Heads & Tales - James Dahl
Who have your mentors been?
The remarkable Anthony Seldon is certainly one, he’s been a huge inspiration and guide. He’s been a north star for me. My other mentor, Andrew Trotman has also been deeply kind to me as part of the HMC mentorship program we all have. Relationships between heads became closer and closer during COVID and now I regularly reach out to 6 or so heads for advice. That community and collegiate spirit is one of the great things to have emerged from the pandemic.
Is being a head teacher lonely?
It is what you make of it. You’re a master of your own fate and it was challenging moving up at Wellington from being one of the senior team and then becoming head. My relationship with peers and friends became my direct reports but if you get the relationships right it can be great and so I don’t feel lonely. That said, I know not everybody feels like that.
What is distinctive about your culture at the school?
I’ve inherited a school with great ambition and aspiration. We’re deeply values driven and that sits all across the school. It’s a school with a global outlook where everything is possible. We’re forward thinking and modern. I’m trying to add value in equity and inclusion, for example moving the balance of boys: girls from 60: 40 to 50:50. We’ve also appointed our first Director of EDI, 18 months ago whose work informs everything we do across the school.
Authenticity and humility are really important to me as a leader, and I want every pupil to experience the authentic Wellington. We’re also having a ‘Wellbeing 2.0’ conversation and we’re talking about what our 10-year wellbeing strategy looks like.
How has the assessment at Wellington changed?
We’re an academic school and we have an ambitious curriculum. Ability, talent, potential is spread across all facets of us. As a uniquely big and busy school, there must be a place for a diverse character type. We love children who are curious but that comes in all shapes and sizes. Diversity of character type is a key focus for us.
What does Wellington do as regards character education?
Our work is influenced by the Jubilee Centre at Birmingham and is influenced by key virtues too. There are many different types of virtues from civic to moral. We have a deputy head in charge of delivering character education and they work across the school to support its integration. We’re also trying to find ‘teachable character moments’. That might be on a sports pitch and being explicit about the strength of teamwork or by having a failure wall in one of our boarding houses.
What is one failure you’ve had from your teaching career?
My first 13 weeks as a teacher were a total failure! I got everything wrong. In my very first lesson, a boy asked me ‘Are you related to Roald Dahl?’ and I completely lied saying I was related to him and his family and that James and the Giant Peach had been written about me...
Two days later I was walking through the school and Anthony (the headteacher) pulled me over to introduce me to the parents of the boy who had asked me the question.
They exclaimed: “We can’t believe you’re teaching our son Latin and you’re Roald Dahl’s grandson! We used to live next door to Roald in Great Missenden. Did we meet you at his funeral?”
I was so embarrassed in front of these parents and my headteacher on just my third day of teaching and I had to fess up straightaway.... It really taught me the value of being honest and authentic.
Alongside Bedales, Latymer has now announced it will stop assessing students in GCSEs except for Maths and English. What’s your perspective on the debate?
We’ve done a big curriculum review for Years 9-11 and we considered ditching GCSEs and teaching our own courses. We approached this from a curiosity perspective in that we wanted students to become more curious. Although we’re keeping most of the GCSEs, we’ve taken the approach of rewriting our Year 9 program of study and we’re also creating non-examined courses alongside GCSEs which should inspire and develop curiosity in pupils. We’ve also created multi-disciplinary courses led by different teachers that are not examined but should prepare young people better for sixth form and university entry. To create space for that we’ve lost 1 GCSE (10 down to 9).
Nevertheless, I totally back the decision for other schools to have an independent curriculum. I know people have been particularly outspoken about the independent sector but it's our strength that private schools can pioneer and innovate to help shape the educational landscape of the future.
How do you see the next 5-10 years of the independent sector?
I hope private schools will continue to play an important role in the landscape. I am regretful that there will be some school closures and there will be significant consolidation of schools. I am heartened by Keir Starmer’s comments about the role of the sector and hope that we can continue to be a vibrant, pioneering provider of education. Moreover, we are deeply committed at Wellington to widening access from students with different backgrounds. We will double down on those partnerships and commitments. For schools where the margins are smaller, this might be squeezed. There will be many unforeseen consequences as the result of regulatory change.