Atelophobia is an extreme fear of imperfection. Someone with this disorder may be terrified of making mistakes, or go to great lengths to avoid new situations because they can’t guarantee that they’ll succeed.

The current education system is adding to School Leader Atelophobia – overwhelmed, shamed, anxious and worried professionals looking over their shoulders and fearing that one mistake could be their last.

The accountability of a headteacher is only ever really felt when you become one. Even deputy headship does not fully prepare you for those lonely nights of the soul when every facet, every decision, imperfection, mistake, grievance or barrier can pin you, unblinking and sweating, to the mattress; whilst you frantically search for impossible solutions at a time when you need to be deep in dreamland. The leader Catch 22 wellbeing cycle of despair – in all its glory.

In recent years the level of complaints has also risen alongside deep and difficult challenges around finance, SEND and meeting the needs of a school community that stretches far beyond the horizon. Schools seem to be seen as the solution, or cause, to things that were not even mentioned when I first started as a head teacher 20 years ago.

For example, looking at the recent updates for this year’s September 24 Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) – Mental Health is defined as safeguarding. I understand this definition… but the implications are massive because they will place the obligation more firmly at the schools door. It is clear that the people who see schools as the panacea to every societal challenge are:

1. Not working in a school

2. Have no idea how a school operates

3. Are blatantly unaware that the more they pressure schools to deliver/coordinate specialised services the more they accept the deconstruction and watering down of those services in society.

It does not take a genius to see that the more we make schools accountable for specialised societal and health issues, especially with no plan, resources or real support, the more we are likely to set them up to fail. It also means that schools spend more time trying to deliver very specialised services that people train for years to do; rather than the one thing they were trained to do… teaching and learning. Once again, we desperately need to ask ourselves that eternal question:

What is the purpose of school?

If you listen to the government it is to secure the very highest standards. In the current election the Tory government are saying we have a much-improved education system because we now compare highly regarding reading scores internationallyand there are a higher number of Good Ofsted grades than before. It says nothing about student wellbeing. If you were to ask school leaders what their biggest challenges are I imagine many will tell you it is SEND, finance, behaviour, attendance, recruitment and student/staff wellbeing… I haven’t spoken to one school leader who talks about the golden age of educational achievement that our government thinks we are in. It doesn’t feel like that from where we are standing.

There is a danger that through making the role of schools so wide (but with a political remit that schools are only delivering a good academic curriculum) we begin to become unable to focus on the things that we can change and impact upon therefore, we waste time. We then start to sweat that we are not doing a good job. I love odd facts and a favorite of mine is:

The amount of time in an average lifetime in Britain spent looking for lost things: 1 year.

Tyranny of Numbers – David Boyle

Sometimes we choose to do things that on reflection take away from the precious time we have to be effective school leaders. The Eisenhower Matrix helps prioritise important and urgent things but there is a twist… there’s this new section of ‘additional societal expectation’ that has crept into the already bloated list of things that a school must do. We often see this in KCSiE updates. In my book Lesson’s from the Heads Office I wrote in detail about something I like to call – leadershit. The stuff that stops us being effective in our role. What I have come to realise over time is I often thought that leadershit was rather trivial stuff, minor complaints and grievances, pointless policies etc that dragged us into a negative cycle of wasted time. I now realise that schools have been drowning it the stuff for years and many of the issues that make us feel disempowered, useless and desperate are in fact Premier League Leadershit (PLL for short!). We are neck deep in trying to resolve difficult social and medical difficulties whilst teaching the study of speech sounds and their physiological production and acoustic. 

I have been a head for a long time. I have learnt to deal with the basic leadershit through years of experience. I am still struggling with PLL though… It still gets me down from time to time, but I know I will get through it. There is a generation of new and upcoming leaders who are expected to do what it has taken me decades to deal with and they are being thrown in at the deep end of some of the most complex of challenges in our schools right now. The first thing leaders need is protection to do what they believe is right. By protection I mean:

Support – Space – Time – Understanding

Otherwise we will end up creating an external view that all heads, must be all things, to all people and do it to the highest standards at all times. Impossible. Any head teacher who has had a personal complaint will understand me when I say… You never feel more alone when they come in. Again, time, support and experience has helped me see them for what they often are – a learning point, or nothing to worry about. 

I believe that this culture of expectation is in real danger of making great professionals look at the open door to the heads office and go, ‘No thank you!’ The implications are massive and the next government are going to have to tackle this fully. Let’s hope they want committed professionals, keen to be part of a positive education sector rather than a bunch of trembling, cracked perfectionists, too terrified to walk across their playground without medication.