In the final instalment in our ethical leadership series, a leader discusses why sometimes difficult decisions have to be made to drive improvements, how you can do that with openness and honesty to explain the reason, and the positive impact this can have.

This article is part of a series looking at how leaders can use the Framework for Ethical Leadership (FELE), developed in 2018 through a commission involving the Association of School and College Leaders and the Chartered College of Teaching, to guide their leadership decisions. This framework is based on the values of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, leadership, trust, wisdom, kindness, justice, service, courage and optimism.

What was the issue?

When I took over a wholly inadequate school in a very deprived area, I faced a litany of issues and had to work out what was a priority and what could wait.

Leaders were fractured, underskilled and frustrated. Teachers were not being held accountable for outcomes or quality of lessons because so much was wrong. Many students didn’t attend, and those who did didn’t feel safe. Outcomes were at rock bottom.

External accountability meant that without a sharp uplift in results, “special measures” would remain.

How did I tackle it?

What was clear from the start was that behaviour was a huge challenge. Some staff didn’t feel safe and lessons would often be derailed by poor behaviour in the classroom. This was also unfair on the students who did want to learn and yet faced constant disruption.

For the sake of everyone, I made behaviour the first priority. We co-constructed a set of values and systems with students and staff underpinned by a clear “why”, with each one always connecting to safety - because everybody deserves to feel safe at school.

We instigated rules such as always walking on the left in corridors to avoid crushes and people feeling intimidated, and we implemented a clear rule that students disrupting lessons would be removed.

We put measures in place to support students with SEND and set out clear examples of extenuating circumstances when a student would not be removed.

However, in the main, the rules were strictly enforced - refusal to work in the clear and open system we had created meant you lost the right to be in school.

As such, suspensions and exclusions were very high.

What FELE values and virtues helped?

Honesty with staff and students about the school was crucial. We had to be clear about where we were and say that it was not OK.

Openness was also vital so that we could agree what we needed to do, be clear on the opportunities to co-construct systems and repeat communications of the vision of what we were doing and why so that everyone understood.

We also had to be accountable as a school for everyone feeling safe in the building - and making the hard decisions to suspend or exclude to uphold that line of safety.

Doing all this with kindness was at the heart of the rationale; no one can argue with everyone having the right to feel safe.

We also had to have courage to respond to those externally asking why we had not fixed other things, like smart uniforms, better attendance or improved outcomes. We knew we had to focus on behaviour first because those other things are unattainable if students don’t feel safe.

And finally, optimism to believe that if we made these changes, we would see improvements in the future.

What happened next?

Over three years, suspensions have reduced, with social norms of what is acceptable in school embedded in a way that wasn’t the case before.

Attendance has gone up 9 per cent in the past 18 months too, and although outcomes are lagged for Year 11, we are the only school in the authority that has gone up on English and maths grades twice in two years.

Parental voice has switched from 53 per cent saying their child feels happy at school to 74 per cent, and from 45 per cent saying they’d recommend the school to 63 per cent.

Staff wellbeing and attendance is now the highest in the trust. Some staff have moved on, feeling the accountability measures rising as the excuses disappear, but most have stayed, and there have been many promotions from within.

Is there a general principle to be learned?

All students and staff deserve a safe environment where they can thrive. Having that means a better school experience for every child.

What were difficult ethical decisions on suspensions and exclusions for some had to be underpinned by a belief in the goal for all children. We can’t fix local authority weaknesses or social deprivation factors, but we can make sure a school is doing justice for its community.