ASCL General Secretary Geoff Barton's keynote address to ASCL Annual Conference on Saturday 9 March 2024.
A hundred and fifty years ago this year – back in September 1874 – a quietly spoken, quietly determined headmistress wrote a letter to a friend. The time had come, said Frances Mary Buss, “to form an Association of Head Mistresses, and to hold occasional conferences, in order to know what we ought to assert and what to surrender.”
And so was born the Association of Headmistresses which – followed later by the Headmasters Association, and then the Secondary Headteachers Association – became the foundations for who we are today, the Association of School and College Leaders.
This is our story. By which I mean, of course, your story.
It’s a reminder that leaders, in all their guises, in all their roles, all through the years, have had to decide just that – what and when to assert; what and when to surrender.
And so was born the Association of Headmistresses which – followed later by the Headmasters Association, and then the Secondary Headteachers Association – became the foundations for who we are today, the Association of School and College Leaders.
This is our story. By which I mean, of course, your story.
It’s a reminder that leaders, in all their guises, in all their roles, all through the years, have had to decide just that – what and when to assert; what and when to surrender.
