Helen Sanderson is a national leader of education (NLE) and the head of Meanwood Church of England Primary School, a national support school.
Why did you choose to become an NLE?
The school had had outstanding Ofsted upon outstanding Ofsted and the question was: where do you go with that, what else do you do with it?
We very much believe in growing our own, like through School Direct and other placements. We've had colleagues from elsewhere come into our school in an informal way and we thought: well, this is a way that we could do it, in a more structured way, possibly in a better way. [Becoming a national support school] was our way of going out and supporting other schools, doing what is now known as school-to-school support.
So this is about staff across your school?
We take a whole staff approach to everything we do and my staff are extremely good at working with other schools. They know what to do and actually it’s very good CPD for them, because when they go into other schools they see how other staff and schools are doing things, so we learn and improve as well.
What about you personally? What have you got out of being an NLE?
I've seen my staff develop a lot. I was just talking to a colleague about how it's difficult for a headteacher, when you have such outstanding staff, to see them move on because your own school suffers. But then you constantly grow from the bottom and you develop people and they move onto headships, deputy headships, middle leadership. If an opportunity doesn't come up for a member of staff when working in my school, I know that - within the school that we are supporting - an opportunity is going to come up that I can deploy them to. It’s just fantastic CPD for them.
One of the concerns that school leaders sometimes raise is the worry that trouble will arise in their home school when they’re out helping other schools. How have you got around that potential difficulty?
We've never had that; we've never had that at all. Last year on SATs data we were the most successful school in Leeds, so we still maintain our standards in school. Yes, as a head, you have to manage who’s going out and how they are going out and how you are doing it. If a deployment comes along that you can't support you just say no, sorry, we can’t manage it at the moment. But if we can, we do.
Would you say your school is a better school because of the support you've given out to other schools?
Absolutely. It also keeps – and it sounds a bit Mary Poppins saying this – but it does also keep your staff very humble. It can be very easy in my school for us to think that everything is outstanding and very wonderful. When staff go out and see that, in other schools, staff are doing very difficult jobs with very difficult children – and, yes, I know teaching is a very difficult job wherever you go – but seeing the situations that colleagues are working in, I think it really does help them to empathise and have a better understanding of other schools and how others work.
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