Redesigning Schools

We Need Better Readers; So What Next?

If all your students read at the same standard as your very best readers in the year group would you transform the progress, attainment and life chances of your young people?  I tend to say “yes” to this; so what must we do to achieve it?

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Apprentices or Graduates? #ThursdayThunk

I spent Sunday afternoon listening to Justine Greening’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference; I was there on Headteachers’ Roundtable business.  If apprentice routes to employment are a must for a number of our students than should it also be a route for some of our teachers? Continue reading →

Game Changers: Reading, Retrieval and Re-induction

In the middle of Bradford with a large number of pupils from disadvantaged background; receiving its first set of GCSE results in Summer 2017 you find Dixons Trinity Academy.  A Progress 8 score of over +1.0, including for disadvantaged pupils; 70% attaining English and Mathematics at grade 5+ and a wonderfully warm and humane culture, it’s an academy getting a lot of things right. Continue reading →