Embracing Growth and Positive Change: A Year of Progress at CST Schools I hope you all had a great summer, even though August and September appear to have been jumbled up this year. I am really pleased to welcome The Petchey Academy and Haggerston to our growing trust.  I strongly believe that a group of schools…

ur iphone was made in a factory in China. 350,000 people work there, apparently. Some of the people do varied, interesting and skilled jobs but most do repetitive and menial tasks to a high standard, hour after hour. There are strict quality quality control checks.

Suits It keeps happening to me. I wasn’t aware of it before but I am now. Last week, I noticed it on four occasions on the train.  I was the only one.  It’s weird how I didn’t see it previously, as if the model I was running of the world had been fixed from years ago:…

It’s not you, it’s me There are certain phrases that are red flags. Some of these are well known, such as “It’s not you, it’s me.” But others are less so. This week, we will focus on “sharing good practice.” As a teacher, senior leader, and headteacher, I too have been seduced by these powerful…

Changing Behavior by Creating the Right Conditions Once, at a football cup final, a fan friend of a friend spent a good part of the game swearing and arguing at the referee’s assistant.  “Lino – you nasty little XXXX” and “Linesman – you XXXXXXX cheat!”  This friend was a respectable pillar of society with a…

Opportunity Cost in Education: Making Tough Choices for Student Success Polygamous peacocks have massive tail feathers which they display to attract females, a bit like me with my fashion clothes, but not the polygamy bit. The peacock feathers are so ornate that they limit the birds’ ability to fly.  At best, when a bit worried,…

The Science of Meetings and Lessons: How to Make Them Productive A headteacher colleague of mine said he spent 9 hours in a meeting this week.  Think about that for a minute.  Then try and think about it for 32,400 minutes and it becomes rather difficult.  As someone once said, “everyone should take part in…

Exam Season and the Power of Future Planning in Education Some of us have plans for the future and what we want to achieve personally and also what we want to achieve for our students.  Exam season helps concentrate the mind.  What would our students want for their lives if we asked them to stop…

The Good Samaritan Study and Its Implications for Education If you like zombie films and TV dramas, and let’s face it, who doesn’t, there’s always a tension between what’s worse: the flesh-eating biters or the desperate, surviving humans.  The breakdown of human society created by the undead apocalypse is what often grips the most. The…

From Holidays to Heaven: Why I Became a Teacher Why did you come into teaching?  A wag once said, there are two good things about being a teacher: July and August.  Indeed, there are still more than a few who, despite what they say at interview, came into the profession for the holidays.   Meanwhile, eleven…

Ofsted’s Dilemma: Judging Schools by Tactics or Outcomes Napoleon supposedly remarked that he’d rather have a lucky general than a good one. Should we look at the tactics of the army, the morale, the polish of the general, the savoir faire, or should we judge the outcome of the battle?  Ofsted, it would appear, increasingly prefer the…

Innovating in Education: Why We Need to Embrace New Methods I met an old football friend who reminded me that in the past we used to practice heading with medicine balls to strengthen our neck muscles.  I might have actually done this but I can’t remember. Given the large and underreported number of rugby and…

The Power of Education: Why Every Day Counts Imagine taking 5 children and barring them from going to secondary school.  They can stay in, play out, go shopping and play sport but definitely no schooling allowed for five years.  How bad would that be?  As usual, two inches of snow caused chaos in London earlier this…

Evidence-Based Education: Why Simple Strategies Are Often the Most Effective I stood outside the other day in minus degrees in just a T-shirt and shorts.  When I got back in I spent the next 20 minutes coughing up my lungs.  Like a mug I’d been reading about the iceman Wim Hoff and how he spends three hours…

Finding the Right Balance: How Multi-Academy Trusts Can Encourage Innovation While Maintaining Consistency Apple is having to phase out their chargers so that there is only one type for mobile phones.  This sounds like a great idea on paper: saves hassle, cheaper, saves on waste. Apple, however, is having none of it.  They say that…

The Half-Life of Educational Ideas: Why Implementation Isn’t Enough The half life of a coffee is about 6 hours. If you ingest one at 6pm, half the caffeine and half the effect is still circulating in your bloodstream at midnight. Leaving aside the idea that there is a half life of knowledge (you can read…

Looking Beyond Leadership: The Key Characteristics of Successful Schools It’s obvious what improves schools: good leadership: strong leaders with a clear vision help move schools forward.  Except, it isn’t.   When you look at the evidence base for work on school leadership, it’s methodologically flawed.  To quote SchoolsWeek “most of the research is of poor quality,…

Why Butch and Sundance Are the Perfect Inspiration for Educators “Thought we were in trouble there for a minute!” Butch and Sundance find themselves surrounded by a posse of armed US agents in Bolivia.  Wounded, holed up in a shack, they face a hail of bullets if they emerge. It can feel like this in school…