Ahead Of The Class by Marie Stubbs
John Murray $238
When Marie Stubbs dragged herself out of retirement in March 2000 to answer the call to head St George's Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale, London, many people thought she had lost her mind. She would hardly have disagreed. Five years earlier the school was thrust into the world's media spotlight after principal Philip Lawrence was murdered outside the school gates while trying to break up a fight between two pupils. Threatened with closure by the government the school descended into chaos and was placed under special measures.
Only someone as determined and focused as Stubbs could have seen the potential for redemption. Disengaged pupils with low self-esteem were treating the school like a glorified youth club and staff morale was at rock bottom.
Stubbs was worried but undaunted. Her religious convictions reinforced her educational vision and she set about her task with a single-minded fury that had the BBC compare her to Margaret Thatcher. The four terms she was given to perform a miracle might have seemed like a death sentence, but Stubbs had seen hard times before and was not someone to let a challenge pass. She recruited two former and equally determined colleagues, Sean Devlin and Tracey O'Leary, as deputies who shared her anger that the pupils of St George's had been betrayed by a combination of social, educational and political factors beyond their control which threatened to rob them of the right to a decent education.
Her first priority was to engage the pupils. Most hailed from disadvantaged backgrounds and many were immigrants in a country whose language they could barely understand. She started by shaking each hand in assembly and initial cynicism soon turned to muted enthusiasm as students realised this slightly strange lady really cared for them.