"Living for the Greater Good"

Most headteachers take work home with them, but few do so quite as completely as Sandra Yardon-Pinder.

Her life has become so completely intertwined with that of Geoffrey Chaucer Technology College that when the parents of three pupils retuned to Hong Kong, she opened up her own home to the children.

“I was their headteacher, and they had nowhere to go,” the 49 year old said. “I responded as a person, not as a head.”

Such long-term emotional investments reaped big rewards: the three produced some of the best exam results the London school has yet seen. Two of them have since progressed to university.

The level of commitment and personal dedication to the school of both staff and pupils is impressive.

Christine Prentice, deputy chief executive of the Technology Colleges Trust, said: “She is more or less living and breathing the job. At the end of the day, she takes responsibility.”

Ms Yardon-Pinder became head of the Southwark-based comprehensive in 1994. It had failed an Office for Standards in Education inspection and had been placed in special measures. Its 500 pupils included refugees from war zones in eastern Europe, Africa and south east Asia, many of whom spoke little English.

“It is not that we were failing the children. They had already been failed before they arrived,” Ms Yardon-Pinder said. “At least 80 per cent of our Year 7 intake had a reading age of seven or eight.”

She piloted out-of-hours extra learning programmes, cajoling staff into giving up three hours of their weekends or evenings for the two hours’ pay she could afford to give them. At the beginning of every year, she gives each new pupil a black-eyed bean. “I tell them that if a dried up bean has the potential to become a forest, think what they can do if they are prepared to work at it.”

And Ms Yardon-Pinder directs this approach towards the entire school. “My greatest disappointment would be if a member of staff did not do something because they thought they would not get support. If it is for the greater food, just do it,” she said.

Three years after she was appointed head, the school came out of special measures and in 2001 reopened as a technology college. Today, pupils are eager to learn: evening and Saturday classes are oversubscribed. Students of all abilities volunteer to study for early entry GCSE. Last year 5 16 year olds each left with more that 15 A* -C grade GCSE equivalents.

For Ms Yardon-Pinder, though the challenges continue. The school roll has almost doubled since 1994, and she feels her achievements are restricted by her environment.

She has applied for a grant to fund new school premises, and envisages a new complex including subsidised accommodation for staff.

Her ultimate focus, though, remains the pupils; “Every young person here has the opportunity to achieve, to outperform their previous best. That is what our college is about, making sure that you are better than your previous best.”

Times Educational Supplement  4 October 2002