be developed by anyone. The vision I came up with is in the text below:

My vision for leadership at Berkhamsted

To offer formal leadership training to build knowledge for pupils from years 7 - 12 and to create the conditions for all pupils to have the opportunity to lead as widely and as often as possible in order to gain experience and practice.

How am I aiming to achieve the vision?

We know it takes a village to raise a child. To deliver the vision above we need to create a community where staff and pupils have a leadership culture mindset. Staff buy-in and motivation is always key to delivering any strategy in an organisation. When I think of leadership, I think of three words - what, why and how. Much of my time is spent explaining the ‘why’ to as many pupils and staff as possible. Buy in and driving forward leadership will only succeed if pupils and staff understand why and are motivated by it. Culture here is essential and ‘culture will always eat strategy for breakfast’! Culture is core to my approach alongside resource development and identifying experiential opportunities.

The Outdoor Education team are developing some great resources and lead on the years 7 – 11 formal leadership training. Leadership lessons happen during Clubs and Societies for half a term and are linked to a list of components, which can be seen below.

Components of Leadership

The following qualities are being used as a framework for our teaching sessions. I see these skills as a complex collection that may be developed in different ways and at different speeds by different young people. No young person should be labelled either as having an obligation to lead, or as having no/low ability to lead, at an early age. In addition, children should not be exposed to a course, or construct, in which leadership is construed to be one particular combination of dispositions and skills, nor where it is static. In different contexts, the requirements of leadership will draw differently on a palette of skills and abilities which may be described, practised, and reflected upon during that period of a person’s life in which their brain contains most grey matter, and they are therefore most able to learn – from 0 -18.

KS1 MANAGING MYSELF

Understanding of Risk Social Sensitivity Resilience Communication Fairness/Ethics Values Trust

KS4 MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Project Management Management of Meetings Resolving Conflict ‘Black Box’ Thinking Mentoring Influencing Others Breadth of Vision COMPONENT

KS2 PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

Goal/Target Setting Self-Knowledge Resourcefulness Taking Initiative Taking Responsibility Avoiding Conflict Time Management KS3 MANAGING RELATIONSHIPS

COMPONENT

Decision Making & Problem Solving Networking Teamwork Prioritisation & Sustaining Building Alliances Managing Upward

COMPONENT

KS5 INCREASING TRACTION

Cultural Intelligence Strategic thinking Custom Relationship Management Inspiring Leadership Styles

Years 7 – 9 and Year 11 take part in half-termly sessions, but Year 10 is a full year of weekly lessons. These are based on three distinct areas of public speaking, leadership theory, and debating. In Year 12 leadership sessions are run during private study periods to small groups of pupils on a voluntary basis. These are great opportunities for reflective discussions between pupils as well as providing deeper knowledge.

Leadership is learnt through leading

There is a place for leadership theory and sessions specifically to develop the skills of leadership. My main focus for developing leadership is on giving students meaningful opportunities to lead. Experiential learning can be reinforced through the PLAN-DO-REVIEW model. It is important for students to experience leadership opportunities during their schooling, to learn the art of building relationships within teams, defining identities, and achieving tasks effectively. It also provides an opportunity to learn to identify and display effective communication and interpersonal skills. In short, students should be driven by real-world consequences of their leadership actions which aim towards intrinsic motivation, not teacher-imposed extrinsic, 'artificial' consequences.

Gaining experience – every student is a leader!

This is not an aspirational statement, rather a statement of fact. All students will, at some point in the future, be in a leadership position. Students need to comprehend this reality and prepare for it. There is a need to extinguish the 'I'm not a leader mentality' and shift the focus from examples such as prefects and sports captains. There needs to be leadership opportunities in every academic year from Stepping Stones to Year 13. My aim is to 'plant seeds' so that later in life all students have the confidence to step up and take a lead.

Leadership is currently happening everywhere: through friendship benches at Pre-Prep to mentoring roles in the Sixth Form. Older pupils mentoring younger year groups in activities both academic and non-academic is a great way to expand opportunities. We have Year 12 and 13 pupils leading in a variety of roles from academic enrichment to supporting classroom teaching during private study periods.