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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Narcissistic head teacher

45 replies

Yourusernameis2 · 22/06/2019 22:53

Perhaps less of an AIBU and more of a rant ..

Headteacher at my DDs school tweets (in the public domain) pictures of himself in all kinds of poses DAILY (today's tweet (entirely public) was of himself pouting at the camera with a caption about being a handsome headteacher (he's really not) or something like that).

He goes on trips all over the UK and the world (think India, Nepal, China) and has constant meetings with apparently important people form these countries and insists on tweeting pictures of himself in said places, and with said people (personally I think he should travel and entertain less, and get in the bloody school more, and do more work, especially as us the tax payer are funding these ridiculous trips and meetings with international delegates!)

He always emails parents and tweets to tell everyone how amazing the school is and all the excellent things they are doing (it's all crap by the way - they aren't doing any of it)

He flirts with his partner online over Twitter constantly

He can't spell in half his tweets (that is VERY annoying!)

He posts daily pictures of 'romantic' scenes such as country walks, flowers in bloom, sun sets (usually with his face in the foreground)

He's a poor headteacher (the school is not doing well at all - lots of v disgruntled parents) but he is VERY good at PR and spin and boasting of his apparant brilliance, and he has managed to wangle an ofsted outstanding and got himself nominated for school of the year or something (it's all a show though).

He NEVER listens to parents and never ever acknowledges problems within the school. He seems to believe his own propaganda and only acknowledges those that sing his praises.

There's a LOT more, but to those in the local area, it's already obvious who I'm talking about!! and any more info might out-me!

Rant over! ....

OP posts:
corythatwas · 23/06/2019 00:13

But, but, the parents get sent a survey

At dc's junior school parents were also sent instructions from the school on how to fill this in and it had to be submitted via the school.

As the complaints I wanted to make concerned my easily identifiable disabled dd and as previous complaints made directly to the school had resulted in her life being made more difficult while the school reported us to social services, I felt very uncomfortable about this- in the end I didn't fill it in at all. This is many years ago now: I do hope that Ofsted have moved on to a different system of collecting surveys, or at least that they insist on sealed envelopes.

saraclara · 23/06/2019 00:13

@Yourusernameis2

I'm not pro OFSTED, but having been inspected many times, I have seen the process become very very much more rigorous. Schools simply cannot hide behind appearances any more. It's all about statistics, achievement, and evidence. They look way beyond flashy websites and architecturally pretty buildings.

Every parent gets to fill in a survey from the OFSTED team, so if all the parents were disatisfied with the school (or even some) it would affect the rating and the report. So did the unhappy parents not bother filling it in?

Yourusernameis2 · 23/06/2019 00:14

Yes the teachers are pretty good, (but largely young and pretty inexperienced). I think rather than lions, it's more a case of husky puppies working their butts off, pulling a sleigh in which sits the queen of the land gazing into her mirror while whipping the poor puppies and making them work harder and harder ...)

OP posts:
saraclara · 23/06/2019 00:15

The OFSTED survey is now online. So absolutely confidential.

Yourusernameis2 · 23/06/2019 00:16

Saraclara - well I wasn't happy and I don't remember being given a survey to fill in(?)

OP posts:
corythatwas · 23/06/2019 00:16

Children were also given a whole assembly on how to answer Ofsted inspectors.

Yourusernameis2 · 23/06/2019 00:18

Sorry, cross post - yes we filled in 'parent view' - it's not particularly enlightening! Nothing in that that marked the school out as outstanding....

OP posts:
saraclara · 23/06/2019 00:23

The parent view survey is unlikely in itself to lead to outstanding. But it can very easily go the other way.

I know of a genuinely outstanding school (four times running so far) which now has to be inspected yearly instead of every six years, because a genuinely unhinged parent influenced several other (vulnerable) parents to join her in making all sorts of accusations against the school in their surveys.
The inspector saw that the allegations were unfounded, but even so, those surveys were enough to trigger the change in timings.

VBT2 · 23/06/2019 00:24

You absolutely can’t ‘wangle’ an Ofsted inspection. They inspect everything (maybe not every single Tweet). If he’s got an Outstanding it’s either because a) he’s a great headteacher or b) he’s recently taken over from one.

LittleAndOften · 23/06/2019 00:27

Ofsted is far more about data than it is about individual impressions on the day. Pupil premium, LACs, free school meals, value added, progress, sen, attendance, behaviour management systems, exclusions, budget, g&t, performance management, safeguarding, cpd, risk assessments/ health & safety, interventions, curriculum, enrichment, healthy schools, monitoring & assessment - all this sort of thing. It's very dull but it's much more weighted towards long-term stuff, as it should be.

I have once seen Ofsted grade generously in a new build school based on potential rather than actual results, but the school had only been open 3 days so there wasn't much else they could do!

LittleAndOften · 23/06/2019 00:28

Oh and your HT sounds like a knob 😁

Yourusernameis2 · 23/06/2019 00:29

Well VBT2, he's definitely not a great headteacher (though he certainly does think he is!!). It's a brand new school, so he's not taken over from anyone! (and there also aren't many firgures out yet either - no SATS scores etc really.... The only figures out are attendance (no better than any other school) and info on the demographics such as numbers of kids eligible for pupil premium (v low), and SEN (v small.numbers)

OP posts:
corythatwas · 23/06/2019 00:31

Every parent gets to fill in a survey from the OFSTED team, so if all the parents were disatisfied with the school (or even some) it would affect the rating and the report. So did the unhappy parents not bother filling it in?

We were afraid of repercussions.

Yourusernameis2 · 23/06/2019 00:32

Littleandoften ... Your HT sounds like a knob GrinGrinGrin!!!!!

OP posts:
saraclara · 23/06/2019 00:43

Every parent gets to fill in a survey from the OFSTED team, so if all the parents were disatisfied with the school (or even some) it would affect the rating and the report. So did the unhappy parents not bother filling it in?

We were afraid of repercussions.

There are none. The survey goes directly to OFSTED and is entirely confidential

corythatwas · 23/06/2019 00:47

There are none. The survey goes directly to OFSTED and is entirely confidential

As I said, this was a few years ago: pupils were instructed to bring the parents' surveys into school for collection. The complaints I had to make were such that my child would have been easily identifiable (only child in the school with these particular issues).

Pupils were also given an assembly with instructions as to what they should say to the Ofsted inspector.

corythatwas · 23/06/2019 00:48

I do think it's a very sensible move to have put the surveys online.

CSIblonde · 23/06/2019 00:55

He sounds exactly like the Head in my first teaching job. He spent the extra budget we got for taking a special needs child not in our catchment area on mugs with the school name on. None of which sold at school fetes (knowing I was spending my own money on special easy grip pencils & other stuff for the special needs child's disability etc). He was a total narcissist who loathed children & drove staff into the ground.

user4622137555382992 · 23/06/2019 00:57

I could see him having some school mugs! With his name on! :)

HTsareodd · 23/06/2019 01:20

I've name changed for this as my comments could result in my being disciplined. I've worked under eleven HTs over a lengthy teaching career, and would say every one of them was significantly odd.

As a teacher you need to be psychologically robust to get the job done, to shrug off some aspects of the work and just get on with it.
Thinking of the HTs I've known, they all exhibited overweening self-regard, supersensitive to criticism, and had astonishing self-belief. They were none of them utterly terrible at their jobs, capable administrators, for instance, but none were outstanding or even very good. All were problematic handling staff. Only two of them still taught.

What every one of them had was one or more excellent deputies. The best senior managers, people I esteemed as truly impressive, have all been at this level.

It almost seems that the very qualities that push some people on to become HTs are the very reasons they shouldn't do the job.

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