Gerard Lonergan, Gateacre School

Headteacher Gerard Lonergan has a background in the arts. He briefly worked as the manager of a private art gallery before turning to teaching 27 years ago. Almost immediately he discovered life in the classroom to be his true vocation, but he still maintains that the arts are an essential part of the educational realm.

“I’ve always felt that it was very important for all students to have a rich exposure to artistic experiences. If you don’t get that through your home background, I think it’s very important that school helps you access those things,” says Gerard. As such, he ensures that the school makes regular trips to concerts, exhibitions and the theatre.

This stance helps to build upon Gerard’s visions for the school as headteacher. He firmly believes that whilst exams are important, they are not the be all and end all. “The end point is what you do with it,” he says. In order to develop well-rounded individuals, it is essential to understand education as more than just a theoretical exercise.

“For many students, they learn practical skills and applications of their education by taking part in other projects.”

One way in which Gerard is encouraging this, is through extra curricular activities. The school participates in a multitude of community projects and Gateacre School has been so proactive in this area, that they were the winners of the Educate Awards Community Partnership title in 2012.

“Gateacre School is in a community where a lot of people have challenging lives one way or another,” says Gerard. “It’s not an area of great wealth and it’s not terribly well supported with facilities by central government or by local planning; so the school is a very important focus in the community for helping a whole range of people access some of the more quality aspects of life.”

Through working with the community as a whole, he believes the benefits will filter down through families and have an impact on their children which in turn, will better prepare them for what he is trying to do in school. It is a rather large and ambitious vision, but the figures suggest it is having a positive impact.

Last year saw pupils leaving Gateacre with a rate of 47% achieving 5 A*-C grades including English and maths, and 71% achieving 5 A* – C grades overall. “The school has been on a gradual upward improvement strategy,” says Gerard. “We make sure that throughout the school, the quality of teaching is as high as it can be. We also make sure that in the lead up to exams, students are individually prepared through mentoring programs and additional activities over and above the teaching that they receive in lesson time.”

It is this personal mentoring that Gerard cites as one of the reasons for pupil’s success within the school. He believes achieving well is all about the relationships built by teachers.

Speaking about his primary goals upon coming to the school he says: “My first objectives were making sure that all the relationships within the school were based on complete respect for each other, no matter what their age, no matter what their background. Once you achieve that, then all the learning aims you want flow much more easily.”

It is no surprise then, that Ofsted described the students as: “invariably courteous and polite, contributing to a safe, welcoming and harmonious community”.

It’s a solid theory. All to often it seems, children from poorer backgrounds with low aspirations are not nurtured and encouraged as properly as they should be. The outdated idea that money breeds intelligence is a major problem in some of the less affluent areas of the country.  It can lead to a sense of acceptance in children that they are not destined to be great because they were not born great.

The values Gerard brings to the school are based on re-enforcing the notion that everyone deserves a rich education, no matter what their background. “It’s all about opening doors for students, giving them opportunities that they themselves would never have imagined they could access,” says Gerard. He illustrates with the example of a pupil who left Gateacre School for Cambridge university last year.

“She is a student that comes from one of the local estates. All of the stereotypes would normally suggest that people like her don’t achieve the highest outcomes. Well, she is just proof that you can no matter what your background, if you’re actually prepared to do the right things,” he says. “The relationship we built made her realise that it was a possibility for her.

“If you work hard you can do anything, go anywhere and nothing is out of your reach”.