An experience that I wouldn’t have missed
Immanuel College headmaster Gary Griffin, who retires at the end of the month, reflects on his time at the school
IT BARELY seems like yesterday that I was appointed as headmaster at Immanuel College, its first ever non-Jewish head. However, the time has come for me to leave after many happy (and yet challenging) years.
My time at City of London School had prepared me well for headship and, although I began with a degree of trepidation, little did I know what I would be facing. Leading a school through an international pandemic had not been in the job description or the headteacher’s handbook. Here are some thoughts and observations on the past five years.
Firstly, I want to mention the extraordinary burden of headship — not just in Jewish schools and not just because of the pandemic (which has given all of us additional stress and strain). It is a job that dominates your life, 24 hours a day, six days a week (the Sabbath providing a welcome and very necessary respite from the constant bombardment of emails, texts, calls and these days, Teams and Zoom meetings).
On average, I receive 200 email messages a day, ranging from the very urgent and serious to the banal and frankly irrelevant. They all have to be read before they can be responded to, referred to someone else or dismissed as junk mail.
Of course, the constantly changing requirements of government during the Covid crisis has added to this pressure — from lateral flow testing to vaccination and from remote learning to Teacher Assessed Grades. Gavin Williamson’s involvement did not help either!
It is not surprising that so many heads are retiring and it is difficult to find replacements. For me, the time is right to go. I started teaching in 1981, so 2021 has a certain natural feel to it.
Secondly, I should refer to the growing demands of dealing with pastoral issues such as mental health concerns, the Everyone’s Invited initiative, the social media gossip and the constant communication of parents who frequently have unrealistic expectations of what schools can and should do.
The expansion of our pastoral provision at Immanuel, including pupil wellbeing advisors, school counsellors, learning support assistants, student surveys and the RSE (relationships and sex education) curriculum, has been necessary, welcome and well received.
I have great admiration for the staff who spend much of their day supporting students in these areas. It is a far cry from the start of my career, 40 years ago, when the only person who did this kind of work was the form tutor and then not very much.
Thirdly, the problem of staff recruitment has loomed large. There are clearly shortage subjects (maths, science, modern languages) but in a school such as mine we have struggled to recruit Jewish studies and Ivrit teachers. There are just not enough of them to go round.
At a recent PaJeS conference when it was mentioned that I was retiring, the head of a Jewish School in Manchester offered me the job of head of JS on the spot. It was a joke (I am neither qualified nor willing to move that far north) but it did highlight the dilemma.
I think Jewish schools particularly struggle to recruit staff as it is assumed you have to be Jewish to work in one. As I have indicated, this is not the case!
However, I also want to highlight some of the happy memories I will take with me as I return to South-West London in my dotage. The warmth and close-knit nature of the Jewish community must be at the top of my list. The way I have been accepted despite my Christian background — and included in the Immanuel family — has been heartwarming and much appreciated.
The support I have received from my wonderful colleagues, my fellow heads in PaJeS, and most of the parents, must come a close second. I could not have done the job without it.
My trip to Israel with year 9 deserves a mention. I felt very emotional as I enjoyed Friday night dinner followed by a (walking) visit to the old City of Jerusalem on Shabbat, including the singing and dancing in the square near the Kotel late at night. It was a special moment.
I have to refer to the Independent Schools Inspectorate visit in June 2019 (which found the college to be excellent in every category assessed) and the growing numbers of children who attend (now around 700). The reputation of Immanuel has grown and grown; I am pleased to be handing it over to the next generation of heads in such a healthy state and I wish everyone associated with the college all the best for the future.
It has been quite an experience and one I would not have missed for all the world.
A visit to the Old City of Jerusalem was a special moment’