Leadership

Right Person, Right Job, Right School

With decisions about the curriculum and timetables being made, for September, and budgets about to be sent to schools we are just about to enter the silly season for teacher appointments.  Over the next few months the frenzy will gradually increase until the madness of May leading up to the 31^st May resignation date.  It’s sometimes said that the job of any leader is to get the right people on the bus all sat in the right seat.  This starts with the recruitment process.  Continue reading →

RandD Community: Flipping for Success @EnglishSMCC

Last year we established Research & Development Communities at St. Mary’s Catholic College.  The members of the communities were self-selecting and the aim was to develop and embed best or emerging good practice within the College.  Each R&D Community was set up to take forward an idea, innovation or approach by a group of staff that would lead to improved standards of attainment, levels of achievement, student well-being or student personal development. 

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#Vis2040: The Inverted Doughnut Curriculum

How will we use the next twenty five years to develop one of the highest performing school systems in the World?  There is possibly much we can learn from the analogy of the inverted doughnut (Handy, 1991).  This can be applied to the curriculum as well as the role of government in education and our own roles within schools.  It is hopeless to ever try to fully describe and then dictate the whole, there is always a need to leave space to allow professional judgement and distinctiveness to enter into our systems. Continue reading →