Born in Glasgow, after working in Scotland and the USA Marie Stubbs moved to England and the Headship of a school, which she took to Beacon Status.
For several years she was a Member of the RSA Council and on the Board of the Teacher Training Agency.
Lady Marie Stubbs said she was delighted to be here for ‘From Vision to Action’. She said it was the first conference where she had to put extra new pants and socks into her conference bag! She spoke on radio Newcastle this morning on behalf of Soroptimist International.
Lady Marie has had a career that spans over 40 years including working with vulnerable young women. Her work at St George’s school encompasses all the values that Pat Black declares in her vision.
The relationship between teacher and student has always been the hallmark of successful education. Woody Allen speaks of going to a school for ’emotionally disturbed teachers’. She invited delegates to conjure up school memories and think of one teacher who influenced their future: ‘my best teacher’. She then asked three delegates to share those memories:
- Head teacher who supported education and pastoral needs too
- Teacher who encouraged at a moment of crisis – ‘start again’
- Mr Whitfield, geography teacher. This is your world and you can go anywhere in it.
In St George’s, the children were never going to have the support required after the death of Philip Lawrence, their charismatic head teacher who was murdered. The school was surrounded by press and officers. Many people had tried to turn the school round but they had found it very dispiriting.
Two clips from the film were shown where at the start, the school was chaotic. A year later, a clip about students ‘conforming’ although students commented that it was ‘boring’ as the fights had stopped because of ‘her’!
So, where do you start to get rid of the shame and unhappiness? Lady Marie believed that 99% of children want to learn. Even the 1% have additional difficulties. Underneath the hard exterior, she looked for the learner inside; children need to see life as a positive experience.
All organisations are trying to turn vision into action. Business calls it ‘turnaround’. When asked what her support system was by business executives she replied ‘gin and tonic’.
Mary Ward was a 16th century teacher of women and her motto was ‘women will do much’. Her legacy are centres that work with vulnerable women worldwide.
Lady Marie had three recommendations to consider Dreams, Keys and Teeth:
Dreams – What is a good school? Why are you here?
Keys – Strategies to deliver the promises
Teeth – Beware the cynicism of the world.
What do you want to be like, what would your mum like? In her first days at school, she shook the hand of every child in the school with a positive affirmation about them – ‘I want to be part of your dreams’ – the steel strength of personal communication. The children were given a voice and an improvement in the environment. School is the aggregate of what happens in every work space.
Within three months or so, there was consensus about how the school should be; they had seventeen targets from Ofsted. It could have been very dreary, so she had always brought heroes and heroines into the school community to inspire children to say ‘I can do that!’ Frank Bruno presented prizes for English and said to every child who received on, “Wicked!”. Kevin Keegan opened a new playground; the Chinese Ambassador came, a rugby coach from Harrow school. Paula, an international florist was surprisingly inspiring. Cherie Booth came, so did Ralph Fiennes and the Globe Theatre team. These people attended and were motivational. These were the keys.
If you want to change something in a child, you should first look clearly about what you should change in yourself.
There are always staff who can be called ‘stones’ who, however hard you try to water them, will always sink. The best thing is to use any legal method to move to somebody else’s rockery!
At the end of the year, a light was put into the eye of those children and the school continues to flourish.
Report by Dishi Attwood – SI Midland Chase Region
After working in Scotland and the USA Marie Stubbs moved to England and the Headship of a school, which she took to Beacon Status. For several years she was a Member of the RSA Council and on the Board of the Teacher Training Agency.
Lady Stubbs is an expert on transformational leadership, having turned around the St George’s Roman Catholic Secondary School, the establishment made unwillingly famous in 1995 by the tragic murder of headmaster Philip Lawrence. After the tragedy, standards plummeted and in 2000 it faced permanent closure. Lady Stubbs guided the school from being blacklisted by Ofsted into a nationally revered institution in little over a year.
Marie Stubbs created an environment where children felt valued, school buildings were rejuvenated, playground facilities improved and breakfast and after school clubs arranged. Her book Ahead of the Class and the TV film of the same name, starring Julie Walters as Marie, won her national acclaim.
Lady Marie has a heart-warming no nonsense attitude to leadership and leads by example.