Conductor gives heads a lesson

HEADTEACHERS are not often told to move out of the back row. Nor do they expect to be taught how to sing "Happy Birthday".

But it happened yesterday when Ben Zander addressed 600 new headteachers at a conference in London organised by the Department for Education.

Mr Zander, musical director of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and renowned for his lectures on leadership to captains of industry in America, used Chopin and Beethoven to draw parallels between conducting and headship.

First he refused to start his talk until a rather sheepish group of heads had moved from the back to the empty front row. How could they lead the nation's children from the back row?

Then, as if he were taking five-year-olds for assembly, he asked: "Now who has a birthday soon?" Reluctantly, one head came forward and her colleagues were told that their first attempt at "Happy Birthday" was not good enough. Three attempts later, they were all on their feet singing enthusiastically and waving their arms.

Mr Zander objects to "neck-up" people who stay behind desks shuffling papers and do not know how to use their hands. His talk was about emphasising possibilities. "When you walked into the room you thought there was only one way of singing `Happy Birthday'. Now you have discovered there are an infinite number of ways."

Earlier the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, announced pounds 10m for a new National College of School Leadership and warned that bad heads should be sacked. "Headteachers who turn schools round or lead good schools to greater achievements deserve better recognition and better salaries and we will not be afraid to say so. But nor will we be afraid to say that those who are not up to the challenge ought not to be in the job."