Reflections on school leadership

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 ...