Reflections on school leadership

First published on The Future Leaders Trust Insights blog on 13 November 2015 (no longer available). Generation Culture , a new campaign to improve creative and cultural education for pupil premium children in London is asking schools to “do just one thing” to boost their cultural offer. I’m not convinced that doing “just one thing” is enough. The Chair of A New Direction (AND), Maggie Atkinson argues, “cultural education is a right not a privilege”; but what exactly is cultural education and why is it important?  The definition of cultural education proposed by Darren Henley, Chair of the Arts Council, is a shopping list covering everything from archives to the built environment to dance to museums to poetry to the visual arts (though missing food).  The definition I prefer was offered by Smita Bora of Westminster Academy, who suggested it should be about “generating a love of unfamiliar experiences” (which might be as much about introducing Eton boys to street art as

First published on The Future Leaders Trust Insights blog on 20 October 2015 (no longer available). Yesterday morning, Policy Exchange and ASCL conference hosted a conference on the future of the teaching workforce. I went along because we know from our network of nearly 150 heads and 450 senior leaders – as well as the CEOs we’re working with on our Executive Educators programme – that teacher supply is a huge issue. The shortage is a major disincentive to senior leaders considering headship, especially in rural and coastal areas and contributes to the other (perpetual) “crisis” in the school workforce around the supply of great heads. In our world of high-stakes accountability, a head’s job is dependent on the ability to hire quality teachers – so a shortage in their supply is one more disincentive to taking on headship. The reasons for the shortage of teachers were well-rehearsed at the conference. They include increasing demand from pupil numbers and curriculum change, an

First published on The Future Leaders Trust Insights blog on 1 October 2015 (no longer available). In the 2014-15 academic year, 62% of Future Leaders securing primary headship were women, as were 50% of those appointed to secondary headship. Overall, 53% of teachers supported to headship by The Future Leaders Trust were women. This is the first time the proportion of female Future Leaders has been above even 40% and bucks a trend which has historically seen few women in headship positions in the UK. I talked to some of our 2015 Future Leaders female heads to find out how they did it and what advice they would offer to those hoping to follow in their footsteps. Some common themes emerged – around the importance of role models and coaches; adopting explicit confidence-building techniques; drawing on their moral purpose to keep going in the face of setbacks; and the need for a network of family and friends offering practical support with balancing work and family.

First published on TFLT Insights blog on 25 September 2015 (no longer available). Schools across the country face the challenge of student behaviour on a daily basis – yet we still hold on to old-fashioned preconceptions of who can manage the problems in our schools. I recently visited two Future Leaders who have just taken up headships in challenging secondary schools in the North East. In their first couple of weeks, both have focused on raising expectations around pupil behaviour. Neither has done anything revolutionary; they have chosen first to enforce the behaviour policies already in place. Rigorously and consistently. Every day. And they are already considering how to further raise expectations from there. The impact is already evident on pupils and staff alike. Both schools were calm and pupils clearly knew what was expected of them, even if they weren’t yet meeting some of those expectations without prodding. Staff were positive about the change of atmosphere, a pr

First published on Staffrm as part of the #WomenEd #digimeet, 13 September 2015. At a recent Future Leaders Trust ‘women into headship’ day, I heard too many stories of aspiring female heads being held back and undermined by the very people who should be championing them – other women. So much for sisterhood! How could this be? Digging a little deeper, it wasn’t necessarily that women behave worse than men (though they sometimes do), but that women’s expectations of other women are higher. And rightly so! It’s bad enough that women are judged harder than men, without those judgements coming from other women. Women and men should be better than that. But as women leaders we have a duty to ourselves and each other to be exemplary in showing our male colleagues, husbands, boyfriends, male students and sons – not forgetting our female colleagues, wives, girlfriends, female students and daughters – the way. The world would be a better place if the conduct of the female party leader

First published on The Future Leaders Trust's Insights blog on 8 September 2015 (no longer available). The relationship between a school CEO and their board is crucial to delivering successful outcomes for the children they serve. With the number of multi-academy trusts (MATs) increasing year on year – and the number of children in their care rising with it – it is vital that these relationships are well-managed to improve the life chances of every child. On 7 September Academy Ambassadors ran a development event for the business people (mostly business men , though there was a smattering of women) it has so far recruited to serve on MAT boards. I was invited to speak on a panel exploring the CEO-board relationship. My remarks drew on lessons from the pilot programme we ran in the spring for aspiring and current MAT CEOs – re-launched over the summer as Executive Educators , with the first cohort starting this month. Reassuringly the themes emerging from the course echoed

First published in Schools Week  on 4 July 2015. Figures suggest governors have a gender bias when they appoint headteachers. So what happens when they don’t have a say? I have written before about the apparent gender bias among some governing bodies that contributes to women being significantly under-represented in headship. So I was interested to see what would happen when we took governors out of the equation in recruiting headship-ready leaders for the Talented Leaders programme. The results were fascinating: 44.8 per cent of applicants were women and 45 per cent of those who were successful in the selection process were women. My conclusion is that there is much we can learn about female leaders’ ambitions and the likelihood of them being realised when governors’ preconceptions about who makes a good headteacher are eliminated. That women are almost as likely to apply to the programme as men challenges the notion that women aren’t up for headship. Although 44.8 pe

First published in SecEd  on 18 June 2015. Every year, participants on the Future Leaders headship development programme visit schools across the country to observe best practice in different contexts. This includes secondary and primary schools in the independent and state sector. The aim is to give them a range of ideas to implement in their current senior leadership team posts and to help them identify the type of school they would like to lead as a head. Afterwards, the Future Leaders come together to reflect on what they have seen. Unsurprisingly among a group of senior leaders committed to improving outcomes for disadvantaged children, the liveliest debate is usually around the independent schools. A common reflection this year was about how teaching and learning was taken for granted in these schools, and how they placed a lot – in some cases more – emphasis on developing the social and cultural capital and networks that will form the bedrock of future success for their

First published as NGA guest blog on 20 May 2015 (no longer available). The recently published What governing boards should expect from school leaders and what school leaders should expect from governing boards from ASCL, LGA, NAHT and NGA is a useful contribution to how governors and school leaders should work together. As someone who is both a governor and involved in the development of school leaders and headteachers, I read it with great interest. What it provides is a really useful – if daunting – summary of the things leaders and governors should consider around the mechanics of what they each do and how they work together. In the use of the term governing board and in the expectations for how they operate, the document really underlines the stepping up of expectations that school governance should be more professional and business-like. What I would add is greater emphasis on how the way leaders and governors work together should be defined by what they are working toget

Research by The Future Leaders Trust suggests there are over 1700 female heads ‘missing’ from headship. That’s the number of additional female heads there would be if the proportion of women in the top position matched the proportion of women in teaching as a whole. This isn’t a new issue; the percentage of female heads has changed very little since the earliest school workforce census, published in 2010. Some of this underrepresentation can be explained by the attitudes of governing bodies and their views of the “right man ” for the job. But part of the explanation lies with women themselves and the need to overcome their lack of confidence and fears about balancing a family and a very demanding job. Here are some of the top tips I've gathered from working with female leaders who have succeeded in breaking through the barriers to headship: Believe in yourself You’ve got to be in it to win it! (or “lean in” as Sheryl Sandberg would have it). Research reveals that if a

First published in TES on 11 March 2015. Schools are in the business of children, so it is disappointing that research by the Future Leaders Trust suggests schools are no different from any other organisation in how they treat the parents they employ. Consistent with other sectors, our ongoing survey of almost 300 school leaders has so far revealed a significant "motherhood penalty", the term used to describe the range of ways in which mothers lose out in the workplace. There was also evidence of a "fatherhood bonus", where men with children accrue a range of benefits, though we also found that dads in school leadership have it tough too. The career damage caused by motherhood showed up in a variety of ways, from sniping colleagues, to diminished pay and promotion opportunities. One woman spoke of her pay being docked for two days off with a child with chickenpox, despite having an otherwise unblemished attendance record. On reaching headship, mothers are 50

Last night I had the privilege of attending an event to celebrate the recruitment of the first cohort of exceptional heads and deputies to the Talented Leaders programme , which will place 100 headteachers in the areas and schools which most need them. It was an auspicious affair, hosted by the Deputy Prime Minister and Schools Minister in the elegant surroundings of Lancaster House. The event was significant in itself, recognising the contribution great leadership can make to bettering the lives of children and communities who may otherwise miss out. Also significant was the fact that it wasn’t even the only school leadership event of the night, never mind the week. Ian Bauckham, Immediate Past President of ASCL, and Deputy General Secretary, Malcolm Trobe, arrived at the Talented Leaders event fresh from the parliamentary reception where ASCL had launched their Blueprint for a Self-improving School System . It calls for school leaders to be given the autonomy to use their profess

Being the head of a school that serves a disadvantaged area demands many skills, such as the ability to develop staff and secure great pedagogy. But how will refining business skills – typically the servant of profit – help children, especially poor children, learn more? Changes to the education landscape, started under Labour and accelerated by the coalition government, mean that excellence in educational leadership is not always enough on its own for heads and schools to succeed. Heads increasingly need to master the business skills essential to managing autonomous, complex and sometimes resource-strapped organisations. That's why the education leadership charity I work for, The Future Leaders Trust, recently started offering members of its Headship Institute the chance to study for an MBA. The aim is to provide some stretch for those a few years into headship, preparing to step up to executive headship, or who are already there. Systems leadership Last year I spent an

Working for The Future Leaders Trust, I’m more used to mixing with the education twitterati than the TV-presenting celeberati. So, one of the more unusual things that happened to me in 2014 was being told by BBC sports presenter Gabby Logan (on twitter) to “loosen up”. This after I questioned whether commenting on what the World Cup-winning England women’s rugby team were wearing on BBC Sports Personality of the Year was an appropriate response to their incredible sporting success. For me – and presumably for the judging panel who awarded them team of year – the fact that they were in identical outfits was not the thing that made captain Katy McLean and her team-mates stand out. What made them amazing was winning the rugby World Cup for the first time in 20 years, while also holding down jobs in a range of professions, including teaching. That was what they should have been complimented on; not their wardrobe selection. Yet we know that in education also, too many governors wh