Every child deserves an ice-cream. It’s a strange opening remark from a primary headteacher, but then Chris Dyson is an unusual man, a big-hearted softie with a daft sense of fun – at least, that’s how pupils describe him.
He calls himself “loud and over the top” but his exuberant nature masks a serious mission to transform the life chances of children at Parklands, the Leeds primary he took over nine years ago. At the time, children at the school on the sprawling Seacroft estate were running riot on the roof and the isolation cubicles were overflowing. Now the classes are orderly, the doors are open and his pupils get some of the best primary maths scores in the country.
