More Money Spent on Head's Ego

If you had read the Ham and High Education section last Thursday or Friday, you would have seen that the Head, Jaques Szemalikowski, had been nominated as an Achievement for All Ambassador, along with another few Heads of other schools. We decided that we would find out what this new emblem at the base of our planner meant

Achievement for All is a charity scheme that involves enhancing students who are less susceptible to learning, or lack concentration in the classroom, by implementing listening exercises and rules that allow students to avoid distractions in a calm way. What angered us firstly about this was that it was not the Head who firstly initiated this scheme, but an amazing teacher and member of Achievement Support, who painstakingly developed the concept. This person (and we won't say who) has been robbed of any glory for the years of work they put in by the Head, who is probably grinning at his photo in the papers and the lack of work he had to do to get there.

Now the Head may have put some work forward for this scheme, evidently not enough to warrant grabbing it off of fellow staff to quench his ego, but we strongly doubt it as he is almost always moving down hallways. Then we saw that the scheme that the Head is currently using to score media points (we're not keeping score, but he does seem to have an opinion on everything apart from his own school faults) and that the great staff have worked over in fact costs the school £17,250 plus an extra £4,320 for the suspected two-year continuation plan. These figures may be justifiable if the scheme actually shows good results for those it affects, but over twenty thousand pounds does seem a bit much to be spending on an ego boost and some column inches.

Finally, we read the Hampstead School AfA Case Study, and found that there should be a member of the SLT who is a 'listening champion' (despite the only thing the SLT being champion of is unbridled guilt). Firstly, we would like to know which member of the SLT is the 'listening champion', as we have yet to be told. and then for them, as a 'listening champion' to, and we'll say it again like all the other times we've said it, speak to us, at the Trash. Listen to the views of the student. Open a dialogue, either with us, or on the blog publicly, so people can hear the SLT side of the story, and not just ours. This blog was set up with the intention of being an open forum, where anyone can pass comment, and it would be a fulfillment of one of our larger goals if the Management sucked it up and listened, spoke and debated with students and parents on this blog.

Skeptic about that previous goal being met, we lastly would like to warn students, as the first week back of assemblies will surely be a five-hour documentary on the Head's self-worth.

DISCLAIMER: This Hampstead Trash article has been written to critique the actions of the governing bodies of the school. This is so student readers can hear both sides of the argument, and formulate their own opinions on matters pertaining to their education.