Section:GDN 1N PaGe:30 Edition Date:190827 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 23/8/2019 15:51 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Tuesday 27 August 2019
30
EducationH
e’s the most popular
educator on UK
Twitter, with more
than 200,000
followers. His blog
tops a staggering
10 million readers and he’s one of
the 500 most infl uential people in
Britain, according to De brett’s. He
has also written three best selling
books on teaching and is about to
publish a fourth.
Ross Morrison McGill, a former
deputy headteacher, is an education
entrepreneur but he is no Lord
Sugar. He is not motivated by
the profi t margin but by a love ofteaching and frustration at the way
schools are being treated, especially
by the organisation he will refer to
only as the Grim Reaper in his latest
book. “I fi rmly believe that Ofsted –
the Grim Reaper – can and does end
the careers of senior leaders. It has
happened to me twice,” he explains.
His mission is to inspire teachers
and senior leaders to take things
into their own hands, helping them
to use the fi ndings of research and
best practice to do what they believe
is best for their pupils. He wants
to equip them to challenge policy -
makers when they get it wrong. He
knows it is hard to do, but he wants
schools to free themselves from
the straitjacket of accountability
measures that he views as toxic and
against the interests of children,
especially those from tough and
disadvantaged backgrounds.
This modern-day “edupreneur”
speaks in fl at northern tones and
has an endearing habit of fondling
his chin, like a puzzled professor.
He doesn’t boast or dissemble andmakes you feel that what you see
is what you get, unusual in today’s
highly politicised public arena with
its emphasis on presentation and
media training.
He’s grateful that, at the age of
45, after losing his job twice – fi rst
through taking redundancy and
then through resignation after
what he claims was “an unfair and
inaccurate” Ofsted report – he is now
able to make as much as he earned as
a deputy head through his website,
Teachertoolkit.co.uk, and his books,
teacher training and speeches.
McGill had an unusual upbringing
that he says infl uenced his decision
to work in schools serving areas
where children are most likely to
be disadvantaged. Both his parents
worked in social services for the
Salvation Army and the family
moved frequently, living in facilities
for young off enders, drug addicts,
homeless people and those suff ering
from mental illnesses. He started
school in Scotland and ended up in
Blackpool via Newcastle upon Tyne
and Tonypandy in the Welsh valleys.
Last year he surprised his many
followers when he disclosed that he
had stayed silent for 32 years about
the sexual abuse he suff ered as a
13-year-old. “It took me through my
teenage years to realise that what
happened wasn’t normal. When
you are sexually abused it takes
you a long time to process what has
happened,” he says.
At university and through his
20s and 30s he blurred it out but it
would come up again, usually in the
summer vacation. Recently, as his
travels increased, he has had more
time to think about the past. “I’d
be on the road and hear something
on the radio and it would bring it
up and I might shed a little tear
but I didn’t want to tell my motherInterview
Is this Britain’s
most infl uential
teaching guru?
Ross Morrison McGill earns as much
from his blogg ing, speeches and books
as he did as a deputy head
PHOTOGRAPH: SARAH LEE/THE GUARDIANbecause I didn’t want her to feel at all
responsible.
“I wrote letters to my mother
and never posted them. But I’ve got
older and wiser and my mum is 74 –
my dad died suddenly of septicemia
at the age of 62 – and when I heard
other people, footballers, speaking
out about being abused in their
youth it gave me confi dence. In
February last year I reported it to the
police and then told my mother and
she was very supportive. I had built
it up too much,” he recalls.
The disclosure in a blogpost on
his site raised awareness about male
sexual abuse and he continues to
wear the green #WeSeeYou badge
in support of the campaign to break
the stigma of male sexual abuse.
More than 100 people got in touch
with him with their stories and many
more to thank him for highlighting
the importance of safeguarding
procedures to help teachers support
vulnerable children.
McGill lives in north London with
his wife, also a teacher, who has
given up her job to help with the
website, and their eight-year-old
son. He travels to schools across
the UK and abroad collecting
knowledge about what works and
analysing research , especially the
latest neurological fi ndings on how
the brain accumulates and retainsinformation. “I’ve just come back
from China this week and now
I’m off to Switzerland because
I’m starting to work with schools
internationally, which is giving me a
global perspective,” he says.
His new book, Just Great
Teaching , due out next week,
includes 50 practical ideas for
tackling the key issues teachers
face, such as workload, marking and
assessment, planning, behaviour,
teacher wellbeing and student
mental health.
It was 10 years ago, as a design and
technology teacher, that he started
blogging as Teacher Toolkit, off ering
tips and advice. He spoke up for the
profession and highlighted injustice
and harmful initiatives.
In 2015, he was named as the
“most followed” teacher on Twitter
as @TeacherToolkit. That year
he made the Times list of 500
most infl uential people in Britain,
organised by De brett’s, the only
state school teacher on the list.I
n those days he worked
as a deputy head at
Quintin Kynaston, a
large comprehensive in
Westminster, London,
which he joined in 2014 after
Ofsted judged it to be in need of
improvement. When the inspectors
returned in 2017, however, they
decided things had got worse and
rated the school as inadequate. “It
was a school in a tough area doing
good things and we had already
achieved a lot in just over two years
but then fi ve inspectors came in,
walked around, talked to a few
people and then said ‘you are shit’,”
he says.
Ofsted used wrong data to
measure pupil progress, he claims.
He contends the objective was to fail
the school so it could be taken over
by a multi-academy trust (M at).
“It was a risk to leave my job and
a salary but my blog was already
making money so I thought, why
stay at the school when it is taken
over by a M at, and be bullied and
made to work 80 hours a week doing
things I don’t agree with?” he says.
But given that he was a senior
leader of a school declared
inadequate, is he qualifi ed to give
advice to others, I wonder? “I’ve
experienced at least nine Grim
Reaper inspections throughout my
career ,” he says without missing a
beat. “ I have always done the same
thing, regardless of the school I
was in, and yet I received all the
badges, from outstanding to special
measures.”
He argues that Ofsted fails to
recognise many of the social and
economic factors dominant outside
the gates that schools have very little
power to change.
Though he doesn’t rule out a
return to teaching one day , he is
enjoying life. And now he’s able to
reach thousands of teachers and
schools and highlight key issues ,
such as the chronic underfunding
of schools. “I’m on the side of the
underdog,” he says. “It’s in my
blood, and I hope I am making a
diff erence.”Blogger and ‘edupreneur’
Ross Morrison McGill
tells Liz Lightfoot about
his mission to inspire
teachers – and surviving
childhood sexual abuse‘I believe Ofsted – the
Grim Reaper – can
and does end the
careers of senior
leaders. It has
happened to me’RELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws