There are some things that you know to be true, and others that you know to be false; yet, despite this extensive knowledge that you have, there remain many things whose truth or falsity is not known to you. We say that you are uncertain about them. You are uncertain, to varying degrees, about everything … Continue reading Leading beyond what is known

Is there a definable group of skills that leaders should possess? Most people who give this question any thought would say yes - it is easy to come up with a list of skills we identify with leadership. However, I find the idea increasingly problematic. In essence, this is what I think troubles me about … Continue reading The untethered skills of leadership

20 ft. high on Blackpool promenade Fake royalty second hand sequin facade Limited face paint and dyed black quiff Overweight and out of date Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier, the Manic Street Preachers I once read a letter to The Times which made me laugh so much that I carried it around in my wallet for … Continue reading Elvis Impersonators and the Disadvantage Gap

I made a rare visit to Waitrose this morning having received some discount vouchers in the post. There were a range of vouchers for specific products and a general money-off coupon for spending more than a certain amount. It was sufficient to motivate me to be more extravagant than I normally would be on a … Continue reading Token gestures

“A map can never replicate the ground itself. Often our mapping sessions would induce us to bite off more than we can chew. At home we would plot a route over terrain that would, in reality, turn out to be sucking bog, or knee-high heather, or a wide boulder-field thick with snow. Sometimes a landscape … Continue reading In-between days

The essence of my talk at ResearchED Rugby 2019. Do you have a leadership position in a school? If so, think about the last day you were in work. For what proportion of the day were you leading? 100% (its everything I do!), 70%, 30%... less than 10%? And what were you doing that constituted … Continue reading There’s No Such Thing As Leadership

Green Eggs and Ham was published in 1960. It is a children's book, written by Dr. Seuss and contains only 50 words; a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, … Continue reading Green Eggs and Ham

Something has been bothering me recently about the messages coming out from Ofsted about the new inspection framework. I think the source of my concern is something to do with the external standard schools are being measured against. An expected standard is an attempt to set criteria against which an estimate of quality can be … Continue reading Ofsted: The Lion that Mewed

What if our primary demand of teachers was that they improve the school, not improve themselves? Our obsession with teacher-effectiveness means that the responsibility for school improvement is often placed on the shoulders of teachers. Only this morning, a high profile head teacher has illustrated this point by proclaiming that a condition of working in … Continue reading Self(ish) Improvement

In the lead up to my session at ResearchED Rugby on 15th June, I am serialising a chapter from my upcoming book on school leadership. If you want to find out more, come along. In Part 2 of this series of posts, I considered how intelligent we need our leaders to be. The conclusion was … Continue reading Do we need clever leaders? (pt3)