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 ...

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....

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 th...

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 ...