Education, etc.
Sometimes I get asked for advice by aspiring senior leaders or current senior leaders about job applications for assistant headships or deputy headships. Adverts for jobs start popping up more frequently around this time of year. If you’re an aspiring senior leader, or a senior leader looking for another position within a senior leadership team, here …
Continue reading Looking for an assistant headship or deputy headship? Things to do before you apply
We need to think differently about school leadership. This post is after reflecting on Tom Rees’ excellent blog post over the weekend. These are my first thoughts; I will blog again about leadership in the next few weeks. About 10 years or so ago, when I was just about to begin my journey as an assistant …
Continue reading Thinking differently about school leadership
I love analysing language. The words people use often tell us a great deal about what preoccupies them. What’s especially fascinating to me is the language that is used to talk about our profession, and the words that are often used by school leaders. And I do think it’s rather funny and also really rather …
Our house is full of things that don’t belong to us. Well, that didn’t belong to us originally. An art deco clock I picked up from a second-hand shop here, a 50s anglepoise lamp I nabbed for a song off eBay there. Nice stuff. Stuff that was originally loved by someone else. But in the main, a …
Like me, you may have noticed a trend on Twitter since the welcome emphasis on curriculum. Lots of school leaders have been talking about curriculum, or what they think is curriculum but, as I’ve said before, what is one person’s curriculum convo is another person’s option block diktat. Words are nuanced and easily misinterpreted. So 'curriculum' …
Continue reading Curriculum: A Warning, Part 4: Thou shalt not panic
This blog post is based on a talk I gave at the Inspiration Trust’s English Symposium last June, although it is edited somewhat for this post. My thanks again to Summer Turner and the Inspiration Trust for inviting me to speak. I hope this post might be of some interest to English teachers if they’re …
It's the Autumn term and for every teacher it's a slogathon. Mornings are dark, break times are drizzly and drives home are weary, so it's high time the nation’s teachers’ favourite classical pieces of the Autumn term are shared to cheer us all up a bit, fortissimo style. And a huge hat tip to the …
Continue reading The Nation’s Teachers’ Favourite Classical Pieces of the Autumn Term
