michael rolls
Our School Federation - March 2011
Executive Head Teacher Michael Rolls of the new Our School Federation
We’re getting used to buzz words in education, but the term federation is one that seems to be sticking. It describes a joining together of schools, sharing skills, staff and costs, and according to Michael Rolls, federation is a way to keep schools at the heart of our village communities.
Michael is the Executive Head Teacher of the Our School Federation – a triangular partnership between Stoke Fleming, Blackawton and East Allington Primary Schools.
Formerly the head teacher at Stoke Fleming, a post he held for 10 years, he has had to learn to step back from the “shop floor” and take an overview of running school affairs, allowing others to flourish as the day-to-day leaders of the three schools. It’s a very new way of working, but so far it seems to be doing just that.
“We started in September 2010, and it’s going well,” Michael said. “Our main motivator in becoming a federation was seeing what was coming anyway – what was on the horizon both from the national picture and the local authority. The local authority is shrinking; we predicted that and it is happening. We wanted to create something for ourselves on our terms, before we were forced.”
All the primary schools in the area were involved in talks about becoming a federation, but it was Stoke Fleming, Blackawton and East Allington who were ready first and decided to take the plunge.
Michael said: “As the head teacher of a 200 place primary, I was all too aware of how new responsibilities were constantly piling on to head teachers. The health and safety list, for example, was getting longer and longer and more and more things were bypassing the local authority, coming straight to schools and increasing the workload.
“It became obvious that there had to be a better way of working. By sharing work between schools we could make the running of the schools simpler and better.
“It means we don’t have to repeat things endlessly. For example, special needs support. You would usually have one person per school trying to stay across this, often the head teacher. Now in the federation one person can take the strategic lead on this to support parents and children. It streamlines all of these processes.”
The idea is to give more time for teachers to teach and children to learn, to stop the schools becoming bogged down with bureaucracy. A business manager across the federation keeps the mounds of paperwork at bay, and Michael has a strategic leadership role, working through the heads of teaching and learning in each of the three schools.
At his side for these early days in the life of the federation has been Dave Strudwick, formerly the head teacher of Blackawton Primary School and Michael’s co-executive for the first months, in a part time capacity. Now Dave is moving on and from Easter, Michael will be at the controls.
“I have been so grateful to have Dave alongside and it has been great to have his support from the start, because this is a challenge. But this continuity of leadership is one of the benefits of the federation.”
Dashing between the schools seems hectic, but as much as possible Michael tries to spend whole days in each place. He said: “It is very different from being the head teacher of one school, mainly because as a head you need to build strong relationships with your children, parents, teachers and staff. In this job there is not the time for those depths of relationship and I have had to learn to leave that to the heads of teaching and learning.
“But I am a teacher and I want to stay connected with people – that’s always been my approach, so I still go into the classrooms. It’s important to get the feel of all three schools. I’m seeing lots of good practice across all three schools, lots of things we can share.”
Each village is hugely supportive of its school and desperate to keep it at the heart of community life. Parents have backed the federation as a way of ensuring that happens. After early concerns and the realisation that change was coming anyway, they’ve embraced these home grown plans and are talking about ways they can work together. Many had been worried that the characters of the schools would be altered, but Michael said that was never the plan.
“We have three very different schools, two in the Dartmouth learning community and one that looks to Kingsbridge, and one of the reasons for starting this was to keep three very different schools, not to make them all the same. Burger chain schools we are not! It is important to us to preserve each school’s uniqueness. In fact, our main aims are diversity, keeping schools within their community, and aspiration. We want to make sure every child and every member of staff has access to the best possible learning and development.”
The young Michael Rolls did not want to grow up to be a teacher – with two parents in the profession he was determined to do something different. His mother worked in a primary school and his father became a secondary school technical drawing teacher after working as a draughtsman for Browns Tractors. “He later changed again and trained to be a vicar – in fact he married us,” Michael explained.
Growing up around teaching and caring for others in his native Yorkshire brought about an inevitable change of heart and Michael studied for his BEd before becoming a PE trained primary teacher. Use of the outdoors in education remains important to him, and he is delighted that all three federation schools have good sports pitches and plenty of space outside – perfect for the development of exciting learning experiences for the children.
When not at school, Michael is outdoors as much as possible. He lives with his wife and two children at Buckfastleigh, where weekends are spent looking after horses, pigs and chickens. Holidays are spent walking the hills of Scotland or the Lake District, and it is important to Michael to have the moors on his doorstep, a landscape so similar to the area near Holmfirth where he grew up, and where his sister still lives.
There are plans to bring the children from the three schools together through sport, and via other channels such as working with gifted and talented pupils. Michael believes this will offer more to the children - greater capacity and expertise.
He said: “Schools have become ever more complicated and we are trying to simplify education again. I have always been a strong supporter of learning communities and collaboration between schools. This is the next step.”
And it seems the federation may not have stopped growing. Michael said Kingswear Primary School was keen to come on board with the Our School Federation, and he predicted a three pointed Dartmouth and Kingsbridge learning fellowship developing between Kingsbridge, Dartmouth Academy and the primary learning community.
“Other schools all over this area are now joining together and becoming federations. These are exciting times and it is so important to build these links. For me it is an emotional journey stepping back from what I’ve created, not being a hands on head and allowing others to take on what I have started, but I am in the privileged position of being able to build a strong leadership team for these three schools which will keep them alive, vibrant and central to their communities.”
First Published March 2011 By The Dart