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The best job bar none
After two decades in the hot seat, Pat Langham is retiring as headteacher of Wakefield Girls' High School. Grant Woodward reports
EVERY Christmas and every summer, Pat Langham makes a point of standing at the corner of the street outside Wakefield Girls' High School to wave goodbye to each and every one of her pupils.
Next week she will be there again – only this time she says she will come armed with some heavy-duty waterproof mascara.
"I've not counted down the days as such but time has speeded up beyond belief," she says, as she prepares to retire after 22 years as headmistress.
"I have no regrets about the decision but my emotions are running high. But I think the school is ready for a change and a new direction and so am I."
A golf trolley sits in her grand office at the front of the Wentworth Street school, a gift from grateful colleagues that signals that her future now lies partly on the fairways.
"I've joined a golf club!" she ann-ounces with trademark gusto when I ask her about it. "I've already parred the 14th and 15th. I'm hooked!
"I'm really sad to leave because this is my life," she adds. "I'm here all the time. But if you did the absolute best you could and you've no regrets then I think it's a good ending."
Even so, I can't help but notice the tears that well in her eyes as she proceeds to read aloud some of the good luck messages from pupils past and present.
Pat Langham's parents must have had an inkling from very early on that their daughter was born to teach.
As a child in Carlisle she watched the local junior school being built and promptly began giving lessons to her fellow toddlers from a makeshift classroom set up on her doorstep.
"I had my own blackboard and even used to give them homework," she laughs. "I think for me teaching was a vocation. It was all I ever wanted to do. But I never wanted to be a headteacher, I only wanted to teach."
Nevertheless, after stints at various comprehensives, including Brigshaw High in Allerton Bywater and a spell as deputy head of Woodkirk High School in Tingley, she was appointed head of Wakefield Girls' High School at the age of 35.
Given her relatively young age, she thinks it was a brave decision by the governors, but it's easy to see why they were so taken with this bubbly, passionate woman who possessed such an obvious zeal for the job.
"I went to a school like this so it was like coming home," says the 58-year-old.
"It's the best job in the world bar none and I enjoy the girls' company. They're not my friends, they're my pupils and I'm their head. But it doesn't mean you can't be a friendly head.
"I like them, I like working with them and I like being part of their lives."
Such is her loyalty that, when a local radio station asked listeners to call in with gossip on The Apprentice contestant and former pupil Claire Young, she was straight on the blower saying she was ready to spill the beans.
"They put me on air and I proceeded to tell them what a smashing girl she was. Well, the editing of her on that show was deliberate," she bristles. "Then they switched it three-quarters of the way through to show her as the lovely girl she is."
Pat believes wholeheartedly in the value of single-sex education. She says exam results bear her out. But that doesn't mean she keeps her girls cloistered from the boys across the road at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, even if sometimes the ties between the two schools are a little closer than she would like.
"You can see them on that corner," she says, jabbing a finger at the pavement outside her window. "I yell at them, 'Put him down'. Either that or I just go out and get them."
As well as receiving a lifetime achievement award at this year's Yorkshire Women of Achievement, Pat was also made a CBE for services to education, particularly her work pioneering partnerships with Wakefield's state schools, in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.
One of her favourite lines – and she has a few – is that you can always tell a Wakefield High School girl, you just can't tell her much.
"They're feisty, independent young women. We breed them like that and then you've got to cope with them.
"If I've made any difference to any girl's life then I see that as an achievement.
"A girl who left with higher expectations than she started with, who by the time she left felt able to go out and get what she wanted.
"My goal was to make them aspirational, whether it be higher education, career, marriage, motherhood or all four.
"If they choose to be a good wife and mother that's great and if they choose to run a multi-national or become a fighter pilot that's good too. We just want them to have choices.
"I've made a lot of comments about Wags," she continues, warming to her theme. "But what I'm commenting about is women who seek fame just because of why they are with, not because of what they themselves have achieved.
"There's nothing wrong with wanting a pair of Jimmy Choos or a lovely handbag or nice clothes or a wonderful lifestyle. Everybody can aspire to that.
"But I want the girls to earn it. I want them to own it. I want them to have achieved it themselves. I don't want them to sell themselves short.
"We talk about competing or cooperating as the occasion demands and we teach them that they're not better than anybody else, but they're as good as anybody else.
"But I don't like arrogance," she adds quickly. "I can't be doing with that."
Now she is looking forward to spending time with her husband Nev, who she says has been a tower of strength over the years, her garden and the golf course.
She will also do some management consultancy work and step up her public speaking.
"It's common practice for heads not to come back and that will be the hardest thing of all. I suspect I might drive slowly past when no-one's looking."
Just before I leave, Pat shows me the hardback book she has received as one of her leaving presents. It's filled with photos and memories from her 22 years, along with reminiscences and tributes from former pupils.
She reads out the message from Claire Young, who writes that when she was going into battle in The Apprentice final she found herself thinking: What would Mrs Langham do?
"I can remember being in assembly when I was 11 or 12 and Mrs Langham gave us a fantastic talk about trying," Pat reads.
"I specifically remember her telling us that if things go wrong you maintain your dignity, you hold your head up high and you just carry on.
"Moments before I went on to present in the final of The
Apprentice I felt sick with nerves. Mrs Langham popped into my head and I wondered what she would do in that situation.
"She would stand up tall, click her stilettos together, take a deep breath, smile and get on with it. So that's exactly what I did."
And with that Pat Langham shuts the book and sits back in her chair, wearing the satisfied smile of a job well done.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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