Credit where it's due

Released 22/06/2009

Support your champions, says Suzannah Wright

Visiting schools on a sunny day is always a pleasure, particularly when you're visiting a school to celebrate their achievment in reducing energy use.

Oaklands School, in London, has cut energy use by 18 per cent in the last two years and was a fitting location for the launch of a Carbon Trust campaign urging other schools to do likewise.

A few journalists gathered to celebrate along with repersentatives from the Carbon Trust, Tower Hamlets and LA and of course the school itself. But this is where I began to get a little frustrated. For while the headteacher was rightly in centre stage, there was very little focus for the rest of the school team which enabled the impressive savings. While the school's site manager was on hand to show journalists around the school (though all but me left before the tour began), there was very little recognition that actually it was his work, and his team, which had made most of the savings.

It was even acknowledged during the Q&A session that headteachers don't really have the time to implement all of these initiatives, and need a good team behind them to do so. And yet, that team was given no mention in the press release, and only passing acknowledgement on the day.

I'm sure that the site team at Oaklands are well acknowledged and supported within the school itself, for no school can achieve those kind of savings without a well functioning team ethic. So why isn't that internal support translated into external praise? When will press offices and media bodies recognise that headteachers aren't the only leaders in schools? I'm not suggesting that SBMs, site managers or HR managers should become default spokespeople for schools, but if the event is focusing on the business, premises or non-curriculum side of a school, isn;t it right that the appropriate leaders at least have some chance to speak?

Lest this seems a negative comment on Oaklands itself, I wanted to finish with an great idea gleaned from the site tour I enjoyed. Bursting at the seams, as so many schools are, Oaklands has begun renting space from a neighbouring Quaker hall, turning the basement into a gym and arts complex. It creates a wonderful 'campus' atmosphere to have the school spread out over a few buildings, and is an innovative and practical solution to space issues.

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