leader

Motivating Mondays: Speed Dating with your Headteacher!

May 7, 2012

As a Headteacher you are always striving to improve communication between yourself and your staff to build better relationships. Well I wonder if you have ever thought of speed dating. This is a creative take on a classic model explained to me by a primary school Headteacher in a recent coaching/mentoring session. This Headteacher has [...]

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Motivating Mondays: What Gordon Ramsay taught me this week

March 26, 2012

 I had an evening to myself on Wednesday and I thought that, rather than read the book I had been reading, I would just start a new book completely for me. From my big pile of ‘I want to read these someday books’ I chose an autobiography by the famous chef, Gordon Ramsay called Humble [...]

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Motivating Mondays: Richard Branson’s Advice to School Leaders

February 27, 2012

If time is short today then I recommend you listen to just the first and last minute of this video. Richard Branson says on success: “The most important thing about running a school is that you need to know what a school is. It is a collection of people. As a leader of people you need [...]

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Middle Leaders who are going places with BlueKiteCoach

January 6, 2012

I am looking forward to working again with an inspiring group of  leaders from the Henley Schools Partnership on the 31st January here. Between January and July 2011 I had the pleasure to work with eight of Henley’s very best leaders. Here is what they said about their experience: “Time to think about the bigger picture and to [...]

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Down with Boring Meetings!

December 30, 2011

I hate meetings where we are sent documents to read beforehand and then the documents are read out during the meeting. What is worse, when this is done and then no one has much to comment on them, what was the point? What would you do if you had made time to read it beforehand, [...]

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Leadership and Learning are Indispensable to Each Other

October 7, 2011

We believe that all school staff are leaders. Whether you are leaders in the classroom or staff room. We all have the potential to influence the mood and motivation of others, even when we don’t know we are doing it. We can choose our attitude and choose how we talk to others. Take the conversations we [...]

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Teachers don’t like being done to

May 14, 2011

I think the following quote is very true and important for anyone planning CPD in schools to keep at their core. “Teachers don’t like being done to. They are professionals and you need to partner them and help them find their own solutions to a situation.” Ian Nurser, Shropshire primary headteacher and National Leader of Education. [...]

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Being Comfortable In The Skin You’re In

March 13, 2011

Inspired by the final of Let’s Dance for Comic Relief on Saturday, my sister and I rewatched the performances of Robert Webb and Rufus Hound, the winners in 2009 and 2010. You may remember that Robert danced to ‘Flashdance’ and Rufus to Sheryl Cole’s ‘Fight for this Love’. They reminded me how much I admire [...]

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What is the difference between a Headteacher and an Entrepreneur?

March 15, 2010

Within teaching there are some teachers that adamantly believe that they can’t learn anything from a primary school teacher if they work in a secondary school, or from an english teacher if they are a maths specialist. Frankly, I think this is rubbish! And I would go even further by saying that there is much [...]

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West Berkshire Council pioneers engagement study in schools

October 22, 2009

Today, my friend Sian Bryant sent me an article which supports my conviction that measuring staff satisfaction can really yield value when deciding and prioritising resources. In West Berkshire some schools have action plans to address issues raised and some have formed working groups to implement changes after their school participated in a staff engagement survey.  Lisa Poole, HR co-ordinator for schools [...]

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