A change of direction …

Maggie fell foul of the tyrannical head of Crookhorn School but was headhunted by the former Crookhorn Deputy Head, Gladys West, who had taken over Portchester Community School and, in open competition with Cams Alders (the former Grammar), was eager to make it a beacon school for the less advantaged. Maggie joined the Science Department and found a very convivial atmosphere. I guess this was taken at one of the Portchester shows. You’d never guess she didn’t like being photographed, would you?!

However, here she is looking much more comfortable in the company of her new head of department at Portchester. She felt she should have got the job, but the failure propelled her into her real vocation. She moved into Learning Support, dealing with the less able but also the more able: the gifted.

And from there it was a natural progression to joining the Hampshire EOTAS (Education Other Than At School) service. She had responsibility for an area from Alresford in the East to Romsey in the West, and from Eastleigh in the North to Hamble in the South (Southampton was a Unitary authority and had its own service). The previous manager had been off sick for 18 months suffering from stress. Her management were grossly incompetent, the most senior having been appointed to head up this less than treasured service as a punishment for having failed in some other role. One of his typical behaviours was to ignore stuff in his in-tray for three months until he was chased and then to demand the necessary reports from his subordinates by the following day. There were no staff available to collate the information and few information systems to collate it from. Happily I was by then retired and had time to create some databases to assist with this, which were operated by her excellent secretary, Annette Bailey.

Most of the people in her team were willing and motivated to help the young people in their charge but badly in need of leadership. And also of direction: they saw themselves more as carers than educators. Maggie saw her role as empowering the excluded to return to mainstream. This did not endear her to head teachers who were (are?) incentivised by exam results and wanting to shed any perceived ‘losers’. Rather than providing support, her own management sought to inhibit her approach and threatened disciplinary action.

Then the government decided that excluded children should not be deprived of education – astonishing, hooray! But that was it. Local authorities had to decide how this was to be achieved and, more importantly, funded. I am not aware of any additional resources provided. As usual the Hampshire management made no preparations until they were menaced by failure to comply. Maggie’s rag-tag assortment of buildings were fully occupied in providing one day a week: in theory she now needed 5 times the space. Eventually the county decided that the recently closed Tankerville School could be used. This was a ‘special’ school for the profoundly disabled (sluice rooms attached to every every classroom, hoists for lifting pupils, etc.. It had been under threat of closure for 10 years and was severely dilapidated. Torn carpets in every room, ceilings blackened by the oil heaters, etc..

When she visited the school she found the caretaker on site although he had been made redundant the previous Friday – as had the admin. staff and cleaners. He was only there because he was conscientiously distributing his remaining supplies amongst other schools in the area. This tells you something about the man – and the rest of the support staff were equally inspiring. Having been contacted (by the caretaker!) they all returned to work despite the HR department insisting that they could not be re-employed. Eventually, Maggie prevailed and they were wonderful.

No money was available for maintenance, she was told. Again my availability enabled us to do some basic decoration (at our expense). We figured that first impressions were important and giving the staff an upbeat message was vital. So I cleaned and painted the foyer, the admin. offices and the staff room. While I was working I found people using the site as a car park, including one of the governors of the previous school. All of them testified to the commitment and care provided by the staff there. A good tradition to uphold.