How well would a head of a large secondary school know the individual students?

[Diah]

DD is in year 10. The head teacher came into a class to observe the other day, and as part of it asked to look in a couple of students’ books, DD’s included. I suggested to her that he would have wanted to see a range of work, and would have known she was likely to have good work to look at. She doesn’t think he would know who she is. She is an excellent student and gets involved in extracurriculars at the school, and I think it is likely her name is ‘known’ generally, by this stage in her time at the school.

But I might be clueless - what actually happens?

he may or may not know her.

It was probably just a random selection though.

He wouldn't know her personally. However, before the observation he would have seen the class data and looked at the seating plan. Then he would decide which books to check.

Unless they are badly behaved - likely not at all! However the teacher may have told him which books to look at.

Our school has almost 2000 students, I am out and about a LOT and probably know half of the students by name. I wouldn't know many of their working levels though!

I’m chair of governors at a large secondary school.

My child is a great student - head has absolutely no idea they are.

It depends what you mean by large, but i wouldnt expect most students are known that well by the head.

Usually not at all, unless they're often in trouble or struggling for some reason.

Fair enough, I hadn’t considered the class teacher may have given him a heads up.

We both agreed he would definitely know the kids that get pulled up for behaviour and who he sees in his office a lot!

Also depends on the head. When I was in secondary school (not huge, not tiny - around 1000-1200 students) our head knew everyone’s names. I think that’s pretty unusual though.

Just looked it up and the school has about 1500 students, thought it was more actually.

It would be unlikely the Head would know her or be aware whether her book would be a good one to look in. It's also unlikely he was tipped off about which books to look at. Lesson observations are more about seeing whether the teacher is doing a good job than trying to find kids who are doing particularly well, so he'd be unlikely to want to be guided only towards students whose books the teacher wanted him to look at.

I went to a secondary of around 1200 and the headteacher knew my name. I remember being in the corridor before class once doing a ski sit against the wall as I was bored of waiting and he came up to me, knew my name, and told me about his time in the navy when they did ski sits. Didn’t realise he knew my name until this point! So was really surprised by it but I think headteachers do know more kids names than you think.

Wi5h all due respect, I highly doubt that.

Don't Heads normally ask for examples of low, middle and high ability books to look at?

He probably won't even be doing that unless it's a suspension. The pastoral heads will be doing day to day behaviour management. He'll probably be aware of what names come up a lot, though.

The school does ‘head detentions’ where they have it with him, as a step up from normal detentions.

Right. It's good that he does those. Ours doesn't! Does he do Headteacher rewards?

I’m a teacher. We have ‘profile children’ that we follow/ monitor across their time in school. Usually above average, average and below average ability. Could be she’s one that’s been selected or that the teachers have just been asked to pull a selection of books based on whatever the school/ head is focussed on at that time.

You choose a sample of pupils:
High, medium and low attaining
Pupil premium
EAL
Looked after
Boys and girls
Those with low/high attendance

Sometimes random within these groups- sometimes ask teachers or SLT.

At DD’s school the head seems to know them all. They spend lunchtimes walking popping into clubs and walking round the playground chatting to people. He stopped and played a card game with DD and her mates for about 20 mins a few weeks ago. I am not sure if that is normal nowadays but I think it’s brilliant. We were terrified of our headmistress

This. Although I went to a secondary school where the Head did seem to know all the 1500 or so students. He was fab!

Monitoring is often more objective than about the student. It could be monitoring of the subject, for instance. Progress from year to year in English or a particular aspect of a subject.

Lots of schools (mine included) will have online seating plans with data about each child so the head or anyone observing can easily see what the working at grades of the students are plus who is in a key group - sen, disadvantaged etc so as to be able to track how well departments and teachers are catering for individual students. As for how well your child is known by the head it probably depends on whether they are high profile in terms of behaviour or for more positive reasons such as representing the school for sport or performing arts etc.

I'm in primary. We will be asked to provide the books of a HA, MA, LA, SEND, PP child depending on what the focus is.

The class teacher will likely have provided her name beforehand or he'll just have picked at random.

Sometimes it's to check consistency across the cohort, sometimes to monitor progress, sometimes to check curriculum content, sometimes to check differentiation, sometimes to check presentation in books.

I suspect it's similar in secondary.

It depends on the Head Teacher. When DS was at secondary school the HT hand wrote a paragraph in every boy's end of report. It was always accurate and included stuff from earlier in the year. We once bumped into him unexpectedly and he greeted DS by name.

DD's first HT was never there so didn't know anyone. The year 13s did a leaving prank by putting up mock Wanted posters saying have you seen this person because they hadn't in 7 years!

The head can access all the data about who should be aiming for a 9 and who should be aiming for a 4. So they will print off the list of that class and then can check to see what your DC is aiming for.

The head won't know the quiet kids that well, most likely the naughty ones will be their most frequent fliers.