Radical head bows out after 17 years

Y OU will enjoy interviewing Frank . . . That was what I was told as I left the office to meet the retiring head of Turton High School Media Arts College.

"He's a maverick; the kids love him. Some people think he is a bit mad, but it seems to work".

So I find myself sitting in Frank Vigon's understated office, staring at a man with wild hair and a wide parting who mockingly describes himself as "Krusty the Klown" (young people will understand the Simpsons' analogy; I didn't).

And I am about to ask him a really serious question!.

I want him to articulate his quite radical, laid-back philosophy towards teaching, and to convince me that it works, when there is a knock at the door and two Year 11 girls walk in.

They want some advice about their art work and an animated Frank breaks into song to illustrate his point.

Then he praises them profusely and brings a wide grin to their faces. They are glowing with a sense of achievement when they leave. My headteacher never sang to me.

My incisive question seems superfluous. But I ask it anyway.

"My philosophy? Well, I treat my pupils as maturing adults, which they are. I give them a lot of responsibility and I give them a high degree of respect, which they return."

He also gives them his mobile phone number and implores them to ring if they are in trouble. At any time.

"I have very high expectations of children but I also demonstrate to them that I appreciate their skills and their talents.

"I also believe in self-fulfilling prophecies. If you tell a child that they are good, and able, and talented, then they will be.

"If you tell a child that they are badly behaved and that they haven't got any ability, then that's how they will remain."

So he would agree, then, that my primary school teacher was misguided all those years ago to suggest that I would aspire to nothing better than emptying bins. "Yes, that was destructive and it was wrong."

Frank is a 59-year-old West Londoner from a Jewish family who describes himself as "gamekeeper turned poacher".

He hated school as a child and spent hours in bed, feigning illness and listening intently to the Home Service while "bunking off".

"School didn't excite me. I was a bright child who was under-achieving. I was wilful and disruptive."

He was "rescued" by a drama teacher called Peter Mitchell who recognised his latent talent, visited his mother and got him into the right sets and into the drama class. He describes the experience as being "like a door unlocking".

"Since then, I have spent my time trying to ensure that other children do not suffer my early years' experience.

"That is my way of repaying Peter Mitchell for what he did for me. I hope others will feel the same about me in years to come."

Of course, it is easier to empathise, easier to be "cool" in teenage company, when you can drop into the conversation that one of your sons manages The Streets and another is an ex-Premier League footballer. It helps.

"My deputies say I am 13-and-a-half, going on 15 eventually. I think some of my staff find it extremely difficult and challenging working for me.

"Let's be clear; some do not like the way I run my school. And some politicians may think my system is a bit weak, a bit sloppy.

"But if you ask my pupils whether they enjoy coming to school a high percentage will say yes'. And do they like school as an institution? Yes they do.

"I don't teach subjects; I teach children. They are complicated and you need to know how they work, what makes them tick, what they like, what's interesting them and what kind of problems they have.

"I don't wave a magic wand. I speak their language. Somebody said that we are not social workers. Well, I am sorry, we are.

"Part of my job is to teach them survival skills. This is a very difficult world. They are far more threatened by our environment, by everything that surrounds them - drugs, sex, alcohol than we ever were."

And it is not just teaching that Frank has strong opinions about. Through the Bolton 400 pressure group, he is a passionate critic of school funding he says there is more money than ever now but too often it is not equitably distributed and he attacks the exam system, league tables and the National Curriculum.

And he will tell anyone who is in earshot and who he thinks can exert influence.

Turton High School has a £2 million media-arts centre and is continually over-subscribed.

That, and its better-than-average GCSE and A-level results, allows Frank the luxury of not having to consider whether it would be judicious to change tack, or be more diplomatic.

"Kids have changed but I don't think they have got more difficult or more badly behaved," he said. "They have got less deferential, but then so has the whole of society."

After 17 years in charge he well be succeeded at the end of August by his deputy, John Porteous, whose son does not manage a band but whose educational thinking is very much in tune with Frank's. And that is very good news for the 1,700 pupils at Turton.