Interview
Robin greets students one by one each morning
Steering a new course
Leaders are having to find their own way through the Covid-19 crisis, with help from the union, the incoming NEU president tells Sarah Thompson. “HEADSHIP is like being the captain of a cloud,” head teacher Robin Bevan says. “The role will move and shape whether you like it or not.” The impact of Covid-19 on the role of leaders illustrates his point perfectly. Since the outbreak of the virus in March, head teachers have been forced to adapt to the most challenging of circumstances. Starting with the week before lockdown, which Robin describes as “something of a battering,” adding: “I never want to go through a week like that again.” Looking back, Robin says it’s clear the Government “hadn’t got the faintest idea how schools were run” as, with just 48 hours’ notice, head teachers found
“It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to draw so freely on good quality advice from the NEU, when the DfE guidance is so poor.”
themselves with the insurmountable task of organising everything from online learning provision, care of vulnerable and key worker children, and staff rotas to onsite maintenance and insurance claims for cancelled school trips. At Southend High School for Boys, where Robin has been the head teacher for 13 years, celebration assemblies were also rapidly organised to mark the end of school for year 11 and 13 students. “It is a rite of passage for those pupils,” Robin insists. “It’s part of the way they end their time in school.” For ten weeks, he had on average ten students coming in each day. Then, faced with the Government’s announcement lead. The magazine for NEU Leadership members
11
