This was published 5 years ago
Mark and Briony Scott: on a learning curve - just don’t mention NAPLAN
By Jordan Baker
Mark Scott, 56, is the NSW Department of Education secretary and former ABC boss. Briony Scott, 55, his wife, is the principal of Wenona private school for girls. They've grown up together after meeting at university.
Mark: "My focus on supporting leaders has very much been influenced by her. Great educators transform lifetimes. Briony is influencing a thousand lifetimes every day."Credit: Joshua Morris
BRIONY: At the end of my first university year in Sydney, I bumped into a school friend who invited me to have lunch with her friends. Mark was part of that group – he was tall, very skinny, with a big mop of curly hair. He'd wear pale blue KingGee overalls. When he talked people would listen.
I'm an introvert and I didn't think he'd seen me. One day, he came up to me and gave me a letter. It was the most beautiful letter. Not romantic – Mark is more subtle than that. It talked about how he had seen me, and what he saw. I fell in love with him because how could you not? He's a gentle, sensitive soul, who's intelligent, quick and thoughtful. He has a strong moral compass. We married when I was 22 and he was 23. For me, that maxim of marrying your best friend is true.
We took turns with our careers. When I went back to work after I had kids, he was writing for The Sydney Morning Herald. My job, heading the senior school at Oxford Falls Grammar, was full-on, but he was always there for our three daughters. He stepped up and that really worked until I became a principal at Roseville College and he got the ABC managing director's job. We kind of muddled along.
Mark loved his time there. It ticked all the boxes for who he was: a great communicator and leader. There are complex, creative souls in the arts and he loved every one of them.
In mid-2015, I developed a cough. I went to a particularly zealous GP, who ordered a chest X-ray "to rule things out". It showed a cancerous growth on my lung. Mark is an optimist but inside he would have been scared. I used to get grumpy at him and say: "It's all very well for you to think that this is all going to work out, you actually don't know." In retrospect, it wouldn't have been good for both of us to be miserable.
Mark or one of our daughters would come with me to chemotherapy. He'd read out bits from the paper. It was pretty tough doing the surgery stuff, and he was the one I wanted there. He protects my dignity. That was three years ago. I get tested every six months or so and there's no evidence of it returning.
When he became NSW Department of Education secretary in 2016, he was the keynote speaker at every conference I went to for the first two years. I teased him: "Come on, you've got to be kidding me!" We talk about education a lot because we are both passionate about it. We talk of the political challenges, and the equity challenges that he, particularly, has.
He's in a trickier position than I am. I can say, "I think NAPLAN across the board is a ridiculous test." He has to defend it. I don't know whether he believes it, or is just toeing the party line. Integrity and humour are the two things that are so marked about him. I am the luckiest person alive.
MARK: We met at uni and got on. Briony was really interesting to talk to. She really is quite a shy and introverted person, even though she can perform wonderfully in public. Our conversations would often be her asking questions about me. It was quite hard work to get her to talk about herself, and that was intriguing. She needed to trust me. She needed to know I was genuine and committed.
We have grown up together. A lot of the things people did on their own – the travelling and exploring – we did together. She has a restless, adventurous spirit. Even now, conversation is often about stuff she wants to do, challenges she wants to take on. I am more conservative. Part of our dynamic has been her encouraging me to be bolder, but also me giving her confidence that she can do the things she wants to.
We both went from university to teach but I was really interested in journalism and political life. Briony said to me: "I am not going to live with you for 50 years as you wonder whether you should have given journalism and politics a shot." The message was: go and do it.
When I start a new job, I always come back in the first week or two and say, "This is hopeless, I've made a terrible decision, I'm totally overwhelmed," and she recounts all the previous times I've said that. Briony says in our careers there were times we dialled up and dialled down. That's generous to me. She's dialled down more than I did. When I was running the ABC, and Briony was running Roseville, I would have moments when there would be big news stories, and plenty of pressure, and the complexities of running a place of that scale. But what I've learnt from her is the extraordinary interpersonal complexity that comes from running a school.
When she got sick, I was overwhelmed by people who were concerned for her. If you Google lung cancer, the news is pretty grim. I can be obliviously optimistic and at times, she felt my optimism did not fully realise the challenge. Rallying wasn't what she needed – she needed a deeper empathy. There would be times I would wake at 3am and not go back to sleep. What really hit me hard was this enormous sense of all that she had to give; [fearing] we were going to be robbed of that.
When we married, her mother told us never to talk money after 9pm. I've changed that to "never discuss money or NAPLAN after 9pm". She sees the distorting effects of NAPLAN. I still say it adds some value.
My focus on supporting leaders has very much been influenced by her. Great educators transform lifetimes. Briony is influencing a thousand lifetimes every day.
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