I am writing to confirm my wish to resign as the headteacher of Almost Anywhere Comprehensive School.

As I explain to governors, parents, inspectors and anyone else interested, I am proud of the role that I have played in this school, firstly, as head of English and, later, as deputy head and headteacher.

In many ways, I feel I achieved more in the first two jobs than in the second. When I took over the reins of the English department there was a sense of change in the air and some optimism about the future. I drew up a curriculum document and, with my colleagues, I developed schemes of work which I knew would interest pupils and advance their learning. I found out that I was good at supporting pupils’ learning and working with my colleagues to develop our department. We designed our own examinations and helped in their assessment. We supported one another. Much of what I learned at this time, I was able to put to good use when I became a deputy headteacher. I found out that I was good at dealing with the issues and communicating with my teaching colleagues.

However, as headteacher I have discovered that I am less good at handling the current mountains of bureaucracy and paperwork, less good at coping with performance management and even worse at easing my staff through the stresses and strains of an OFSTED inspection as if it is an educationally valid procedure.

I have found that I am not very good at all at giving thoroughly naughty children their rights when these include reducing my staff to nervous breakdowns and having to fight the governors, the local education authority and the independent panel to do what I think is necessary to maintain good order in my school.

I do not seem to be very good at target setting either. Last year, the AS results went up way beyond what we had expected, this year they went down. At key stage three, we did everything that the new frameworks asked us to do and the results stayed the same. It was our considered opinion that the pupils were doing better but the results showed that they were not. We had to ask ourselves what we were doing wrong?

You have been kind enough to say that you wanted me to stay on. And on, and on. Many of my peers took early retirement on advantageous terms several years ago but I felt that I still had something to give. Perhaps that indicates a failing where strategic management is concerned! The new consortium that has taken over many of the powers of the local education authority seems to think that and my school has certainly had trouble in implementing the three different plans we have received as part of the new strategy. It has been particularly hard to keep up when we have such chronic staff shortages and, perhaps, that is another reason why I have not been as effective as I should have been.

I am not good at dealing with the modern media. I try hard but it sticks in my throat to have to try and score points off our neighbouring schools or make up stories. When the local paper made a fuss about the installation of the new lift for one of our disabled pupils, I know that I should have issued a press statement saying how few disabled pupils we had and implying that our typical pupils were much more clever than that. That was the advice from the area adviser and it was my decision to ignore it although I know that it has influenced the number of parents who now make us their first choice.

I want to thank you personally for giving me the chance to work in schools under new Labour. It was not your fault that your policies had to be designed to please readers of right-wing newspapers in the southeast although it did make them hard to follow in our little backwater. However, we fell into line. We put our pupils through more GCSE examinations and introduced optional tests and then tried hard to not wonder whether there was a link between that and increasing levels of truancy and poor behaviour. I also understand why you had to keep OFSTED, even if seeing some of my best staff in tears was not the best of experiences. And, I am sure – although it escapes me at the moment - that there was a good reason for introducing threshold payments.

Finally, I believe passionately in what you're trying to achieve in improving the lot of ordinary classroom teachers. I look forward to the day when my staff have sufficient time to prepare their lessons properly and to reflect professionally on their work. I am sure that those who claim that one set of demands will simply be replaced by another are in the wrong.

Unlike some others, I do not expect to return to a similar role but I suppose that, if the worst comes to the worst, I can always mark examination papers. I suppose I should thank you for the increasing number of vacancies in that area as well.

Best wishes,